Chapter 458 - 170: Big Meal Preparations, Three New Snacks

Chapter 458: Chapter 170: Big Meal Preparations, Three New Snacks

He then dragged Ah Wu out of the hospital in a hurry.

Back at the hotel, Feng Yaoyang was still reeling from the day’s events.

"Ah Wu, can you replicate those snacks?"

Ah Wu’s eyes went wide. "Boss! You still want to eat?"

"What are you talking about?" Feng Yaoyang shot him an irritated glare. "I’m asking if you can perfectly replicate those dishes. What did you think of the food you tasted today?"

Ah Wu could hardly believe his ears. ’How can a man with a normal body temperature say such cold-hearted words?’

’You ate ten servings of rice noodle rolls, three servings of pork rib rice cakes, and a bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup all by yourself. And now you’re asking *me* how the tasting went?’

’Did I get to eat a single damn bite?’

Seeing Ah Wu’s prolonged silence, Feng Yaoyang said, "I was already on a stretcher, yet you still ran back to finish that bowl of vermicelli soup. Don’t think I didn’t see you. So, speak up. What did you think?"

’But your head was covered, wasn’t it?’

Ah Wu suddenly had a moment of clarity.

’It’s like how, at the office, you can be slacking off with no one seemingly around to see, but the boss always finds out anyway.’

’Maybe all bosses just have that kind of superpower.’

Since he hadn’t had a chance to properly taste the food, Ah Wu obviously couldn’t comment on its texture or flavor. Fortunately, he had observed Su Chen’s cooking process from start to finish.

"Unique," Ah Wu said, recalling the scenes at Delicious. "Boss Su’s cooking... it gives me a very unique feeling."

"Unique? What do you mean by that?"

Ah Wu sat down as well. "I’ve rarely seen a chef handle ingredients as casually as Boss Su."

"He’s clearly doing everything so casually, yet the result is more perfect than what others achieve with meticulous care."

Even as he said it, Ah Wu felt his words fell short of what he truly meant.

The feeling was difficult to put into words.

Take, for example, when Su Chen was making the rice noodle rolls.

The steamer tray was twice the size of a normal one, but he used the same amount of rice slurry.

Ah Wu knew just how absurdly difficult it was to spread such a small amount of slurry evenly across a tray that large!

On top of that, there were no other ingredients added to the slurry—it was pure rice slurry, which meant it was extremely fluid.

To pull that off was simply incredible.

There was another thing that Ah Wu still couldn’t figure out.

There’s obviously a lot of steam and moisture during the steaming process, so why was the final product not watery at all?

The question was practically one of the world’s great unsolved mysteries!

It completely defied everything he knew.

Feng Yaoyang stood up, turned on the air purifier, and took two cigars from the safe. He handed one to Ah Wu before sitting down.

"I just want to know one thing: is this partnership with Boss Su worth it?"

Ah Wu thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. "In all of Xiangjiang, no one can make rice noodle rolls and pork rib rice cakes like Boss Su."

He was a chef—Feng Yaoyang’s personal chef.

He wouldn’t interfere in business matters, so he could only offer his professional opinion. Whether or not to cooperate was ultimately up to his boss.

Feng Yaoyang nodded.

That told him everything he needed to know.

The collaboration project in Jingzhou was just an insignificant part of Feng Yaoyang’s overall business.

In reality, for a major Hong Kong businessman like Feng Yaoyang to come all the way to the mainland for a partnership, he naturally had an ulterior motive.

Right now in Xiangjiang—or even in the entire country, for that matter!

There was plenty of good food, but there was no such thing as a gourmet plaza that brought together snacks from all over the nation.

Not in the four first-tier cities, not even in Xiangjiang or Macau.

There were plenty of so-called "gourmet plazas," but most were a disappointment. But what if someone were to invest in a *real* one?

A place where the stalls were sectioned off by province.

For duck blood vermicelli soup, for instance, the stall could be called "Nanjing Road," or "Nanjing Eatery," or something similar—named after its place of origin.

What kind of potential would that have?

As long as the food was authentic and delicious enough...

Take these rice noodle rolls, for example. Some foodies would travel all the way to Yue Province just to eat them.

But then they’d come back and tell their friends, "It wasn’t that great. The place back home makes it better."

What did that imply?

A massive business blueprint immediately took shape in Feng Yaoyang’s mind.

"Huaxia Snack Square."

’Yes, that name has a powerful ring to it!’

After Ah Wu left, Feng Yaoyang immediately sat down at his desk and began to map out the business plan.

Jingzhou was a very good location.

The only downside was its relatively small population.

But the pros outweighed the cons. Jingzhou’s Development Zone was aggressively courting investment. The government offered many preferential policies for projects there, including extremely attractive tax incentives.

Second, labor costs in Jingzhou City were so low that even Feng Yaoyang was astounded.

A server in a regular restaurant worked with only four days off a month and only needed to be paid a salary of two thousand yuan.

You didn’t even have to pay for their insurance!

’Could there be a better deal than this?’

"If that’s the case," he murmured, "I’ll have to change the street-based project to a plaza-style project on a single plot of land."

Feng Yaoyang immediately began to draft a rough investment proposal.

His idea was to create a complex similar to a Wanda Plaza, but instead of a shopping mall, it would be a comprehensive gourmet plaza.

It would be a four-story building.

Each floor could house large stalls representing eight or nine different provinces. How those large sections would be further subdivided into smaller stalls was a detail for later.