Chapter 349 - 188: What Is a Perfect Fish-Fragrant Shredded Pork?

Chapter 349: Chapter 188: What Is a Perfect Fish-Fragrant Shredded Pork?

Money is meant to be spent.

Buying a car you love with a loan at twenty feels completely different from buying it outright at thirty-five.

To buy Guihua and wine for a journey, is never quite the same as wandering in youth.

Some things, if you wait too long, just don’t feel the same even after you get them.

Just like in his past life, he’d gotten his driver’s license and had more than enough money in his account for an Audi, but he was always preoccupied with buying a house and saving for retirement. Before his lucky break, he hadn’t even driven a second-hand Alto.

He died, but not completely.

He couldn’t spend the money he’d earned.

It was just too agonizing.

"Are you really going to buy it?" Mrs. Zhao asked, a hint of anticipation in her eyes.

"Yes!" Zhou Yan nodded. "After we buy it, we can watch the evening news every night and keep up with national policies and current events."

"You run a small restaurant, and you still want to worry about national policies? You sure cast a wide net," Mrs. Zhao said with a laugh.

Zhou Yan said seriously, "I might not be able to do anything about them, but when you go out shooting the breeze, other people can only gossip about which guy in the village is sleeping with the widow or who bought a classic 28-inch bicycle. But you? You’ll be talking about the main points of the Southern Tour speeches and the new development trends in Peng City. The way everyone looks at you will be completely different."

Comrade Zhou’s eyes lit up too. "In that case, we should definitely buy the TV. I’ll pay for half."

"Then let’s buy it! We’ll work hard and get a TV for the New Year!" Mrs. Zhao nodded with a beaming smile.

After closing the restaurant doors, Comrade Zhou fetched the basin of foot-soaking water he had warming on the stove and started soaking his feet.

Zhou Momo had taken a nap that afternoon, so she wasn’t the least bit sleepy. She sat on a small stool, her tiny feet stepping on Zhou Yan’s, and mumbled, "Brother, I’m stepping on your feet for you~~"

"Oh, thank you," Zhou Yan said with a laugh, then turned to Mrs. Zhao. "Mom, after the New Year, I’m planning to send Momo to kindergarten."

"They said we’d have to wait until the second half of next year. They said there are no spots available," Mrs. Zhao said.

"We can ask around. See if we can get her into the factory-run kindergarten’s preschool class. That would be convenient for dropping her off and picking her up," Zhou Yan said with a smile. "Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it."

"Okay," Mrs. Zhao nodded and didn’t ask any more questions.

After they finished soaking their feet, Mrs. Zhao took Zhou Momo upstairs. Comrade Zhou, however, played three games of chess with Zhou Yan before heading upstairs to bed with a smug look on his face.

The loser, Zhou Yan, put the Chinese chess set away under the counter. He took out a wooden plaque and wrote "Fish-Fragrant Pork." He paused for a moment at the price column before writing "2 yuan per serving."

One serving of fish-fragrant pork required half a jin of second-cut pork. After factoring in all the costs, it came to about seven mao, which meant a profit margin of sixty-five percent.

The same price as the Twice-Cooked Pork.

Both dishes used half a jin of second-cut pork. But fish-fragrant pork also required winter bamboo shoots and wood ear mushrooms. If he priced it lower than the Twice-Cooked Pork, he’d just be competing against himself.

With no other choice, Zhou Yan could only force back his tears and earn a little more.

This also made ingredient preparation quite flexible.

If the fish-fragrant pork didn’t sell as well, the Twice-Cooked Pork could use up the leftover second-cut pork.

He had already seen a farmer selling winter bamboo shoots that morning and had inquired about the price: five mao per jin.

Compared to other vegetables, it wasn’t cheap.

But a single serving of fish-fragrant pork didn’t use many winter bamboo shoots, so the cost was still acceptable.

The main reason was that, compared to other types of bamboo, winter bamboo shoots were incredibly difficult to dig up.

They were completely buried in the soil and were quite small.

Zhou Yan found the price of five mao per jin quite reasonable.

He’d tried digging for them himself once. The effort alone was enough to shut him up.

After hanging the wooden plaque on the wall and taking a shower, Zhou Yan went upstairs early and pulled the account book out from under his pillow.

The restaurant was now running smoothly, with daily revenue stabilizing at around six hundred yuan. After deducting labor costs, the profit was about three hundred and fifty yuan—a considerable amount.

The savings entry had reached 6,418.24 yuan, and it was growing just as rapidly.

At this rate, in another two weeks, he would have saved up ten thousand yuan and could buy the Qiu Family’s Old Mansion from Duan Yu Yan.

This was great. Life was full of motivation and goals.

Tucking the account book back under his pillow, Zhou Yan glanced at the painting propped up on the trunk by his bed. He smiled, pulled the light cord, and fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

...

「Zhou Family’s Old Mansion.」

"That kid, Zhou Yan, he’s got skills and a good head on his shoulders. He’s definitely going to make it big somewhere. Maybe one day he’ll actually open a restaurant in Rongcheng, a big one," Zhang Zhengping said while soaking his feet, speaking to the old woman soaking her feet beside him.

The old woman smiled and said, "That sort of thing depends on his own development and what he wants. It’s a good thing for a young man to be driven and ambitious. Not like me—I’ve spent half my life selling braised dishes and never even left Suji. If he has the ambition to do it, I’ll certainly support him."

Zhang Zhengping shook his head. "Third Sister, you may not have left Suji, but the reputation of Zhang’s Braised Shop has spread all over Jiazhou. At its peak, people were even coming from Niu Hua to buy your braised meat to resell. Zhou Yan is so clever; he could definitely sell the braised dishes even further and build a bigger name for them."

"He’s not even here, so you can stop singing his praises..."

"I’m just speaking my mind! There’s not an ounce of exaggeration in it!"

...