THE GAME OF LIFE

Chapter 731: Chapter 730: Modify the Menu

Sun Maochai was right; Jiang Feng indeed needed to adjust his mindset.

Jiang Feng understood the logic, but he felt it would be difficult for him to quickly adapt to being someone who, thanks to a successful “cheat code,” finally got the leading man’s script he deserved. After all, although he had been “cheating” for years, he had also been crashing for just as long. He was used to bustling about the kitchen like an ordinary chef working 996, doing a little bit of everything; despite being called a small business owner, he never enjoyed the perks of one. Then suddenly, one day, everyone tells you to stop, you’ve been promoted—you’ve upgraded from 996 to being a major shareholder, and now you just need to come in, punch the clock, and rest; leave the rest of the work to the staff, the other shareholders can work too.

Such a dramatic change…

Thinking about it was actually quite thrilling.

The first thing Jiang Feng had to do was revise the menu.

His menu was too cluttered.

From high-difficulty dishes like Chicken Bean Flower and Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon to common home-cooked dishes like Stir-fried Three Fresh Ingredients, Stir-fried Bean Sprouts, Chili Stir-fried Meat, and Tomato Scrambled Eggs that could be found in any ordinary eatery—from Shandong cuisine to Cantonese, Hunan, Sichuan, Hangzhou-style, and local dishes, he had it all; it was both diverse and chaotic. Many dishes weren’t frequently ordered by customers; they were just listed for namesake. These dishes were usually simple and convenient, not cheap, but customers who ordered them just had to stir-fry for a few minutes, no loss.

That was before.

Now it’s different. Even if we put aside the consideration of Jiang Feng’s current worth, even daunting dishes like pure meat wontons, which apart from art students terrified everyone else, would now become sought after by new patrons. Just yesterday, Jiang Feng saw a comment from a newbie praising the meat wontons as being truly as bad as their reputation suggested, so terrible they cried, yet they left a five-star review, a bewildering act of human behavior.

Over the past few days, all the limited buff dishes had been selling out as soon as lunchtime began. Some buffs were discovered by patrons, some not. For example, the continuously average-selling Marriage Meal, even with the addition of sweet water-glutinous rice lotus root—a potent weapon—it would still rely on fate to succeed. After all, there are people like Zheng Siyuan in the world who, despite stacking buffs high over their head, it was to no avail; they would still go back to making desserts.

Following Sun Maochai’s advice, Jiang Feng drastically trimmed down his menu. Sun Maochai felt Jiang Feng’s daily limited dishes were very good, representing his unique style, and even the previously unpopular ones could remain on the menu. As for the other dishes, like the home-style ones like minced meat with eggplant that used to be sold at Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant, Sun Maochai suggested that Jiang Feng could still make them, but not every day.

Limit the number.

For example, sell Stir-fried Three Fresh Ingredients on the 1st and 16th of the month, Chili Stir-fried Meat on the 2nd and 19th, and Minced Meat with Eggplant on the 3rd and 11th. If Jiang Feng felt this wasn’t satisfying enough, he could choose one or two days a month to sell everything, just like the old days, but those days would likely be incredibly busy.

Jiang Feng said there was no need; he didn’t even eat braised pork anymore, and his proficiency with common home-cooked dishes was not nearly as high as with challenging dishes like Eight Treasures Chestnut Fragrant Pigeon and Ten Thousand Fortune Meat. With such a low cost-performance ratio, it was better not to make them at all.

It took almost two and a half hours, but Sun Maochai helped Jiang Feng create a menu that finally looked like it belonged to a head chef. Sun Maochai also mentioned that the menu could be adjusted and changed at any time based on seasonal and mood changes, and that appropriate changes to the menu were one of the ways to maintain good business in a restaurant.

After revising the menu, Jiang Feng had a much more relaxed evening and finally returned to a normal workload.

The customers didn’t have much of a reaction and weren’t upset just because Jiang Feng stopped selling Stir-fried Three Fresh Ingredients and Tomato Scrambled Eggs. It’s not as if Taifeng Building was no longer selling them; those who really wanted to eat could choose Jiang Jiankang’s, which were quite a bit cheaper than Jiang Feng’s.

Most of the customers who came following the trend only wanted to eat Jiang Feng’s dishes that went viral. The focus was on Jiang Feng, not any specific dish. Of course, there were also many people who wanted to try Chicken Bean Flower, since it had gone viral with Jiang Feng. However, most retreated after seeing the price, and the few who weren’t scared off by the price had to withdraw as well, because they needed to make a reservation in advance and all slots for the week had been filled.

Modifying the menu could be completed in just a few hours, but changing one’s mindset wasn’t something that could be done in that time.

For the next few days, Jiang Feng continued as before, arriving at the kitchen with Wu Minqi after eight in the morning to prepare ingredients for clear soups and stock. If there was enough time, he would handle the cutting and preparation himself. He still couldn’t quite manage to calmly direct others while giving occasional guidance as Sir and the others did, leaving only the final steps to himself.

This requires a process.

Jiang Feng felt that he would probably have a hard time adjusting to this process in the short term.

What Jiang Feng didn’t know was that, because of Xu Cheng’s lengthy blog post, his chicken soybean flower had become divine in the foodie circle.

Xu Cheng hadn’t spent so much effort describing a dish in many years, and such high praise, especially coming from an overtime work by Xu Cheng, had a predictable effect. Some older retired foodies, with time and money on their hands and who often didn’t surf the internet or read blogs, had still heard about this dish. In particular, after hearing some of their friends who were prone to showing off talking about the dish, they became especially eager to try it.

Many of them, not being from Beiping and living elsewhere, asked their younger family members to help make reservations, planning to visit Beiping just to enjoy that meal once they secured a spot. In their eyes, it was worth spending a whole day traveling to Beiping just for a dish highly recommended by Xu Cheng.

Then, those busy younger relatives, who had inherited the family businesses, delegated the task to their assistants.

Unfortunately, not every domineering CEO had an assistant that even Xu Cheng would envy, as Mr. Han did.

The majority of assistants were unable to make a reservation.

The bosses: ???

We can’t even make a reservation for a dish???

After much difficulty, those who managed to get a reservation and arrived at Taifeng Building discovered that most of the popular dishes weren’t available for reservation and had to be fought for; snatching dishes at noon was even harder than making a reservation, as a second’s hesitation meant missing out—harder to snatch than the special deals on Singles’ Day.

After such incidents occurred frequently, Taifeng Building developed a rather unique reputation among foodies from outside the area.

Infamous for being hard to book and even harder to snatch dishes from.

The divine restaurant.

Of course, that’s another story.

While Taifeng Building was packed every day and Jiang Feng was trying hard to adapt to being a real mogul, where his every gesture and action hinted at his status, Jiang Junqing and Jiang Junlian, the two sisters, finally ended their long and painful summer of remedial classes. They joyfully headed towards Beiping, like little pigs running towards the feed trough at mealtime.

On August 11 at noon, Jiang Junqing, Jiang Junlian, and Aunt arrived in Beiping.

Jiang Feng was still the one to pick them up.

It wasn’t because Aunt and the twins had any sort of rank; it was just because Jiang Feng had a day off and had nothing better to do, so he might as well pick them up. The two sisters brought a total of five suitcases between them, plus Aunt’s one, making six suitcases in total. Without someone to lend a hand, it would indeed be difficult to bring them back.

Source: .com, updated on N𝘰vgo.co

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