The lonely foodie

The store was too noisy, so Ivan walked to the side of the road and returned Qin Heping's call. When he came back, he asked the clerk and found Qu Mobai in the rest area of ​​the mall.

Mo Bai did not know where to get a small notebook and a gel pen. The small notebook was spread on his knees, and he was writing and drawing with his head down.

Ivan leaned over to take a look. The handwriting was very beautiful. As for the font, I don't know. In short, it was better than his Chinese teacher in middle school.

The production method of the meat swallow is densely recorded on it, and even comments are made.

I've heard of people who write after-reviews after reading, but I haven't seen people who have to write about after-eating after eating. Ivan knelt down.

"What's the matter?" Mo Bai closed the small notebook, raised his eyes, and there was a bit of resentment for being disturbed in his amber eyes.

Ivan forgot that this is a Uniqlo where people come and go, and for no reason felt like breaking into someone else's study.

After being silent for a while, I remembered the previous phone call, "Qin Heping just called me and said that he didn't want to rent the house to us."

"Is it because our bid is low?" Mo Bai asked.

Ivan shook his head, "I didn't talk about the low price. Anyway, now that we have money, we might as well find a better shop."

Mo Bai didn't speak at first, and looked down at his little note on his meat swallow, his eyes sparkled when he looked up again, "I want this shop, you can figure out how to do it yourself."

"I...you..." Ivan trembled for a long time, and finally said a complete sentence, "Are you unreasonable?"

Then Mo Bai only said one word and Ivan shut up. Mo Bai said, "I paid the money."

While Qu Mobai and Yifan were going to sell jade, two more people came to see Qin Heping's shop in the afternoon. They were a couple in their early 20s, and they planned to buy this shop to open a milk tea shop.

The girl was a little literary, and she liked the scenery of the store near the lake. The boy followed the girl, without even discussing the price, and agreed to 5 yuan, and paid a deposit of 8 yuan on the spot.

Qin Heping felt that his old dilapidated house had been consecrated today, and he was so happy that he could walk with crutches, and he walked with crutches for a long time before he could.

Ivan was short of manpower, so he had to go to Qin Heping to fight for it. He called Qin Heping twice but no one answered, so he had to go to the shop to see it himself.

When I arrived at the shop, I saw that a couple of young men and women were discussing the decoration.

"I'll go." Ivan sighed while clutching his chest. Qin Heping rented out the shop quietly. The fucking raw rice has been cooked. Who can I ask for reasoning?

The girl in the white shirt and blue skirt saw Ivan first, smiled sweetly at him, and asked, "What's the matter?"

Ivan's complexion must be ugly at the moment, as if someone owed him 18 yuan.

The girl looked at such a gloomy face, her smile gradually faded, and nervousness and uneasiness crept up her face.

"Why are you renting this shop?" Ivan asked gloomyly. Anyway, the shop can't be rented anymore, so let's break the pot, and don't bother to put on a good face.

"Open a milk tea shop, what's the matter?" the girl replied.

"Are you crazy?" Ivan stomped his feet and yelled, "Open a milk tea shop in this corner? Burn too much money? How much to rent a shop?"

The boy stared at Ivan strangely, "Who are you?"

Ivan just wanted to yell at this time, please call me Lei Feng, but he was afraid of being beaten after the yelling, so he honestly explained the ins and outs of the matter to them clearly.

"Since this shop is not good, why do you rent it?" The girl blinked her big eyes and asked Ivan's soul innocently.

You may not believe it.Ivan said in his heart, even I don't believe it myself, just because the landlord called Heping.

"I want this shop for my own reasons." Ivan said, "Analyze the pros and cons for yourself. In particular, milk tea is a fast-moving snack, and it should be opened in a convenient and conspicuous place. Milk tea is profitable by selling volume. Your current position, 10 yuan a cup, someone holds a mobile phone or computer, and a cup of milk tea can sit by the lake for a day, and next year at this time, the tears of regret you shed will fill the lake, do you believe it?"

The two young lovers looked at each other, and the woman said to the man, "Then...how about we think about it again, the big deal is that the 800 deposit will be lost."

Ivan's heart skipped a beat. The two idiots haven't signed the contract yet, they just paid a deposit of 800, and things are turning around.

"Hey..." Ivan sighed, "I can't bear to spend a small amount of money, and then add in a year's rent, time, materials, equipment, labor and other losses."

The two fools began to waver.

"There is an empty shop next to Fat Sister's porridge shop, which is quite suitable for a milk tea shop. Why don't you consider it?" Ivan asked.

"It's too expensive over there." The boy replied, "It costs 8 a year."

Ivan blinked his eyes, "You really don't know, are there two words called bargaining?"

"Yes." The girl stomped her feet, "We didn't negotiate the price in this store, don't be tricked by someone."

The boy scratched his head, "I've never heard that renting a shop can still negotiate the price. When we rented a house in the past, wasn't it always a one-off price from an intermediary?"

The girl nodded: "That's right."

Ivan: The IQs of you two... who gave you the courage to come out and open a shop?

Early the next morning, Ivan's cell phone rang, and seeing that it was Qin Heping's call, Ivan knew that the matter was settled.

After negotiating with Qin Heping to sign the contract at 9 a.m., Ivan told Mo Bai about it in a coquettish manner.

Mo Bai rubbed his tiny thorny head, smiled and praised him, "Our Xiaofan is really amazing!"

Tsk... This way of complimenting others makes Ivan very uncomfortable. Eighteen/nine-year-olds think they are very mature, and the most annoying thing is to be treated like a child.

So Ivan pointed at his head and yelled at Mo Bai, "Try rubbing it again?"

Mo Bai laughed heartily, his long fingers sank into his black hair, and rubbed Ivan's head again.

"What kind of store are you going to open?" Mo Bai suddenly asked.

Ivan is at a loss. Dare you, old man, be determined to win every day? Selling jade and renting a shop, I thought you were going to lead me to make a fortune. After a long time of excitement, you didn't even think about opening a shop?

Ivan fell back on the bed, pulled the quilt over his head, and was very angry. He didn't expect Qu Mobai to be such an unreliable person.

Mo Bai pulled him up to wash up and go to have breakfast, Ivan reluctantly washed up, and went downstairs with Mo Bai.

What Ivan rented was one of the self-built houses next to the Normal University, 350 yuan a month, a small bedroom with a small bathroom.

There is almost no room left after a 1.5-meter-high bed is placed in a small, narrow room. The laptop, bought for 300 yuan from a freshman from the Normal University, is placed next to the bed on an old desk. I can only sit on the bed and play with the computer, which saves me the money to buy a computer chair.

Driven by a strong sense of guilt, and because of the huge sum of money of 18 yuan lying in Kari, Ivan took Mo Bai in for a night, and promised to help him find a house as soon as possible.

And when the two of them slept on the same bed at night, the embarrassment that Ivan imagined did not appear, and the faint scent of soap on Mo Bai's body made him feel inexplicably at ease, and soon fell asleep.

Mo Bai doesn't have an ID card, and he doesn't intend to leave his mark in this era.

Before signing the contract, Mobai had discussed with Ivan that the contract was signed in Ivan's name, and the certificate was issued in his name, and Ivan was the actual operator of the store.

After signing the contract and holding a heavy key in his hand, Ivan was still dazed, no matter how he thought about it, it seemed like a piece of cake from the sky.

Whether Qu Mobai is an angel sent by heaven or a madman sent by a monkey remains to be verified.

At noon, I ordered a sliced ​​cucumber and a piece of boiled meat at Liuji Xiaochao. It was to celebrate Ivan's promotion from the Teletubbies handing out leaflets to the shopkeeper, and Qu Mobai's promotion from the homeless man who slept on the road to the shop waiter.

The owner of Liuji Xiaochao is named Liu Daniu. The southerners couldn’t pronounce his name, so his wife kept calling him “Liu Da Liu.”

Daniel took two cucumbers out of the freezer, peeled off the skin with a plane, and still on the chopping board, with a "snap", the back of the knife cracked the cucumbers.

There was also a "pop" sound from outside, and the shopkeeper Xiao Yi slapped his forehead, "Let's make hot pot."

Ivan thought about it all morning, and what he knows a little bit is to make hot pot.Qu Mobai sold the jade his father gave him, so he had to show his sincerity with some skills taught by his father.

Mo Bai was rinsing the dishes and chopsticks with boiling water. He poured boiling water into a white porcelain bowl, gently picked it up with his slender fingers, rolled it around, and poured it into the large ceramic bowl on the table.

Hearing Ivan's words, Mo Bai didn't stop moving, and said calmly, "It's just that there are Cantonese-style hot pots, northern style mutton, and southern Chongqing hot pot. There are many types. I don't know which one the shopkeeper is talking about?"

"Tsk..." Ivan sighed, holding a small notebook to write and draw every day, it's really not for nothing, there really is something in his stomach.

"Chongqing hot pot." Ivan said, "numb, spicy and very fragrant. The red soup is rolling, and the kind you eat with a dish of oil."

In the kitchen, Daniel started making boiled pork slices.

Cut the pork tenderloin into thin slices, add egg white, starch, monosodium glutamate, and two teaspoons of cooking wine, mix well and marinate.

Add rapeseed oil and ingredients to enhance the fragrance. After the ingredients are taken out of the pot, add the top-quality Pixian Douban and sauté until fragrant. Pour in Chinese prickly ash and dried chili and fry until golden and crisp, then add the broth.

After the bottom of the pot is boiled, add the marinated tenderloin slices, roll the soup for a while, and pour the soup into the porcelain pot with bean sprouts when the meat slices are the most tender.

The scent had already spread to the outside room, Ivan swallowed his saliva, took the Mobai washed bowl and put it in front of him, and started to eat the prepared dishes as soon as they were on the table.

Mo Bai squinted his deep amber eyes, "How do I choose ingredients for Chongqing hot pot?"

Ivan also narrowed his narrow, sharp black eyes, knowing that Mo Bai was preparing to test him.

After pondering for a while, "Chongqing hot pot is famous for its rich flavor and heavy oil. The ingredients should be spicy and delicious. You should choose Pixian Spicy Douban, Yongchuan Douchi, Ganzi Butter, and Hanyuan Pepper."

"The main ingredients of the hot pot?" Mo Bai asked again.

A disdainful smile appeared on the corner of Ivan's mouth. This question is so simple that even a person who often eats hot pot can answer it.

"Mad belly, yellow throat, duck intestines, blood flourishing, dry tribute dishes..." Ivan chose a few must-eat classic ingredients and announced the name of the dish.

"How to make dried tribute dishes?" Mo Bai asked.

Ivan raised his eyebrows, thinking, waiting for me here.

"After the tribute vegetables are ripe in autumn, the stalks of the tribute vegetables are picked, peeled off the outer skin, split into strips, and dried in the sun."

Mo Bai smiled, picked up the tea on the table and took a sip.

"How?" Ivan raised his eyebrows, "Master, I grew up eating hot pot."

Mo Bai followed his example and sighed, "If you didn't tell me, I thought you grew up proud of yourself."

Da Niu spread the chopped dried chili powder and Chinese prickly ash on the boiled pork slices in a thick layer, and poured the hot oil, the numbness of the prickly ash, the pungentness of the pepper, and the strong aroma of the pork slices rushed out.

When the two dishes were served, Ivan sniffed, stretched out his chopsticks to pick up a piece of tenderloin, stuffed it into his mouth, and sighed contentedly.

The dishes were all served, but Daniel was not in a hurry to leave, he leaned on the side of the table and said, "The two brothers are planning to open a hot pot restaurant?"

Mo Bai smiled and nodded to him.

"Where is it?"

Ivan's mouth was hot and fresh, and he took two deep breaths to relieve the irritation in his mouth. He raised his hand and pointed backwards, "The one at the innermost one on the second floor, the one at the Peace Breakfast Shop."

"Oh?" Daniel was a little surprised, why did he choose such a position?But on the surface, he remained calm, and said with a smile, "We will be neighbors from now on, so this is my treat."

"No, no, no." Ivan waved his hands again and again, but was choked by the pepper, and coughed repeatedly.

Mo Bai hurriedly poured a cup of tea and handed it to him, then patted his back lightly, and said to Daniel with a smile, "Thank you so much, I'll invite you to the store for a light meal some other day."

"Okay." Daniel likes to make friends, and hearing Mo Bai say this, he is also very happy.

Hired two housekeepers to work for a day, and cleaned up the inside and outside of the hot pot restaurant.

The original kitchen equipment is basically usable, and the 5 sets of tables and chairs left behind are all made of old elm wood. After Mobai checked carefully, they are all made of 槜拉 workmanship, which is very strong.

Ivan clamored to change the hot pot tables, which were both beautiful and convenient, while Mo Bai was thinking about how to use these old tables every day.

The signboard was written by Mo Bai himself. The tall and handsome regular script, the regular script is a bone, and the behavior is solid. Even the woodcarver even praised it. It's been a long time since I saw such a good character.

The two leaned side by side on the wooden railing, looking up to watch the master worker hang up the plaque carved from solid wood.

Peaceful hot pot.

"We have our own store," Ivan said.

"Yeah." Mo Bai nodded, "It's called Peace Hot Pot."