Chapter 177: Shu Meng is Greatly Shocked
With four more people in the back kitchen, plus Shen Lu, Cai Su, and Little Mantis, that made seven of them in total. The amount of food they could produce was on a whole different level now.
But since it was their first day working together, there were still plenty of kinks to work out.
After a few stumbles, all of the day’s dishes were finally ready.
[Ding dong~ New Mission: Sell 420 Braised Pork set meals and 320 Kung Pao Chicken set meals. Achieve a total revenue of 80,000 yuan and maintain a customer satisfaction rating of three stars or higher. Time limit: eight hours.]
Shen Lu wiped the sweat from her forehead and heaved a long sigh.
Song Zhigao and Shu Meng stayed behind to clean the kitchen, while Xin Yu and Deng Ying followed Cai Su to the service window to plate the food. Shen Lu went to the front counter as usual, responsible for handing out and stamping the punch cards.
Wang Daguo was still on tray-collecting and cleaning duty, and he also helped maintain order.
As for Little Mantis, it had run out of battery and was recharging in the storage room.
Word that you could enter a lottery at Little Deer Cuisine after ten check-ins—and maybe even win Li Zexing merchandise if you were lucky—had been spreading through the fan club. As a result, even more people showed up today to join in on the excitement.
Thankfully, Shen Lu had made the quick decision yesterday to call Xin Yu and the other three in to work. If she hadn’t brought in reinforcements, the problem of demand exceeding supply would have been even more severe today.
Customers rarely empathize with businesses. If Little Deer Cuisine couldn’t provide enough food, they wouldn’t be understanding. They would only complain that their needs weren’t being met.
This was especially true for Li Zexing’s fans.
Missing one check-in meant they’d have to wait another day to enter the lottery.
’And if the lottery is delayed by a day, who knows what might happen?’
Shen Lu watched helplessly as the restaurant’s satisfaction rating dropped again. She started to wonder if she’d just created unnecessary trouble for herself.
’If I hadn’t gotten the wild idea to ask Li Zexing for merchandise, I never would have had the flash of inspiration to hold a lottery.’
’Without the lottery, all these fans wouldn’t be showing up to get their cards stamped. Customer traffic wouldn’t have surged, and the supply situation wouldn’t be this strained.’
Shen Lu figured most of the bad reviews were definitely coming from Li Zexing’s fans.
Tsk...
’I really didn’t think this through. I need to stop making these spur-of-the-moment decisions.’
Pushing through with grim determination, Shen Lu sold the last of the food and successfully completed the day’s mission.
[Ding dong. Detected: Braised Pork set meals 420/420, Kung Pao Chicken set meals 320/320. Total revenue has reached 80,000 yuan, and customer satisfaction is three stars or higher. Mission complete. Reward: one Lottery Ticket.]
After stamping the last customer’s card and seeing them off, Shen Lu immediately had Wang Daguo close the doors. They also brought in the life-sized cutout; otherwise, the fans would have just kept crowding around the storefront.
"Li Zexing is insanely popular, isn’t he?" Shen Lu sighed, which made her recall that the original novel hadn’t really described the extent of his fame.
But that was understandable. In the original story, Li Zexing didn’t even show up until after the cataclysm. By then, the survivors were living harsh lives, constantly worried, without enough food to eat or warm clothes to wear. They certainly didn’t have the spare energy for celebrity fandom.
It wasn’t like now. Life still wasn’t great, but at least it was relatively stable. And after so many years of hardship, people had gotten used to it. Naturally, they had the time and inclination to follow a celebrity or two, just to enrich their lives a little.
By the end of the day, Shen Lu was quite satisfied with the four trial employees. They had different personalities, but they were all diligent and proactive, always seeing what needed to be done.
Shu Meng volunteered to make the staff meal. Seeing that she’d spoken first, Song Zhigao, who had been about to offer as well, pursed his lips and said something else instead.
"Can I help you with the prep work?"
"No need. You’ve worked hard too, go take a break. I’ll just have Deng Ying give me a hand." Shu Meng was experienced. After hearing Shen Lu mention they were competing for the jobs and seeing how the tasks were divided, she understood the situation.
’It must be me against Song Zhigao, and Deng Ying against Xin Yu. Since I’m grabbing this chance to show what I can do, of course I’m not going to share it with my direct competitor.’
Deng Ying, completely oblivious, went over to help.
Half an hour later, Shen Lu and the others started eating lunch.
Shu Meng hadn’t made any meat dishes. Based on her past experience, staff meals were all about cutting costs. Getting full was all that mattered.
So, she had prepared two vegetarian dishes: stir-fried shredded potatoes and stir-fried cabbage.
She used very little oil, so they tasted quite bland.
The four trial employees ate with the most gusto, holding up their bowls and wolfing down the rice. The restaurant’s original staff members just looked at each other, hesitating for a moment before picking up their chopsticks.
Seeing this, Shen Lu quickly steamed a large bowl of egg custard. ’Just potatoes and cabbage isn’t nutritious enough,’ she thought. ’We have two injured people and a growing child who need proper nourishment.’
Shen Lu could understand Shu Meng’s reasoning, but she didn’t agree with it.
’What am I working so hard for every day?’
’Isn’t it so we can eat well and live a good life?’
’I can’t stand the thought of eating plain stir-fried vegetables every day.’
After the meal, Shen Lu took Shu Meng aside for a chat. She started by acknowledging that Shu Meng was trying to do what was best for the restaurant, then explained her own perspective.
"The staff meals don’t need to be so frugal. If you’d like to cook again next time, just make one meat and one vegetable dish. We have injured people and a child here, so they need proper nutrition."
Shu Meng was stunned. Her resolve to stay at Little Deer Cuisine grew even stronger.
Since finishing her apprenticeship, she had worked at four or five different restaurants, but this was the first time she had ever met a boss as generous as Shen Lu.
’Never mind that trial employees here get a free lunch—the staff meal even has meat!’
’My last boss, for instance, not only made me work a full twelve hours a day, but he didn’t even provide meals.’
Shu Meng had been diligent and conscientious, and felt she had always done a good job on the tasks her previous boss assigned. But he had fired her anyway.
The reason was simple: the boss’s relative, who had been her apprentice for the past six months, wanted to be the chef.
When her old boss first brought him over, he had mentioned the family connection. Shu Meng, hoping to stay in her boss’s good graces, had taken extra good care of the apprentice.
But who would have thought the end result would be the apprentice taking her place?
Thinking about these past events made Shu Meng feel a bit dejected, but then she glanced at Shen Lu and pursed her lips with renewed determination.
’I have to stay at Little Deer Cuisine, no matter what!’
With more staff, the afternoon prep work was much easier for Shen Lu. All she had to do was assign tasks, lay out the requirements, and wait to inspect the final results.
However, Shen Lu didn’t stay idle. She planned to develop a new dish: Sour Soup Fish.
She had planned to introduce a new dish for a while, but had postponed it because the restaurant was short-staffed.
Now that the restaurant had four trial employees, Shen Lu was eager to get the plan back on schedule.
Turning on her Light Brain’s recording function, Shen Lu started filming the creation process for the new dish.
For cost reasons, Shen Lu chose to use grass carp.
Grass carp has a fine, tender texture, a mild, savory flavor, and is the most common choice for restaurants making Fish with Pickled Greens.
She scaled and gutted the fish, then filleted it. Next, she split the fish head, chopped the bones into small pieces, and sliced the two fillets diagonally into thin, 0.3-centimeter slices. She then mixed the fish slices with fine salt, cooking wine, MSG, and egg whites until they were evenly coated in the mixture, and set them aside to marinate.
She roughly chopped the pickled greens. Then she prepared the other ingredients—ginger, scallions, garlic, and chili peppers—and placed them in a bowl.
The next step was to stir-fry.
Just as Shen Lu finished heating the wok, someone came looking for her.