At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

Compared with money, power is a rarer species, a true luxury.

Shanhai Restaurant has tacitly agreed that only those with authority can enter.

Only those with power can come here to enjoy luxury, and only those with power can come in to watch and experience the "royal life" that Guo himself has never enjoyed and is not very clear about.

By the way, 80.00% of the employees of Shanhai Restaurant are carefully trained by Linziying.

The remaining 20.00% are inner court financial personnel, musicians and dancers, and several chefs.

Of course, this place can only be enjoyed by dignitaries and other powerful people.

Drinking and eating, getting drunk, and by the way, a few core topics that the emperor is interested in, it is not in vain for the emperor to spend so much effort to let them experience the life of the royal family here.

From here, Guo can get a little understanding of the unknown side of his group of courtiers.

And their little thoughts.

Chapter 1397 One thousand three hundred and seven, but any surplus value must be squeezed out

Simpi is naturally qualified to come here.

Even if he is a white board minister, he is still a minister and a high-ranking official, so he is qualified to come.

After her daughter betrothed to the crown prince, her qualifications became more stable, and she was no longer afraid of being ridiculed here.

To be honest, it feels uncomfortable to have no status and no power. Although I have no power now, I have a future.

Being bound to the crown prince, it feels really extraordinary.

Now he is a white board minister and still has no power, but who dares to treat him like before?

That is purely making yourself uncomfortable.

Today is different from the past, Simpi has reloaded.

Of course, today is not to show off.

Today is official business, I came to work.

After finishing the work, you can still use the public finances for reimbursement, and you don't have to pay any costs. Not only is it cool, but it's also cool.

So Simpi called out the ten most famous dishes of Shanhai Restaurant.

It is said that each one was fired according to the taste of His Majesty the Emperor, and it was extremely delicious.

As a subject of His Majesty the Emperor, how can you not taste these exquisite delicacies that only the Emperor has eaten?

Manuel didn't know why, he only knew that this place was indeed very luxurious, and the luxury reminded him of the private entertainment place built by Emperor Caracalla for his own enjoyment.

While serving tea and wine, Simpi laughed and asked Wei Yong to translate for Manuel, telling the origin of this restaurant.

Then Manuel was surprised to learn that the ultimate benefit of this extremely luxurious restaurant may belong to His Majesty the Emperor.

Any consumption they generate may provide income to His Majesty the Emperor and benefit His Majesty the Emperor.

Of course, this kind of thing also happened in Rome, and Manuel took it as normal when he was a little surprised.

He will never be surprised that any ruler will do his best to obtain benefits.

And it is not surprising that these courtiers came here to consume, obviously to strengthen the relationship with the emperor.

Afterwards, Manuel further learned that the biggest selling point of this restaurant, apart from its relationship with the emperor, is the special experience that imitates the life of the royal family.

The dishes here are all the emperor's favorite dishes, and the cooks who cook are also the royal chefs in the palace, and even the performers of singing and dancing are musicians and dancers in the palace.

In a sense, there is nothing wrong with saying that this is a miniature version of the Little Palace. What His Majesty the Emperor can enjoy, also appears here, but the specifications are different.

So there must be a prerequisite for coming here, that is, you must be a high-ranking official and hold some very important powers, and secondly, you must be rich.

The miniature version of the imperial palace, even if the emperor allowed it to be opened to the outside world, is not something that ordinary local tyrants can come to. Only people with some status can come. Otherwise, what is the difference between Shanhai Restaurant and other restaurants?

Even local tyrants dare to come here?

Do you want to enjoy the royal life too?

Are you worthy?

"That is to say, the people who eat here are all people of status?"

Manuel asked carefully.

Wei Yong nodded.

"Yes, they are all people with status, or family members and friends of officials with status. In short, they are all famous figures in the dynasty, and some of them can even meet with His Majesty to discuss national policies. At least they can Handed the manuscript directly to His Majesty."

"A playbook?"

Manuel was curious.

"Ah, yes, the memorial. Some officials in Wei Wei have the qualifications to directly write the memorial and hand it over to His Majesty to discuss state affairs with His Majesty. There are more than 300 such officials. They are not high-ranking officials in the court, but also local officials. , they all have a lot of power.”

"Discuss state affairs directly with His Majesty the Emperor? Just use that memorial? Will His Majesty reply to them?"

"Of course, I heard that His Majesty has to review hundreds of memorials every day and write countless words. Since ancient times, only the First Emperor can be compared with His Majesty today."

Wei Yong's face was full of reverence.

What he said is true, everyone has heard that His Majesty the Emperor is very diligent, even when he is out for inspection, he does not forget to deal with state affairs.

When His Majesty the Emperor inspected the Grand Canal project, while inspecting, he also resolved more than 300 state affairs within eight days, and wrote countless words every day. Many things were personally arranged by His Majesty the Emperor. Then execute it.

The emperor is so diligent, why worry about the country not prospering?

In contrast, the emperors of the previous dynasty were not emperors at all. How could they have the courage and might of His Majesty today?

Manuel still had a lot of things he didn't understand, and just about to ask, the dishes had already been served.

Wei Yong was lucky enough to follow Simpi and Manuel to the private room on the second floor as the main interpreter. The rest of the entourage reserved a table for dinner in the lobby on the first floor.

The lobby on the first floor is where those who have power and status but are not so prominent, or those who are related to those dignitaries stay.

They can't go to the private room, but they can still eat at Shanhaijiu's house, and by the way, brag about how strong their relationship with the real bosses in the private room on the second floor is.

Only three people entered the private room, so three chairs were reserved.

Wei Yong never dreamed that he was qualified to eat at the same table with the minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Now he is very grateful to himself who worked so hard to learn foreign languages.

In the early stage of life, he was just a little mud leg facing the loess and back to the sky.

In the midst of the storm, Guo Peng made his debut. He had the opportunity to read and write, and was selected as an imperial student to study in the imperial academy, and then got the opportunity to become an official.

He changed his own destiny, and changed the destiny of his family and future generations.

He cherishes this opportunity very much, works very hard, dare not waste a little time, and becomes one of the best foreign language communication experts in the translation team.

So there is today.

He was extremely emotional-reading can really change one's destiny.

The dishes that Simpi ordered were all the dishes that the chef in the palace was good at.

The chefs in the palace are basically veterans of the army.

In the past five years of qualifications, one could participate in the selection and enter the imperial dining room of the palace to cook for the emperor. Now without seven or eight years of qualifications, it is impossible to even think about it.

Every old Huotou who comes in has his own housekeeping skills and the best housekeeping dishes, so that he can pass the many tests of the inner court and become the imperial chef who cooks for the emperor.

However, the royal family is not large, and the emperor's demand for imperial cooks is not large, so the imperial cooks have realized their rotation very early.

Later, the emperor felt that he could not support people in vain, so he asked the royal chefs to cook for the staff desk and the cabinet working in the palace, which made the officials who worked outside the palace hate and envy the staff desk and the cabinet. Li called them idiots.

Later, the emperor found that even so, the imperial cooks were quite free and had a lot of leisure time. He felt that this was not enough, because these imperial cooks still had residual value that had not been squeezed out.

So the despicable Mr. Guo issued an order, ordering the rest of the royal chefs to take turns to cook at Shanhai Restaurant, and go to work with musicians and dancers in turn to open up a second battlefield.

It is an iron rule not to keep idlers in the palace.

One radish and one hole, everyone who comes in must be prepared for [-], but any surplus value must be squeezed out, so that it is worthy of the allocation of funds.

Those who take money from the emperor's pocket must be mentally prepared for this.

Simpi had eaten many dishes made by the royal chefs at court banquets.

The taste is good, the dishes are good, and the quality is excellent. They are hard dishes that can be counted.

But the quantity is a bit large, the style is a bit wild, and not refined enough, which is a shortcoming in Simpi's view.

However, during the Yande period, the court cuisine of the Wei State was born out of military meals. The emperor himself also ate military meals all the way to this day.

The army food is rough and generous.

As soon as the meal time came, those hungry soldiers with green eyes who had been exhausted by training rushed to the barracks of the Huotou army. They all looked like starving ghosts who hadn't eaten for three days. eat.

To cook for them, you need to cook vegetables in big pots, steam rice in big vats, put soup in big buckets, and then put rice in big bowls for them. Large quantity and fullness are the first priority, and the taste is the second.

It is not easy for these old chefs who are from the old fire to make the taste better.

It's really not easy for them to make the dishes to a fine level.

But this is not completely impossible.

Those who can work as imperial chefs in the palace must have a large amount of food and taste at the same time. It has won unanimous praise from everyone, which is enough to prove that the craftsmanship of these old fire heads is particularly strong.

In recent years, with the increase of objective demand, places such as Shanhai Restaurant will also recruit some famous private chefs to help and communicate with the royal chefs.

Through exchanges, the royal chefs gradually mastered some normal folk dishes and cooking techniques, and combined these techniques with their own techniques to create a new style of court cuisine.

There are not only the wildness and extensiveness of the Wei Empire, but also people's tireless pursuit of food. The combination of the two has created many new combinations.

Some special dishes that can only be eaten in Luoyang.

For example, using an iron plate to make iron plate rice, it is fragrant, crispy, and very good. There are also chefs who add milk to stews to make milk stews. Not to mention, the taste is really good.

It is said that it was also praised by the emperor.

The dishes that are served now are the improved court dishes praised by the emperor.

Selling you ten times or twenty times the price is not a loss, right?

The new style of palace cuisine gradually faded away from the boldness and roughness of military meals, and began to have the delicacy and tedious preparation of high-end cuisine.

The only thing that remains is probably the feature of large quantity and full control.

The court cuisine of the Wei state is similar to the court cuisine developed for many years in the Roman Empire, but there are many differences in cooking techniques and more choices in seasoning.

Manuer was not very good at using chopsticks, so Wei Yong stepped forward and taught Manuer how to use chopsticks, and handed him a spoon for him to use.

Manuel managed to learn how to use chopsticks stumblingly, and he noticed some subtleties in this use.

Those meats and fishes that don’t know how to cook are quite delicious, full of color and fragrance, and the presentation is also very beautiful. The color matching of some vegetables makes this dish look pleasing to the eye.

Pork, beef, lamb, fish.

The unique taste of these meat foods Manuel is unforgettable, but the taste is completely different from the memory.

There is that kind of dark red meat dish, which is delicious. When you put the meat in your mouth and bite it, the rich taste will burst out and fill the entire mouth.

There are also grilled lamb chops, sprinkled with a lot of spices he is familiar with, rich in flavor, rich in gravy, and grilled just right.

There is also a delicious fish soup. I don’t know how it is cooked. The soup is milky white, so Manuel guesses that milk may be added to it.

These dishes were all placed on a large dining table. The round dining table was divided into two layers. The upper layer could be turned without knowing how it was made.

"Which dish you want to eat, you can turn it like this, turn the dish in front of you, and then use this pair of serving chopsticks to put it in the bowl, and then you can enjoy it by yourself."

Manuel was a little confused at first, and then Wei Yong introduced him bit by bit, so that he could understand how to eat.

Wei Yong has never been to a high-end Shanhai restaurant, but folk restaurants have already blossomed everywhere.

He should understand everything.

chapter 1398 one thousand three hundred and eight

The "Hu Si" controversy in the early years basically disappeared without a trace along with Guo's political purge.

Now no one says that wine shops are bullshit.