Author: Vanilla Muse

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Chapter 151.2 – Nitpicking

“This little waiter’s temperament is too impatient. My husband is just trying to test you, and yet you’re so impatient? It seems that the quality of service of this An Family Restaurant is not very good!”

The waiter really wanted to ask her how was he being impatient. He has kept a smile on his face from beginning to end, so at which point did he seem impatient? Bao Xin Chun didn’t give him a chance to say anything. She picked up the menu, flipped to the back, and ordered a hamburger.

“This thing is really expensive. It’s just two slices of steamed buns plus a piece of meat, and it costs fifteen copper coins. You should know that twenty-five copper coins can buy a catty of beef.”

Bao Xin Chun did not keep her voice down. No matter how one parsed her words she was clearly nitpicking at any fault that she could find. She was also hinting to everyone present that the hamburger was not worth this price, especially her last sentence. Upon hearing her words, some people would immediately start to clack away at the abacus within their hearts and think that instead of buying a single hamburger for fifteen copper coins, it would be more worth it to buy a catty of beef for another ten copper coins and share that meat with their entire family.

Translations are by vmnovels [dot] com, if you’re reading this anywhere else, then it was stolen.

The waiter could see the customers’ shifting expressions, but he was not anxious.

It’s true that if you compared the two, buying a catty of beef was more cost-effective than buying a single hamburger, but anyone who has eaten a hamburger knew that the taste was definitely one in a million. Even if you bought the beef yourself and tried to recreate the dish at home, the taste would not be the same.

That’s because the beef used in this restaurant’s hamburgers were flavored with Jiang Yu’s unique secret recipe handed down from her ancestors. It was a unique secret recipe that one never tired of eating and it was a recipe that no one else could imitate.

The waiter did not bother to explain this.

Bao Xin Chun thought that the waiter was struck speechless by her words and was secretly feeling very proud of herself.

The two of them were not short on money, so they ordered five dishes.

The waiter was worried that the two of them would find fault again if the food arrived late, so he explained the situation to the two chefs in the kitchen, namely Jiang Yu and Chef Wang. This was the restaurant’s big opening day. In order to get the customers to return, the two chefs were in the kitchen personally making everything themselves and the other people in the kitchen were just assisting.

“Understood. No need to worry. Just do things according to order. If they find fault on purpose, you just need to answer them truthfully.”

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Chef Wang’s expression was as steady as usual. Back in An Yuan County, he had met many picky customers like this, and among them a lot of them were envious of their restaurant.

The waiter agreed happily before running out the kitchen.

Due to the large number of customers in the restaurant, by the time it was Zhuo Gao Ming and his wife’s turn it was already half an hour later. Zhuo Gao Ming wanted to throw a fit at first, but his wife held him back.

If they wanted to ruin the reputation of the restaurant, they needed a reasonable situation, and not such a petty thing.

In addition to ordering a hamburger, the two ordered four other home-styled dishes, such as broccoli with mushrooms and fried pig ears with green peppers. The dishes didn’t look particularly special, but the aroma was very alluring.

The husband and wife pair looked at each other. Then they began to polish off the food on the table. Their lips were soon greasy with oil and sauces.

The waiter observed the husband and wife pair for a long while, seeing that they weren’t making any more unreasonable demands, he thought that they had given up for now, so he stopped paying particular attention to them. That was until a loud screech sounded in the restaurant lobby and the waiter quickly came back. When he saw that the screeching had come from Bao Xin Chun, unease stirred in his stomach. He was so busy running back and forth that he had put these two out of his mind.

In the crowded lobby full of people, Bao Xin Chun’s scream immediately attracted everyone’s attention.

“It’s disgusting, how could there be cockroaches in this hamburger?”

Bao Xin Chun and her husband immediately pretended to retch after shouting.

Translations by Vanilla Muse. Read on vmnovels [dot] com

When the surrounding customers saw that there was indeed a cockroach in the hamburger, they immediately showed disgusted expressions. In an instant they lost their appetite, regardless of whether or not they had ordered a hamburger themselves.

Shopkeeper Liu had already pinned these two customers as troublemakers. He knew that the reason Boss Sun’s teahouse went bankrupt was because of these two. They even pretended to be buyers, hoping to purchase Boss Sun’s teahouse at a low price. When he saw them show up today, he knew right away that they were planning to cause trouble.

This method of framing a restaurant by saying that they have cockroaches in their food was no longer a special trick. Even the restaurants in the popular East District would occasionally have such a situation happen to them.

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Chapter 151.1 – Nitpicking

Most of the people present knew this husband and wife pair, not only that, they knew that the husband was the Zhuo family’s second son Zhuo Gao Ming and the wife was Bao Xin Chun.

The husband and wife’s reputation was actually not very good, but for the sake of the quality tea in their teahouse, most people overlooked that point.

Although the Zhuo family was a family of merchants, their influence in Jun Zi City was not small.

Zhuo Gao Ming’s talent in business was not the highest among Zhuo’s sons, but it was not the worst either, it’s just that the way he did things was a little out of date.

The status of businessmen in Da Ya was not great, but they couldn’t be inferior, otherwise people would only look down on they even more. So some people might flatter them on the surface, but actually look down on them in their hearts.

When the crowd saw the husband and wife pair coming over to the restaurant, they didn’t pay it much mind.

The very nature of a teahouse and a restaurant was different. One sold tea and the other sold food and wine. No matter how you looked at it, there was not much interrelation.

So no one expected them to come here to make trouble.

Translations are by vmnovels [dot] com, if you’re reading this anywhere else, then it was stolen.

There were no more open seats in the lobby on the first floor, but there were still many vacant rooms upstairs. However, the purpose of these two was not with the private rooms.

After a while, someone finally got up to settle his bill. The customer didn’t really want to leave, but the hamburger was indeed a very novel food, so he decided to buy a few back for his elderly mother, wife, and children to try.

However, Zhuo Gao Ming and Bao Xin Chun were not the only ones waiting for vacant seats. There were other people waiting eagerly on the sidelines, but most of them were literati, so they couldn’t do something like fighting over seats, which would ruin their scholarly image, not to mention, the two elders were still in the lobby and would be able to witness such a shameful scene.

So the scholars could only watch helplessly as the thick-skinned Zhuo Gao Ming and his wife snatched away their seats. They gave the two a bitter look. Now they could only look for other people to share a table with.

Zhuo Gao Ming and his wife proudly raised their chins.

“Waiter.”

Zhuo Gao Ming picked up the menu on the table, glanced at it casually, and suddenly called for the waiter in a loud voice. Many guests around him frowned.

A waiter quickly came over to them. He cleared away the cups and dishes on the table. Then he wiped the table down with a wet towel and a dry towel alternately. Then he asked politely, “What would these two customers like?”

Originally Bao Xin Chun wanted to complain that the table was dirty, but upon seeing the waiter’s actions, she could only open and close her mouth in silence. In the end, she held back her complaint, albeit unwillingly.

While flipping through the menu, Zhuo Gao Ming asked carelessly, “What signature dishes does your restaurant have?”

The waiter was momentarily stumped. He looked at the menu in Zhuo Gao Ming’s hand, and then he looked at the man’s expression. The waiter rolled his eyes and explained, “Sir, please look at the third page of the menu in your hand. The signature dishes are all written on it, and the first two pages are the catalog of various dishes. If you need anything, you can directly turn to that page, and the price is written on the back.”

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Zhuo Gao Ming’s expression suddenly sunk. He slapped the menu onto the table, “I’m asking about the signature dishes in your restaurant, not for you to tell me about the menu, is this how your restaurant serves guests?”

The waiter has already confirmed that the other person was here to nitpick and find fault with them. The man’s actions were so obvious that the waiter wanted to roll his eyes at them. Did this guy think he was all that? Such an unreasonable person.

The boss did say that the customer was king, so no matter how irritated the waiters felt, they couldn’t express that in front of the customers. That was, unless the other party was deliberately trying to pick a fight, then they could handle the situation as they saw fit as long as it did not damage the reputation of the restaurant.

Translations by Vanilla Muse. Read on vmnovels [dot] com

“Sir, you asked this little one what are the signature dishes, and this little one said that the signature dishes are written on the third page of the menu. This little one does not think he has said anything wrong. If you think that turning a few pages is too tiring for you, then this little one is willing to help you turn to the third page. Is that okay?”

The waiter showed an impeccable smile.

Zhuo Gao Ming could feel everyone looking at him with ridicule and mockery in their eyes, and his face flushed immediately. He wanted to refute, but he couldn’t think of how to refute.

In the end, Bao Xin Chun was wittier, and her brisk laughter attracted everyone’s attention to her.

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Chapter 150.2 – Two Elders and Opening a Business

Everyone then went up to the second floor to take a look around. They were pleasantly surprised to find that the rooms on the second floor were made of soundproof materials, so they wouldn’t have to be afraid of people overhearing them if they said something secretive. People like them were full of convoluted thoughts and secrets. They felt like they should come to this place more often in the future as a show of support.

After they looked over the second floor, the group came down and found seats on the first floor. As a newly opened restaurant, naturally everyone would be interested in it. Since they were already here, they couldn’t just take a look around and then leave. Thus, they ordered a table full of dishes.

The two elders wanted to appreciate the painting and the calligraphy on the screen in the lobby on the first floor up close, so they purposely found a place near the screen.

At first, they didn’t have much expectation for the restaurant’s dishes, but when the food was served, the strong aroma of the food wafted into their nostrils, which actually stirred the gluttons in their stomach, and some of them even gurgled.

Translations are by vmnovels [dot] com, if you’re reading this anywhere else, then it was stolen.

There were more than twenty different types of dishes at the An Family Restaurant. It was impossible to order all of them at once, so they could only order some that looked delicious and that they would usually like.

But after tasting the dishes, everyone became interested in the other dishes. Just smelling the aroma of the food in this restaurant made them salivate. They have never been so gluttonous in other restaurants.

“Look at this menu. There is something called a hamburger on it. It has a strange name. I have never heard of this kind of food before.”

A scholar flipped through the menu and was suddenly attracted by the food names in the back. You could guess what most of the dishes were from the name, but he had never heard of this hamburger thing.

“Let me see?”

The people at the same table were also interested by what he said, and quickly took the menu from him.

The menu was very exquisite. Each dish was sorted according to its type, including a beverages section, followed by a section for convenient and portable foods, such as the hamburger previously mentioned by the scholar, which ranked at the top of the list, and there were even more than one type of hamburger.

First, there was the size of the hamburger. According to your hunger level, there were four types of hamburgers to choose from: five inches, six inches, seven inches, and eight inches. The price was marked on the back. Second, there was the number of layers of meat. Pay a few more copper coins to add another layer of meat to the hamburger, and the five-inch hamburger was the basic choice priced at fifteen copper coins.

To many people, this was an expensive item.

You could purchase a lot of buns with fifteen copper coins, but there were still some people who were very interested in this thing. For people like Pan Zhong and Wan Xi Chuan, they were not short on money.

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These two elders have eaten delicacies from the mountains and the sea, but this hamburger was a food item that they have never heard of before and it has aroused their interest, so they ordered a few plates of dim sum, and then ordered two five-inch hamburgers.

On the first day the restaurant opened, there were no empty seats, and the waiters kept running around. An Zi Ran had expected this situation, so he hired ten waiters from the get-go. The swift waiters quickly served the two elders all their dishes.

The two elders looked at the strangely shaped hamburger in front of them. For a while they didn’t know how to react.

“This… is a hamburger?”

Pang Zhong was surprised. He was a well-informed person, but he was sure he had never seen this kind of food before. It looked like two pieces of golden steamed buns, with a piece of meat and other ingredients in the middle.

Wan Xi Chuan picked up a hamburger and smelled it, “This meat is indeed beef, and the portion is quite a lot.”

There was beef, chicken, and pork on the menu. The two were curious whether it was true, so they ordered two beef burgers. They thought the meat would not be too much, but it looked like a big piece.

Pang Zhong took a bite dubiously. He thought the meat might be difficult to chew, but he bit it off immediately. After eating it, he found that the beef was minced and then squeezed into a round piece. It is just right for the elderly whose teeth were slowly deteriorating, and children could also eat it.

“It tastes really good.”

Hearing this comment, the people in the lobby all started to crave this hamburger. Fifteen copper coins for such a big piece of meat was not very expensive. Some people touched their pockets and in the end decided to try a beef burger. If it was good, they would buy it again, and this thing looked very convenient to eat.

Translations by Vanilla Muse. Read on vmnovels [dot] com

The beef burger was not greasy. After eating the beef burger in their hands, the two elders drank a cup of tea to refresh their taste buds. They were already slightly full after this, so they could only eat a bit of the dimsum on the table.

The hamburger was still a little expensive for most people, but it was worth the money. At least the amount of meat in the burger was quite a lot, so it should be okay to eat it once in a while.

Soon, the first floor lobby was filled with sounds of praise for the hamburger.

Not long after, the couple from the teahouse couldn’t help themselves and they came to the entrance of An Family Restaurant.

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