Yunmeng Ballad: I opened a restaurant in the Warring States Period

Chapter 1

Yingdu of Chu State, Lihua Lane.

Enthusiastic residents nearby discovered that a restaurant called Yunmengju opened in Lihua Lane at some time.

There are tens of thousands of restaurants in Yingdu, and there are four or five restaurants near Lihua Lane. The low-key Yunmengju didn't get much attention from people.

But why is Yunmengju so strange!

Other restaurants are made of adobe bricks and wooden beams, or the lobby is open to welcome customers, and there are a few wooden tables and stilts outside for travelers passing by to rest and replenish their energy.

But in Yunmengju, the stone is the wall, the green bamboo is the table, and even the couch is a "short pier" made of a few balls of cloth on a bamboo mat, unlike other restaurants that use futons.

What's even more strange is that in order to attract more customers, other restaurants and wine shops are full of flags fluttering, shop signs are very ostentatious, and the inside and outside of the house are also filled with couches, table tables or bamboo boxes, wishing to attract all the customers.

Yunmengju has no colorful flags, and there are only five or six sets of bamboo desks and tables. Even the shop sign is only carved on the stone wall outside.

If you don't know people well, you don't know this is a place to eat, and you will just think of it as a rich man's residential courtyard, okay?
But for some unknown reason, the strange Yunmengju was still known, and it was spread that the next few streets and alleys became famous.

For a time, there was an endless stream of people who came to the door because of curiosity.But there are only a few desks, and there are too many curious people.For five or six days in a row, Yunmeng lived outside, and there was a long queue from morning till night.

The people who lined up in the long queue originally just looked at it with the mentality of watching, and ate as a symbol.

But who knew that this strange looking restaurant, which looked like a rich man's yard, made such delicious food!

The key price is not expensive, fifty grimaces[1] can order half a cup of exclusive brewed wine or syrup, plus three or two dishes.

In such a delicious restaurant, the dishes are changed every day, and there is only one proprietress and one child to support it!

In just a few days, everyone in the surrounding streets and alleys knew that Yunmengju's food in Lihua Lane was delicious.

Their home's syrup is more fragrant and more delicious than other's; their dishes have a unique taste than other's. Even ordinary vegetables like okra or asparagus are better than rich people's cooking in a large cauldron. It was deliciously cooked.

The crowd who were originally watching because of curiosity turned into people who wanted to eat Yunmengju's food.After a long time, the folks in the village who suffered from queuing suggested to the proprietress of Yunmengju to add tables and tables.

To these suggestions, the proprietress only smiled and responded: It is impossible to add more tables, but I will find a way to solve the problem of queuing.

Seven days later, the proprietress announced her solution in the lobby of Yunmengju:
Regular customers of Yunmengju only need to pay 2 copper coins[[-]] per month to become regular diners. Yunmengju will provide two meals a day with a [-]% discount on each meal; regular diners can hold banquets at Yunmengju is scheduled.

Seeing these weird nouns and practices, the neighbors in the surrounding streets and alleys were very puzzled, and quickly settled their accounts after their doubts—although it was a little more expensive than cooking by themselves, it was more convenient and more enjoyable.

The people in Yingdu are already wealthy, and soon there were 30 to [-] people who paid and made orders; those who were not well-off or just wanted to eat fresh food retreated, and still came to queue occasionally—the queue was much shorter than before.

But after so many campaigns, the reputation of Yunmengju has spread in the folk streets and alleys of Yingdu.

Gradually, many well-to-do households in the city also became regular customers and paid a deposit to treat Yunmengju as their small dining hall.

The proprietress Chu Yunmeng has more money in her hands, and has more than 1000 grimace money.In order to reduce the burden, she bought two slaves, one male and one female. The female slave Ah Yue helped cook the kitchen, and the male slave A Tian helped to take care of the future vegetable garden.

As for the ten-year-old boy Wugu, Yunmeng felt that he was very talented and could inherit his mantle. He had been trained as an apprentice and did not plan to be a handyman.

After dividing the business, Chu Yunmeng started to design and build elegant rooms, and explore easier ways to make money.

It has only been three months since Yunmengju opened, and Chu Yunmeng already has a lot of money in his hands.In the eyes of others, this may be a very easy and profitable business, and I am happy to be content with the status quo.

But she didn't want to repeat the same dish day after day, day and night.It's not her dream to be a cook, but a gourmet.The former is a craftsman, the latter is a master.Mechanical repetition does not meet her self-requirements as a gourmet.

After gaining a lot of knowledge that is not yet available in this era from that long dream, she doesn't want to earn hard money by repeating labor, so it won't last long.This is the cognition she gained in that era in the dream, and it is also her understanding of the current era.

In today's era, a hundred schools of thought contend and a hundred flowers bloom. Although knowledge is not as advanced as in the era in the dream, it is full of vitality, full of innovation, and super learning ability. If you lie on the teeth of future generations and sleep, you will soon be photographed dead on the beach.

Although she won the first opportunity by relying on cooking methods that do not exist at the moment, she believes that imitators will appear soon.When she came back from buying Ah Yue, she had expected it.

She tried her best to let herself and the five grains be in charge of the spoon, let Ah Yue only do chores such as washing vegetables, and strictly ordered Ah Yue to keep what she saw and heard secret, but with the tricky mouth, shrewd mind of the restaurant shopkeepers in Yingdu, and the curiosity and enthusiasm of the diners, With a big mouth and a similar cooking method, I believe it will become popular in Yingdu within two months.

The key to maintaining an advantage for a long time lies in the development of new dishes, which is inseparable from the introduction of new ingredients and the development of new seasonings. These were very common in the dream era, but they are not readily available in the current era.These need to be developed by her.

Of course, in line with the heart of a gourmet who is responsible for her mouth, she still has greater ambitions, and wants to develop some new dishes by herself.And that takes more time.

So she bought a large vegetable orchard, where she grew all kinds of vegetables and developed various seasonings.

In addition to okra, asparagus and other common vegetables in this era, she dug back wild vegetables such as wild yams, yams, and wild peppers in the wild for planting in batches; she also bought back a large amount of soybeans for the development of the first seasoning—soy sauce .

When soy sauce is available, Chu Yunmeng believes that even if Yingdu Restaurant has found a cooking method similar to stir-frying, her Yunmengju will always maintain its advantage for a long time, providing a steady stream of food for what she wants to do in the future. Constant funding.

[1] Grimace money, a coin popular in Chu in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. .

[2] In the middle and late Warring States period, the currency of Chu State was mainly made of gold and copper.Gold coins are mainly in the shape of gold cakes or turtle plates, also known as gold plates; copper coins are mainly ant nose coins before the early Warring States period, and ghost face coins are mainly in the middle and late Warring States period.Influenced by the Central Plains culture, silver cloth coins and copper cloth coins were produced.Due to the complexity of the shape and conversion, the following rules are used for conversion: one gold cake or gold plate is equal to one thousand ant nose money or ghost face money, one silver cloth coin is equal to one hundred ant nose money or ghost face money, and one copper cloth coin is equivalent to For ten ant nose money or grimace money.

　Beginners on the road, welcome to advise, please collect and recommend tickets~~
　　


(End of this chapter)