The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 212 Let Zheng Da do it
Hearing that Qin Huai was willing to work overtime, Foreman Cao became even more excited, and his eyes were shining when he looked at Qin Huai.

"It's great that Master Qin has this kind intention. Now I want to talk about the second most urgent matter, which is the business hours of our Huang Ji."

"Master Huang, I think there is no problem with the lunchtime business hours, but the evening business hours are indeed a bit too short." Foreman Cao looked at Huang Shengli.

Huang Shengli remained silent.

The last time Huang Ji changed its business hours was because of "Zhi Wei".

"Now that we have determined the rule that the fruit should be limited in quantity, I can roughly calculate the daily sales volume of the fruit by the business hours and the customer flow in the past few days."

"Considering that it takes much longer to make Guo Er than other snacks, I think we can gradually increase the business hours starting from tomorrow, starting with 9 o'clock tomorrow, and then the day after tomorrow..."

"The order time will be extended to about 10 pm." Huang Shengli interrupted Manager Cao, "Take orders at 1 pm and close at 30 pm. The lunchtime business hours will remain the same, and orders will be stopped at : pm to give the chefs in the kitchen ample time to prepare the dishes."

Foreman Cao has worked at Huang's for so many years that he can calculate the customer flow and the amount of food served, and naturally Huang Shengli can do the same.

"Ten o'clock is the limit. After ten o'clock, even if Xiao Qin's Guo'er and I can serve meals steadily, the other people in the kitchen can't keep up with such a large amount of food."

Foreman Cao quickly wrote it down in his notebook.

Huang Shengli looked at Qin Huai again and said, "Xiao Qin, you don't have to work so late. You start work at 4:30 pm. According to your speed in serving food, it is enough to work until 8 pm. But since you have to work at night, you should have a good rest at noon. I'll ask Gong Liang to build a VIP lounge for sleeping in the bone-setting shop. You can go there and take a nap after lunch every day to recharge your energy."

Qin Huai knew what Huang Shengli meant. The biggest difference between Guoer and other snacks is that it can be steamed repeatedly, and the taste after re-steaming will not be much worse than when it is just out of the pot.

As a novelty snack based on the prototype of apple dough, the fruit is originally shaped and then steamed in a pot before being painted. After painting, it is directly served to the customer at the right temperature.

After coloring, leave it there to cool, and then steam it in the steamer for a few minutes when customers place an order. It still tastes good.

Admittedly, the production process of Guoer is very complicated, and there are few people in Huangji’s kitchen who can help Qinhuai.

Kneading the dough. What Guoer needs is the standard dough. It should be hard but not completely uniform. It needs to be slightly adjusted according to the characteristics of the dessert.

Zheng Siyuan couldn't help in this matter. Zheng Siyuan knew how to knead Guo'er's dough, but that didn't mean he could knead Guo'er's dough. He didn't make this pastry at all. He hadn't even learned how to flip the spoon. Zheng Siyuan couldn't practice Guo'er's.

Making stuffing is Huang Shengli's step. Without mentioning anything else, just talking about the big flipping spoon required to fry the stuffing, there is no one else in Huangji or the entire Suzhou area who can do it except Huang Shengli.

Shaping is relatively simple, but that is only relative.

If any chef could master the shaping of mian guoer after a few days of practice, mian guoer would not have become a synonym for top-notch white-cake dim sum.

What? You said Qin Huai didn't even practice for a few days, but he got it right after practicing?
In this regard, Zheng Siyuan can only say that people's physiques cannot be generalized.

If we break down the steps of making the fruit, the only things that can be helped with are steaming, which anyone with hands and feet can do, and the final coloring.

Coloring is simple, all you need is hands.

But the fruit is not just colored in ordinary ways.

Many people in Huangji Kitchen think that the shapes of Guoer and Apple Noodle Guoer are two extremes, one is extreme aesthetics, and the other is violent ugliness.

The former requires a certain aesthetic and artistic foundation, and the latter also requires a certain aesthetic and artistic foundation.

When Qinhuai occasionally made fruit dumplings, the enthusiastic people in Huangji’s kitchen had tried it, but no one could make the fruit dumplings uglier than Qinhuai.

Xu Cheng emphasized in the article that Guo'er's appearance was ugly and outrageous.

What if the fruit served on the table is not ugly enough and disappoints the guests?
Isn't this false advertising?

The meeting between Qin Huai and the other two lasted for more than an hour. During the whole process, Huang Shengli and Foreman Cao were discussing, while Qin Huai was listening on the side.

Huang Ji’s current business philosophy is very simple.

Grasp the customer base, retain the customer base, and create greater glory.

"Zhiwei" is published today. If domestic guests are quick, it can arrive at noon or evening. Foreign guests will be a little slower and will have to wait until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

It can be said that Huang Ji will be packed throughout the period from January to the Chinese New Year, and long queues are completely foreseeable.

And the queues at that time will not be as small as they are these days, but will be one or two hundred meters long every day to buy buns.

By then, all the people queuing up for meals will be dine-in customers, and the queue will be long, possibly from six in the morning to 10 at night.

Huang Shengli and Cao still remember that when Huang Ji first appeared on "Taste", they had no experience and did not strictly control the number of people in line and the operating hours. As a result, many customers lined up all night to eat Huang Shengli's dishes. Even when Huang Ji closed at 1 or in the morning, there was still a long queue outside Huang Ji.

Not to mention the scalpers, queue-jumping, quarrels and fights that followed.

Why are Huang Ji's diners and surrounding neighbors so good at dealing with various unexpected situations that arise while queuing, and are ready to jump out to enforce justice at any time?
That was all learned from practice back then.

But now the times are different. At that time, information was not well developed and there were no smart phones. Many customers came here because of its reputation. Before they came to Huang Ji, they didn't know that Huang Ji's business was so good. They came here specially and were reluctant to leave, so they could only line up outside the store. In the cold winter, there were countless people wrapped in blankets and hugging quilts.

If the queues had not been so long, Huang Shengli would not have insisted on increasing business hours and almost ended up in the hospital.

It is much better now. You can queue up online and be informed of the current queue progress at any time, which greatly alleviates the pressure of queuing on site.

After the meeting, Qin Huai felt that as a fruit chef, he was not under much pressure, but as a manager, Cao the foreman was under a lot of pressure.

Increasing business hours means that shift changes, shift rotations, and holidays all have to be rearranged. We are all workers. Some people, like Cao the foreman, have deep feelings for Huang Ji, while others are just ordinary workers who don't want to work overtime.

How to determine overtime pay and how to adjust the bonus coefficient are all the work of Foreman Cao.

However, Team Leader Cao was very happy. After the meeting, he found a corner and worked hard on his performance. He also made and received phone calls from time to time, and his true nature as a file king was clearly exposed.

Supervisor Cao went to a corner to do the watch, but Qin Huai and Huang Shengli did not leave the box and continued their small meeting.

"Master Huang, will I only make fruit from tomorrow?" Qin Huai asked.

He had no objection to the adjustment of his working hours, nor did he have any objection to the adjustment of his main work content.

Qin Huai has a clear understanding of his position; he is here to help.

Come to help Zheng Da, Zheng Siyuan and Huang Shengli.

When Qin Huai first came to Huang Ji, Zheng Siyuan asked Qin Huai to stay at Huang Ji for a while longer to help Huang Ji get through the difficult period when Huang Shengli's back injury had not yet healed.

Qin Huai agreed at that time and did so, and now he has indeed done it - Huang Shengli's waist is healed.

Logically speaking, Qin Huai has fulfilled what he promised Zheng Siyuan. He can now get away with it and return to Yunzhong Canteen to happily be the boss.

But Qin Huai knew he couldn't leave now. Now was when Huang Ji needed him the most.

There is a very correct passage in Xu Cheng's article: Qinhuai is a thousand-mile horse, and Zheng Da and Huang Shengli are two horse trainers.

There was a Bole who wanted to be the master of a thousand-mile horse, so he taught him everything he knew.

There was a mentor who was truly passionate about talent and so he tried his best to give guidance.

Whatever the two mentors thought, their actions were selfless.

Looking at the people at Zhiweiju, you can tell that Huang Shengli and Zheng Da's cooking methods are definitely very rare among chef masters. Normal people who want to learn cooking should be like the people at Zhiweiju, respectful, diligent, busy, diligent, and practice hard, and then wait to be discovered by the chefs, accepted as apprentices, or given some pointers.

Master chefs usually only teach apprentices. Besides apprentices, the people they teach the most are those who have connections with culinary families like Tan Weian.

Even though Tan Weian’s skills are average, he knows a lot of prescriptions.

But even if it was Tan Weian, it was impossible for the chefs at Zhiweiju to teach him whatever he wanted to learn.

Qin Huai now, like Foreman Cao, sincerely wants to see Huang's grow bigger and stronger and achieve greater success.

Before he knew it, he had become like an old employee of Huang's.

"Do you want to do something else?" Huang Shengli asked, "Actually, there is one thing I didn't mention when Xiao Cao was here just now. Now that Guo'er is limited in quantity, should the wine-fermented steamed buns and Sanding buns also be limited in quantity?"

"Let Zheng Da make the fermented glutinous rice steamed buns. I know his business very well. He must have nothing to do recently. Otherwise, when you and Siyuan were working on the fruit filling a few days ago and he couldn't make it, he would have made excuses saying that there was a problem with the factory or that the contract needed to be renegotiated. He wouldn't have said that he went home to study the fruit filling in seclusion."

"Although your Master Zheng is a bit lazy, his craftsmanship is still good. He started making fermented glutinous rice steamed buns when he first got a job at a state-owned restaurant. He has been making them for decades and his skills are not bad. Even if he makes them casually, there will be no problem."

"I'm more worried about the three-diced buns. They're much more troublesome than fermented glutinous rice steamed buns, and your Master Zheng may not be willing to make them."

Qin Huai said he understood. Zheng Da had been lazy for so many years and was actually very conflicted when making snacks now.

He disdains to make simple home-cooked snacks because they are too simple and there is no way to show off his skills.

He was too lazy to make difficult and complicated dim sum because it was too troublesome. Unless he had a strong motivation, Zheng Da didn't want to make things difficult for himself at the age of financial freedom.

As a result, Zheng Da is now very inconsistent. After getting excited, he can't hold on for a few days and then he will slack off.

"I can take responsibility for the three-pack." Qin Huai said, "Although I don't really understand how the customer flow and the amount of food served are calculated, but I just listened to it roughly and I feel that if there is a limit, the amount of food served by Guo'er every day is not particularly large."

"I should be able to take care of both Guo'er and Sanding Bao."

"Master Huang, to be honest, I don't like making the same dim sum every day like Zheng Siyuan does, especially only making one kind of dim sum every day."

"I want to do it like before, but the fixed snacks will be changed to guoer and san ding bao. In between, I will make a few things I want to make that day, and when they are sold out, they will be sold out."

Huang Shengli was a little hesitant, but he knew Qin Huai's habits very well, so he nodded after thinking about it: "Okay, let's do our best."

Qin Huai returned to the kitchen.

The meeting took up a lot of time. Normally, the steamer would be fully heated at this time. Qin Huai glanced at everyone's work status and found that Zheng Da, the master chef, was a little behind the helpers in efficiency.

The helpers worked too fast and the chef couldn't keep up with the pace.

Of course, Zheng Da didn’t think so. He felt that the steamed buns he made today were about to start smoking.

Think about Zheng Da, who started learning craft from his master when he was less than 10 years old and worked as a helper in a state-owned restaurant when he was a teenager.

He was responsible for lighting fires, cutting vegetables, cleaning, kneading dough, mixing stuffing, and taking out the trash. At that time, all the chefs and waiters in state-owned restaurants would say that Zheng Da was a very capable young man when they saw him.

Zheng Da also started out as a helper, a professional helper and an all-rounder.

But how come the helpers are so efficient now? What happened to Zhiweiju? Do they have so many customers? Is it necessary to force the helpers to be like this? Can they hire more?
Mr. Su, are you that poor? Doesn't Zhiweiju make a lot of money every year?
Zheng Da’s back teeth were almost broken from making steamed buns.

"Master Zheng, let me do it." Qin Huai walked to Zheng Da's side, "You have been busy for a while, take a break."

If you don't take a break today, you won't have a chance.

Zheng Da was so moved that he refused to leave and said stubbornly, "No need!"

"I have no problem with my waist, and I am in good health! When I was young, after my master retired, I was the only one responsible for the noodles in the entire state-owned restaurant. This is nothing."

"Master Huang said that starting from tomorrow you may need to be responsible for the fermented glutinous rice steamed buns, so I will only need to make the three-piece buns." Qin Huai reminded in a low voice.

Zheng Da:……?
Huang Shengli, what's wrong with you? Didn't you say you wanted to do some work? You call this a little?
Do you know how many fermented rice steamed buns Huangji Restaurant sells every day? Do you know how much money Zhengda makes every minute?

I, Zheng Da!

Starting tomorrow, should I stay in this crappy kitchen and make steamed buns for you?

Zheng Da wanted to say something, but then he thought of the article in "Zhiwei".

Huang Ji has not appeared on "Taste" for many years.

This is also the case for most other restaurants. After all, it is a great honor for a chef’s dishes to be featured in “Taste” once. However, there are also some restaurants that can appear on “Taste” multiple times.

If a famous chef develops a new or delicious dish, Xu Cheng will definitely write a review.

For example, Pei Shenghua from Chengfangju has been there twice.

Sun Maocai from Hong Kong has been on the show several times. Every time he comes up with a new dish, it’s on “Taste”, which makes everyone so envious.

Zheng Da also wanted Huang Ji to achieve greater success. When he visited his master's grave next year, he said casually:
Master, Huang's business is now better than when you were in the state-owned restaurant.

Thinking of this, Zheng Da could only curse in his heart that Huang Shengli was really disappointing. He hadn't developed any new dishes in all these years, and he couldn't be featured in "Zhiwei" or advertise.

We still have to rely on him.

Zheng Da readily said, "Hey, I suddenly feel like I should take a good rest. By the way, Xiao Qin, which bone-setting master in the bone-setting shop next door has better skills? Please recommend one to me."

"I suddenly felt that my waist was not in good condition and needed to be massaged."

I may have had a cold these past two days. I am not feeling well and feel groggy.
I will take a day off tomorrow and will not update (it may be a short chapter instead of two-in-one). I will update as usual the day after tomorrow

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(End of this chapter)