Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle-Chapter 1051 - 510: The Eat-Along Trio

Zheng Siyuan learned that Qin Huai was about to make crab roe pork buns and thought Qin Huai felt that since crabs were about to come onto the market, it was the perfect time to make crab roe snacks. To practice ahead, he specifically made a large quantity of crab yellow sauce for Qin Huai before leaving.

Master Xiao Zheng just waved his sleeves, left behind a big pile of crab yellow sauce, and returned to Gusu from Shan City.

Normally, old customers of Yunzhong Restaurant, especially the elderly who write food reviews for Zheng Siyuan every day, would be saddened.

But they weren’t. The elderly smoothly transitioned to writing food reviews for Qin Huai’s snacks or the snacks Zheng Siyuan previously made.

Writing food reviews for so long, some of the elderly have fallen in love with this job. They’re not writing reviews just to please Zheng Siyuan or to make him produce more of their favorite snacks, but purely out of love.

Passion.

This passion led some of the elderly, who felt their writing wasn’t too bad, like Grandma Ding, to think it was time to start the second spring of their career by joining the ranks of food reviewers.

As a former kindergarten principal, Grandma Ding is also a radical, feeling her talent is overflowing and her writing is excellent, practically a long-overdue new star in the food review world. Right off the bat, she tackled high difficulty by submitting to "Taste," and unsurprisingly, her submission was rejected.

After being rejected by "Taste" eight times consecutively, Grandma Ding wasn’t discouraged. She thought "Taste" had too high a threshold and that the editors had poor taste since her beautiful writing was unappreciated. She turned to submit to other well-known domestic travel and food magazines.

And they all got rejected.

Grandma Ding didn’t give up and started submitting to provincial magazines.

Rejected.

City ones.

Rejected.

It’s said that recently, Grandma Ding has been using her connections, reaching out to the kindergarten where she worked for many years, and plans to start an activity to co-create a kindergarten food newspaper. The first issue of the newspaper will reluctantly feature a few food reviews written by her, the retired former principal, as a model for the children.

"At the moment I ate the fresh meat mooncake, I felt something burst open in my mind. Like a flower blooming on the prairie, a bird perched on a branch singing, a fish leaping in the stream, a cloud turning into the sunset by the setting sun. What a wonderful taste, such a marvelous experience, so..."

Zhao Cheng’an was leisurely loafing around in the kitchen, reading Grandma Ding’s latest food review, sighing as he read, "Grandma Ding is indeed a kindergarten principal; this review reads like a child’s essay, with lots of parallel sentences and disjointed parts. Is this a food review?"

"Old Ding writes food reviews in this style. She used to talk like this when she was leading the kids in kindergarten, it’s a habit." Wang Gen Sheng, who now sits in Yunzhong Restaurant’s kitchen with his own small stool and pastry table, commented objectively, "We’ve given her feedback, but Old Ding feels it’s her style."

"Just like how my reviews are very short."

Hearing Wang Gen Sheng say this, Zhao Cheng’an then turned to read the food review written by Wang Gen Sheng.

"The crab roe pork buns made by Master Xiao Qin recently are very delicious. The crab roe is further processed and re-seasoned using crab yellow sauce, and the pork is freshly selected and minced, with the chewy parts removed. The crab roe is fresh and the pork is savory and fresh. Every bun is juicy and tasty, delicious."

Zhao Cheng’an was dumbfounded, "That’s it?"

Wang Gen Sheng nodded.

"You spent three days writing this review, Uncle Wang?!"

Wang Gen Sheng looked a bit embarrassed, "I wanted to write more, but... this is the extent of my ability. I never managed to write reports well during my workdays, always too brief, probably why I wasn’t promoted much."

"I’ve already edited this seven or eight times; this is as good as I can make it."

Zhao Cheng’an was completely bewildered and was about to say something more when Qin Huai interrupted:

"Alright, Zhao Cheng’an, you’ve been reading reviews for over half an hour, stop loafing and come back to make some pastries. It’s already 2:30 in the afternoon. If you don’t start making those planned pastries now, will they be ready for sale by 5? Both the kindergarten and elementary schools get out at 5, you don’t want a repeat of yesterday’s situation where the delay led to kids not being able to buy pastries and crying sadly in the restaurant, do you?" Qin Huai said.

Zhao Cheng’an: ...

The cries of the children from yesterday echoed in Zhao Cheng’an’s mind again.

What can be said, if conditions allowed, Zhao Cheng’an would cry louder than them. It was only upon coming to Yunzhong Restaurant that Zhao Cheng’an realized how different a community restaurant is from a regular pastry restaurant.

Yunzhong Restaurant has a morning rush and an evening rush. The morning rush is when office workers buy breakfast, and the evening rush coincides with when office workers get off work and children get out of school. Though the proportion of students and children isn’t high in the customer flow, it doesn’t hinder Yunzhong Restaurant from being the favorite place for kids from nearby communities.

Many kids live day to day by the animal-shaped red bean paste buns sold in the morning and the green bean cakes and radish cakes in the afternoon from Yunzhong Restaurant. An Youyou, with her radish cakes, has become the most beloved Lady Radish Cake among the children in Yunzhong Restaurant.

While green bean cakes are also liked by many office workers, the afternoon radish cakes are basically reserved for children, as radish cakes in Yunzhong Restaurant are practically synonymous with kids’ exclusive snacks.

That was once the case.

Now An Youyou is no longer the same An Youyou. She is the future manager of breakfast at Yunzhong Restaurant and cannot spend every afternoon solely frying radish cakes. She needs to follow Qin Huai around to assist and learn the craft.