Gourmet: Midnight Vending-Chapter 402 - 362: Mu Mu: Hello Auntie, I Am...

Jingzhou Banquet, eight cold dishes, ten hot dishes, four main courses, one soup, and one dessert.

While Chen Mo was driving, he summed up the common scene at a Jingzhou banquet, even when ordering in a restaurant.

The difference in price only affects the variety of dishes, but never reduces the number of dishes.

When guests are seated, there are already eight cold dishes on the table, with both meat and vegetables.

After the banquet ceremony ends, the waitstaff distributes utensils, and then the hot dishes begin to be served.

Various hot dishes follow one after another, often before one is finished, the next is already served. Some restaurant tables aren’t big enough, often dishes are stacked on top of each other, leaving the ones below untouched.

Once everyone has nearly finished eating, the main courses are served.

Jingzhou is a province known for its noodles, having fewer main courses would be laughed at, so it starts with four different main courses.

Dumplings must be there, and shumai as well, it’s basic etiquette.

Fried yellow rice cakes are a must, symbolizing continuous elevation. For the last main course, some restaurants serve steamed buns, to ensure guests don’t leave hungry.

Other restaurants serve steamed sponge cakes or cornbread, focusing on novelty.

All sorts and each different.

The last course is soup, with turtle soup being the mainstream choice, less prestigious banquets serve egg drop soup or chicken soup.

The choice of dessert differs from how it’s understood in the South; Jingzhou dessert is also a pastry, mostly made with a variety of coarse grains.

"Hoo..."

Chen Mo glanced sideways, and at some point, Mu Mu had fallen asleep, he looked straight ahead again, feeling a bit sentimental.

On normal occasions, when attending a banquet, it doesn’t feel like anything special, sometimes it even felt like the dish was gone before it was eaten?

But when looking from an organizer’s perspective, you realize these dishes are quite numerous, without a point of reference, it’s hard to think up this many dishes just by memory.

Chen Mo glanced again at Mu Mu, only to see the little girl sleeping soundly.

He decisively activated the smart driving teleportation function!

As long as there was a spot without cars or cameras, they would instantly teleport there, although it couldn’t reach teleportation speed, at least it was faster.

Midway, Mu Mu woke up once, feeling very uncomfortable sleeping.

So Chen Mo found a service area and arranged for Mu Mu to sleep in the back of the RV, covered her with a blanket, and turned on the air conditioning to continue her sleep.

Some people are just like that... once they get in a vehicle, they become sleepy.

The original journey of over ten hours took six hours under the food truck’s teleportation before reaching the outskirts of Jingzhou, looking at the bridge in front of him, Chen Mo felt wistful.

"Clearly home is so close, yet I always say I don’t have time to go back, sigh."

Chen Mo’s hometown is called Jiuniu Pass, and it’s about 7 kilometers from Jingzhou as the crow flies.

But... between these seven kilometers, there is a Jiuniu River!

This river flows from north to south, separating Jiuniu Pass from Jingzhou. In ancient times, the villagers built a bridge with nine piers, all in the shape of oxen, which is how the village got its name, Jiuniu Pass.

Later during wartime, the enemy army used this bridge to transport supplies and established Jiuniu Pass as their base, a brave villager blew up the bridge at night.

After liberation, the bridge remained broken, villagers had to take the mountain road to get to Jingzhou, changing the original few kilometers journey into over two hundred kilometers, and it’s still a mountain road.

Driving a tractor, it took more than half a day.

When Chen Mo was in high school, he had to go from the village to Jingzhou. He often lazily packed his clothes in a bag and swam across, back then the river was crystal clear.

Upon reaching the other side, he occasionally caught a few small fish.

After graduating high school, Jingzhou started large-scale real estate development, and a lot of sand from the river was dug out. With a power station built upstream, the river became dirty and smelly, and after a few children drowned, no one dared to play there anymore.

Originally, according to plans, the bridge was not to be rebuilt, since Jiuniu Pass is just a small village. The money to build a bridge could be used for relocation.

Later, with the rise of e-commerce, Jiuniu Pass’s tens of thousands of mu of mountain fields were all planted with northern agricultural products like oats and mustard, to facilitate transportation this bridge was rebuilt.

The food truck crossed Nine Oxen Bridge, and Chen Mo suddenly felt a pang of homesickness.

In the past, he always thought being close to home meant he could return anytime he wanted. But after working for a year, he barely managed to return a few times.

Now, although he travels far and wide, it’s convenient to return home, but he never thought of going back to have a look.

At this time, it was just evening, and after crossing Nine Oxen Bridge for about ten minutes, the scenery gradually became familiar.

A paved main road serves as the "main street" of this small village, unlike most villages, Jiuniu Pass doesn’t have rows of adjacent houses and lacks traditional "alleyways."

Every household has a large courtyard, some of the more well-off have rebuilt houses, red brick houses look very grand.

Some less well-off still have old tiled roofs or adobe houses, looking somewhat dilapidated.

At this time, smoke rises from every household’s chimney, it’s dinner time, and there aren’t many people on the street.

Chen Mo parked in front of his family’s courtyard gate.

When he first started working, Chen Mo’s biggest wish was to renovate his family home, so all the money he earned during that time was spent on the house and the courtyard.

Six red brick rooms topped with glazed tiles, the facade covered in white ceramic tiles.

The courtyard of a few thousand square meters is entirely paved with cement, and surrounded by red brick walls to form a square courtyard, with a five-meter wide red lacquered gate giving a grand appearance!