Chapter 322 - 181: In the Line of Fire

Chapter 322: Chapter 181: In the Line of Fire

Zhou Yan was stunned for a moment, then his face lit up with joy.

’I can’t believe this Side Quest rewarded me with Fish-Flavored Pork!’

’In Sichuan Cuisine, Fish-Flavored Pork is considered a homestyle dish, much like Twice-Cooked Pork. It’s something ordinary families often make.’

’It’s a common sight on the menus of Sichuan restaurants, usually listed alongside Twice-Cooked Pork and Mapo Tofu.’

’But despite being a homestyle dish, it’s one of the truest tests of a chef’s seasoning skills in Sichuan Cuisine, and it’s even a required dish for Chef certification exams.’

’A dish named for fish that contains no fish at all. For people from out of town, it’s just as misleading as Sliced Beef and Ox Tripe in Chili Sauce having nothing to do with a married couple.’

’Besides Fish-Flavored Pork, Zhou Yan was also particularly fond of Fish-Flavored Eggplant.’

’The "fish-fragrant" sauce is just as perfect for pairing with rice as Mapo Tofu, but its flavor profile is a bit milder.’

’It’s savory, spicy, sour, and sweet, with a rich aroma. For diners not accustomed to the numbing spice of Sichuan peppercorns, it’s a real treat.’

Just as Zhou Yan was about to open the recipe, Mrs. Zhao’s voice came from outside. "Zhou Yan! Mayor Huang is here to see you."

"Coming," Zhou Yan called back. He glanced at his watch, set the stove door half-open, and got up to leave the kitchen.

Huang Chen was wearing a black jacket. Behind him stood a young man in a navy blue Mao suit, holding a file folder.

"Mayor Huang, what brings you here?" Zhou Yan said with a smile, walking briskly forward to greet him.

Huang Chen looked at him and said, "Zhou Yan, I’ve come today to discuss vigorously developing and promoting Kneeling Beef. And I’ve brought you some good news."

Hearing this, Zhou Yan quickly said, "Please, have a seat. I’ll brew a pot of tea, and we can talk things over."

"Will this interrupt your meat stewing?" Huang Chen asked, glancing toward the kitchen.

"Not at all, I’m keeping an eye on the time," Zhou Yan said with a laugh. "I won’t keep you once it’s time to add the vegetables to the stew."

"Don’t bother with the tea. Let’s just sit down and get right to it," Huang Chen said, pulling Zhou Yan to a nearby table and sitting down. "Today, we’re here to talk about how to grow and strengthen the Kneeling Beef industry. We want to hear your ideas and see what we can do to help."

Zhou Yan thought for a moment before speaking eloquently, "Personally, I feel Kneeling Beef has great potential. Right now, our restaurant sells one hundred and forty bowls of Kneeling Beef a day. My cousins, Zhou Jie and Zhou Hai, can sell nearly a hundred bowls from their stall at the docks.

Our prices are generally double what the other villagers from Zhou Village charge for their hot pots. That’s because we add more expensive sirloin tip and include various precious medicinal herbs and spices in our seasoning packets. We’ve won over customers with our flavor.

The feature and cover story in *Sichuan Cuisine* magazine also proves this. My recreated and improved Kneeling Beef has, in effect, become a new culinary signature for Suji.

With the magazine’s endorsement, Kneeling Beef has become a brand. It’s marketable and has a professional air to it. If we can maintain its reputation and continue to grow its fame, we might one day be able to use this ’calling card’ to attract many tourists and drive the economic development of all of Suji."

Huang Chen nodded repeatedly as he listened. The young man sitting beside him had already taken out a notebook and was busily scribbling down notes.

"You have great foresight. He Zhiyuan said something similar to me a few days ago. We held a special meeting to discuss this matter and decided we want to build up the Suji Kneeling Beef brand," Huang Chen said, looking at him. "In the last two years, with the gradual issuance of cattle butchering licenses, the number of butchers in Zhou Village has grown to nearly a hundred. Dozens of cattle are slaughtered every day and shipped to various places in Jiazhou for sale.

This produces a large quantity of offal and other byproducts. Only a portion of it can be sold in hot pots, and a significant amount is thrown away and wasted every day. Figuring out how to maximize the use of these resources and generate more income for the butchers is something we also want to do.

We’ve done a survey these past two days. In total, there are forty-eight stalls selling hot pot in Suji Town and along the Qingyi Riverfront. Most of them aren’t doing very well. They only sell ten or twenty bowls a day and can’t get rid of all the offal left over from their own butchering.

In your opinion, how can we significantly increase their sales?"

Zhou Yan smiled and shook his head. "In a small place like Suji Town, without any outside tourists, forty-eight hot pot stalls is an unreasonably oversaturated market. It’s only because the weather has been getting colder lately, marking the start of the peak season for hot pot, that they’re doing this well. Otherwise, most of those stalls couldn’t even sell ten bowls a day.

I don’t have a way to significantly increase all of their sales. The number of customers in Suji Town who like hot pot and can afford to eat it regularly is fixed. The only way to win more customers amidst this fierce competition is to have the best flavor.

Customers are shrewd. They’ll make trade-offs between flavor and price. With such intense competition, there’s no room to lower the price by twenty or thirty cents a bowl, so improving the quality of the hot pot and competing on flavor becomes the only way forward.

I can’t just hand over the Kneeling Beef recipe to everyone—it’s the foundation of my restaurant’s livelihood. However, I don’t mind the villagers from Zhou Village who sell hot pot using our Zhou’s Kneeling Beef as a benchmark to improve and refine their own.

Once these forty-eight hot pot stalls have competed fully, and we’re left with eight or ten shops, each with its own unique flavor and recognized by customers, that’s when the cluster effect for Suji’s Kneeling Beef will begin to take shape.

Whether it’s attracting tourists to come and taste it or expanding beyond Suji into larger markets, the potential will be immense.

As for the vendors who are competed out of the market, they can take on the role of supplying ingredients. They might even earn more money that way, and with less effort than struggling to run a stall."