pjbooks Chapter 56: [I dare not think about it too much]
Chapter 56: [I dare not think about it too much]
With the car window half open, the damp, stuffy wind mixed with the smell of dust from the street rushed in.
Old Zhao held the steering wheel with one hand, while gesturing wildly in the air with the other, spittle flying everywhere under the afternoon sun.
"Although, although!" he said in a loud voice with a hint of amusement, "I'm just a middleman, but I know all the ins and outs of the restaurant business perfectly well!"
"Let me tell you, buddy, what's the worst thing about food that goes into your mouth? It's when you know too much about it!" Old Zhao said, spitting as he spoke. "Take you street vendors, for example. Oh my, those hands, rubbing your nose..."
He wiped his nose with his empty hand.
"Then scratch the back of the neck,"
He made a couple of groping motions behind his neck, then suddenly yelled, "Turn around and 'whoosh'—"
Old Zhao suddenly reached to the side, making a grabbing motion, "He'll scoop it into that salt shaker, then toss it into the pot like this!"
His face contorted in pain as he moved, grimacing, "I can't bear to think about it! If I keep thinking about it, I'll have to give up my breakfast this morning!"
It looks like he really swallowed something dirty.
As Liu Zhuohao listened, he subconsciously touched his stomach, turned his face to the window, and tried to shake the image out of his mind from the rapidly receding street scene.
"Boss Zhao, that's enough." He said with a hint of exasperation, "If you keep nagging like this, we've wasted our time coming here for these meatballs."
"Hey, I'm just giving you a heads-up!" Old Zhao chuckled, then changed the subject, "Take pickled vegetables for example, the old way, stomping them by hand, even if you find a pretty young girl to stomp them—"
He paused, seemingly pondering for a moment, his expression a little strange. "Hmm... well, it's alright... cough, but the old-fashioned skills aren't for young girls, they're all for older women. Their feet, so yellowish-brown, probably calloused and peeling... ugh!"
He shuddered first.
"And let's talk about our specialty, Chaoshan beef balls!"
He got more and more excited as he spoke, “The old-fashioned hand-pounding method involves first pounding the meat into a big lump of paste, then slamming it onto the cutting board with a ‘smack’, slamming it repeatedly to develop its strength, then grabbing and squeezing it until a small ball appears between the thumb and forefinger, and scraping it with a spoon with the other hand, then dropping it into warm water to set its shape.”
"If this job were done by a neat and capable young man, it would be passable. But if it's done by a slovenly guy, with dirt stuffed under his fingernails... ugh! ugh!"
Liu Zhuohao couldn't take it anymore: "Stop, stop, stop, Lao Zhao! Hold on! We're here to eat meatballs, not to listen to your disgusting words."
He was really afraid that he wouldn't be able to put his chopsticks down in front of the bowl later.
"Don't worry, don't worry!" Old Zhao chuckled. "Although many family workshops in Jinping District still adhere to the old tradition of 'hand-made,' what you need is machine-made products with stable quality control. I definitely won't take you to those kinds of places."
He became more serious, with a touch of the experienced man's sarcasm: "But then again, outsiders just love the 'handmade' and 'traditional' stuff."
"If you actually told people that yours was made by machine, 'bang bang bang,' they might think it's not authentic enough and turn around and walk away!"
Liu Zhuohao didn't respond to that, but instead turned his gaze to the window again.
That makes sense.
Old Zhao has a mouth that really gets the gist of the restaurant business.
Not to mention now, even ten years from now, there will still be plenty of people who recognize the "handmade" label. Even a broken glass of juice labeled "handmade" can sell for five dollars more.
I just bought some to try, for the sake of the old-fashioned flavor, nothing special.
But for someone like me who's considering opening stores and finding stable suppliers in the future, "quality control" and "hygiene" have to take precedence over "passion."
Machine-made meatballs, as long as the production line is kept clean and the parameters are adjusted accurately, will have similar weight, texture, and taste for each meatball.
Handmade? Don't even mention the difference between two shops; even if it's made by the same master craftsman, the quality of what he makes today and what he makes tomorrow will likely be completely different.
When you open a business, the first priority is to ensure that people can eat with peace of mind.
……
……
"I wonder which cut of meat you mainly use for these meatballs? And what percentage of each cut do you use?"
Wearing the same hairnet and mask as the workers, Liu Zhuohao followed Lao Zhao and the factory manager inside.
"We mainly use beef from the hind leg and rump. The meat from these cuts is chewy and has even marbling. When pounded, it's springy and has a rich beef fat flavor." Although the manager looked at the newcomer and thought he was a bit suspicious, he still kept up the polite conversation out of respect for the middleman, Old Zhao.
Liu Zhuohao smoothly replied, "If it's convenient, I'd like to take a look at today's purchase order to see how the meat is and where it came from."
The person in charge was taken aback; this wasn't the kind of thing a teenager would say.
"Okay, okay," he replied, turning to call a worker to fetch the order.
While he was at it, Liu Zhuohao wandered around the workshop.
He had taken his stall down around 8 a.m. and followed Lao Zhao all the way here. It was just past 10 a.m. now, which was the busiest time of day.
"Our meatballs are made using a squeeze pump and rotating blades. They can't compare to the lively texture of hand-made ones, but they're more stable, have a more consistent texture, and are slightly crisp," the manager explained. "If the boss insists on hand-made ones, we have another line that makes them. They're clean and reliable, but the price will be higher."
Liu Zhuohao took a look around to see if the meat was fresh, if the fat had been removed cleanly, and if there were any unidentified frozen meat or scraps piled up to thaw.
Take a look over there and see if the process is going smoothly, and whether anyone is specifically checking the elasticity and temperature of the meatballs.
Every now and then, Liu Zhuohao would pull down his mask. Fortunately, the air was filled with a clean smell of meat and a faint aroma of pepper, without the slightly sour smell of meat that had been left out for too long, or the pungent smell of disinfectant that had been used excessively to mask the odor.
He seemed to know everything about the place, inside and out.
I know it perfectly well!
He had gone through this process of finding a meatball supplier countless times in his past life when he opened a Chaoshan beef hot pot restaurant.
If it were seafood or other fast food processing, he might not seem so skilled.
"I want to try it."
After walking around for about ten minutes, Liu Zhuohao had a general idea of what to do. He turned to the manager and said...
"Sure, no problem." The person in charge had clearly encountered this request before. "Should I make rice noodles or mixed noodles? Or just boiled meatballs in water?"
"Besides beef balls, we also make beef tendon balls and cuttlefish balls. Oh, cuttlefish balls are just cuttlefish balls."
"Just meatballs will do," Liu Zhuohao replied decisively. "Beef tendon meatballs, cuttlefish meatballs, whatever you have, just boil them in water."
He didn't want any broth or ingredients to ruin the most authentic flavor.
Looking at this factory now, it's quite tidy, similar to the supplier I found in Huacheng in my past life, but I had to visit several suppliers myself before I finally found that one.
Now, the first place I visit is a pretty good one.
Old Zhao is actually quite reliable.
But looking at it is one thing, you still have to taste it to know if it's a mule or a horse.