Chapter 898: Chapter 382: Xie Baomin: First Restaurant Exploration, Gotta Pick a Heavyweight! Making Bump Soup! [Please Subscribe]_3

Chen Yan took a big bite of the Silver Threads Bun, then said:

"If you think that’s too little, then make it twenty percent. Anyway, you have to be a shareholder of the company, otherwise I don’t feel secure."

Even though it was impossible for Lin Xu to get poached, she still had to guard against that kind of thing.

Lin Xu hadn’t expected that, all muddled like this, he’d actually become a shareholder of Joyful Media, so he said:

"That works, but don’t give the shares to me, give them to Dundun Catering Company. Sister Jing, later on you can work with Sister Yan to get the paperwork sorted."

He wasn’t short of money right now; any dividends later would also end up going into company operations. It was better to make it a company-to-company thing from the start, and it would also deepen the cooperation between the two companies.

Dou Wenjing didn’t have any objections to this:

"Alright, then I’ll coordinate with President Chen later to get the paperwork done."

After saying that, Lin Xu checked the time and asked curiously:

"What do you want for dinner? I can start now."

Shen Baobao thought for a moment and said:

"Bump Soup then. Since we just had this old-school snack, let’s also try the Bump Soup my grandma used to make all the time when I was a kid."

Bump Soup?

That worked too. He hadn’t had Bump Soup in a long time; he could make some today to satisfy the craving.

Lin Xu nodded and said:

"Sure, no problem!"

Bump Soup is relatively easy to make: you just make some little dough bumps and cook them in the pot; once they’re cooked through with no hard core, you season them and you’re done. The side ingredients are pretty casual, and the flavor profile is totally up to you.

Garlic fragrance, sour and savory, sour and spicy, salty and aromatic, salty and slightly sweet, and so on.

As long as you’re willing, you can play it however you like.

Lin Xu went into the main kitchen and, following the principle of "high-gluten flour for boiling, medium-gluten for steaming, low-gluten for frying," he put some high-gluten flour into a bowl and added a pinch of salt.

The best part of Bump Soup is the chewy, bouncy dough bumps.

Paired with the broth, chewing them down bite by bite is especially satisfying.

Back in the day, Beijing folks, in their pursuit of that elastic texture, even invented a dish called stir-fried bumps: you first boil the dough bumps until they’re just cooked, then stir-fry them in a wok. They come out savory, fragrant, and wonderfully chewy.

Unfortunately, as living standards improved, stir-fried bumps turned into a super niche snack.

Anyone who isn’t of a certain age mostly has no idea it even exists.

He added water into the flour and used chopsticks to stir it into little flour clumps.

You have to add the water in small amounts over multiple additions so the clumps stay tiny and fine, and the bumps you end up mixing will be relatively uniform.

Once less than one-third of the flour in the bowl remained dry, he stopped adding water. Now he needed to rub the clumps with his hands in the bowl, turning them into individual dough bumps.

This step is crucial for making Bump Soup.

You can’t use too much force when rubbing, or the clumps will break apart; but your touch can’t be too light either, or the dough bumps will be hollow inside and have no bite.

You have to apply a bit of pressure while rubbing, and once they form, you still need to break apart the larger pieces, trying to keep each bump about the size of a peanut. That way, the texture is just right.

After the dough bumps took shape, he lifted the bowl and gave it a few shakes to bring the dry flour from the bottom up, then continued rubbing.

This way, the dry flour coats the bumps evenly, and the finished dough bumps will taste better.

If you want an even better texture, you can use a big colander to sift out the flour and smaller dough particles, then add cornstarch and rub those together.

Bumps made this way will be very smooth and slippery, and tastier than ones made with just flour.

But this wasn’t for a restaurant to sell; it was just for themselves, so there was no need to be that fussy.

And with Bump Soup, if you make it too refined and overworked, you actually lose the essence of this homestyle dish.

After finishing the dough bumps, Lin Xu asked Che Zai to shell some Shrimp, while he himself took some peeled tomatoes and cut them into small cubes.

When the Tomato cubes were ready, he added Shrimp oil rendered from Shrimp shells into the wok.

He heated it up, poured in the Tomato cubes, added salt, and then slowly stewed them over low heat, frying out all the Tomato juices.

Today Lin Xu was making Tomato Shrimp Bump Soup, and he’d toss in a handful of tender Spinach right before serving. A simple, easy dinner would be done just like that.

While he was busy in the kitchen, Xie Baomin, who’d been stuck in traffic on the way for ages, finally turned his car into the parking lot of the Yanjing Hotel.

His first-ever restaurant review was officially starting!

After parking, he headed into the Yanjing Hotel with Little Jia in tow, striding quickly.

"Which dining room did you book?"

"The Chinese Etiquette Hall. Six dishes, all signature ones."

"Alright, let’s go then."

They arrived at the restaurant. It was still empty at this hour. After Little Jia showed the reservation, a server led the two of them to a table by the window.

"Shall we start serving the dishes now?"

"Go ahead!"

Xie Baomin didn’t even ask which dishes Little Jia had ordered; whatever came out, he’d just eat.

Maybe because there weren’t many guests, the dishes came out pretty fast.

The first dish was soy-braised beef.

Looking at the few small slices of beef in the middle of a one-and-a-half-foot plate, Xie Baomin laughed and said:

"When you come to a place like this, forget about cost performance. There’s not a lot of beef, but the color looks good, and they used beef shank. Even though it’s a braised dish, you can smell the fragrance when you get close. Clearly, they put in some work."

He picked up a slice, sniffed it, then took a bite:

"The meat’s good. The aroma of the braising spices really sets off the fragrance of the beef. Good seasonings should support the meat; bad ones just smother it. This meat is quite good."

Little Jia said:

"Teacher Xie, if you praise it like that, the fans will think they paid you."

Xie Baomin chuckled:

"If it tastes good, of course I have to praise it. When we run into bad dishes, we can’t go against our conscience and say they’re good; but when we run into good ones, we can’t go against our conscience and say they’re bad either..."

Just then, the server brought over a plate of braised Liaoning sea cucumber.

Old Xie took one look at the plating and immediately grinned:

"Didn’t you say you wanted a bad review? Here it is."

Little Jia froze for a second, then quickly pointed the camera at the dish for a close-up.

The sea cucumber was quite large, looking plump in the thick golden sauce. He couldn’t see what the problem was.

"I think it looks fine."

Smiling, Xie Baomin studied it for a couple of seconds, leaned in and sniffed, then said:

"The sea cucumber hasn’t been handled properly, and the braising time is a bit short. The skin of the sea cucumber is separated from the sauce. I’d guess they just blanched the sea cucumber, poured the sauce over it, and sent it out."

He picked up a piece and tasted it:

"Just as I thought. The sea cucumber hasn’t been prepped well; it’s got a fishy smell, and the flavor of the sauce hasn’t penetrated at all. The Yanjing Hotel is supposed to be among the top tier in Chinese cuisine; I didn’t expect them to make this kind of mistake. This really shouldn’t happen."

Little Jia added:

"So is it that the chef isn’t good enough?"

"At this hour, the cooking’s probably done by an apprentice. But you’re the Yanjing Hotel; even your apprentice can’t be serving things like this. People are paying one or two thousand per head just to eat this?"

While the two of them chattered away and recorded, the server quietly went to inform the floor manager.

A man in a suit came over and asked with a smile:

"Hello sir, are you dissatisfied with the dish?"

Xie Baomin nodded:

"Very dissatisfied. This sea cucumber is done terribly."

The manager still tried to save face:

"We use top-grade Liaoning sea cucumber here, and the sauce is made with export-grade Jinhua Ham and old hen stock..."

Before he could finish, Xie Baomin cut him off:

"Your method is wrong from the start. First of all, the sea cucumber wasn’t handled properly..."

The guy really had time to kill; he rattled off the proper method for braised Liaoning sea cucumber from start to finish, then said:

"Even if you’re cutting corners, you can’t cut them like this, right?"

The manager opened his mouth and asked:

"May I ask if you work in this industry?"

Xie Baomin waved his hand:

"I used to do odd jobs in a restaurant, so I know a little bit."

Just then, the third dish, Jade Shrimp, was brought over.

When he saw this dish, Old Xie smiled.

Because he saw that there was actually a hair on the plate...

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The restaurant-review content isn’t something I randomly made up; I pulled it from bad reviews on Dianping. Saying this up front so people who have feelings for the Beijing Hotel don’t come scold me. This Chapter is 5,500 words, asking for a Monthly Ticket!