Chapter 62: Carrot Bunny p2
Mi Hongdou, who had just synchronized the cooking times of the different dishes, glanced at the carrot in the thin chef’s hand, which was starting to resemble a bunny, then at Ji Junxin, who had abandoned the radishes and was now captivated by the carving. Mi Hongdou walked over to the counter, picked up one of the small radishes Ji Junxin had been playing with, washed it, and took a bite. Crispy, juicy, with a radish fragrance and a hint of sweetness, not spicy or numbing, a good radish.
Did he think he could steal her idol’s attention with a carved bunny? Mi Hongdou glanced at the carrot, which was now starting to resemble a bunny head, quickly gathered the radishes, washed them, blanched them in cold boiled water, trimmed the ends, smashed them slightly, and then tossed them in a sauce made of sugar, vinegar, MSG, and sesame oil. The refreshing, sour and sweet aroma of the radish salad cut through the rich smell of stewing meat and reached Ji Junxin.
Ji Junxin was fascinated by the thin chef’s skillful carving of a carrot into a bunny. She was admiring the little squatting bunny when a suddenly appearing aroma, seemingly delicious and appetizing, made her stomach rumble. The little foodie sniffed the air and her attention shifted. She instinctively looked at Mi Hongdou, her gaze landing on the small glass bowl in her hand.
Those small, round, slightly flattened, red things looked familiar. Ji Junxin, holding the carrot bunny, walked over to Mi Hongdou and was then fed something from the bowl.
So sour… Ji Junxin’s eyes widened, tears almost welling up from the sourness. But soon, after getting used to the sourness, she tasted the sweetness. She now saw clearly that the small glass bowl contained the radishes she had been playing with earlier.
So it was pickled radish?
Encouraged by Mi Hongdou’s gaze, Ji Junxin chewed the radish, despite the sourness, and as she chewed, her eyes gradually brightened, finally turning into the standard starry-eyed look of a foodie encountering delicious food!
The sweet, sour, savory, and fragrant sauce, hidden in the cracks of the slightly smashed radish, mixed with the radish juice, creating a wonderful combination. The sweet and sour radish flavor rolled from the tip of her tongue to her stomach, completely captivating her. After swallowing one, Ji Junxin stared at the chopsticks in Mi Hongdou’s hand and opened her mouth slightly.
Mi Hongdou fed her another one, then took the bowl away. “These radishes are too sour, you can’t eat too many. They’ll make your teeth sore, and then you won’t be able to chew the other dishes.”
Ji Junxin understood, but they were so delicious… She had only eaten pickled radish slices before, never this kind of pickled whole radish. Although very sour at first, it was incredibly delicious! Ji Junxin looked at the glass bowl longingly…
Why did she look so pitiful again? Mi Hongdou couldn’t help but break her word and feed Ji Junxin another one. “This is really the last one.” She said firmly.
Ji Junxin, her eyes watering from the sourness, smiled at Mi Hongdou. Clearly, Mi Hongdou had broken her word too many times to be trusted.
Tsk, this girl. This pitiful, kitten-like expression, she had no resistance to it. It seemed she couldn’t have a cat in the future, or she would end up giving it all the human food on the table just because it looked at her pitifully. Where were her principles? Oh, right, they had probably been eaten by the little foodie…
Ji Junxin, happily eating the pickled radishes, didn’t understand Mi Hongdou’s internal struggle between principles and affection. The pickled radishes were so delicious, they reminded her of a kind of candy she ate when she was young, sweet fruit candy coated in incredibly sour powder. You had to endure the sourness before reaching the sweetness inside. Just like these radishes, after the initial sourness, came the deliciousness. Even with restrictions, the desire to overcome them and eat more was a sign of true deliciousness!
Although she had eaten three pickled radishes, Ji Junxin still held the carrot bunny in her hand.
Where was the foodie who only cared about eating? The foodie who could be easily swayed by food? Mi Hongdou glanced at the carrot bunny in Ji Junxin’s hand and turned away.
She took a small knife, chose the thickest carrot, weighed it in her hand, found the right angle, and started carving.
Mi Hongdou worked quickly. Ji Junxin, still focused on the pickled radishes, thought she was just preparing ingredients. But the thin chef, who had been observing them, knew what Mi Hongdou was doing.
At first, he had looked down on Mi Hongdou. She looked so young, still like a student, how could she be a good cook? As long as she didn’t burn the food, it would be fine.
But after going out to kill the chickens and returning, the aroma in the kitchen… made him realize he had misjudged her. Putting aside the final taste, just the smell was on par with the restaurant’s chefs.
Of course, it was just a fleeting thought. He just acknowledged that she could cook, but he wouldn’t apologize for his earlier attitude.
Now, seeing the gradually forming shape in Mi Hongdou’s hand, he could guess what she was carving. But her speed was much faster than his. Could it be? … He unconsciously moved closer to Mi Hongdou.
By the time he shuffled over, the shape in Mi Hongdou’s hand was clearly discernible. She was also carving a carrot bunny.
Unlike his squatting bunny, Mi Hongdou was carving a small bunny lying on a large carrot.
Her knife skills were similar to his, just faster. He was thinking this when Mi Hongdou switched to a smaller knife, making a few cuts and pokes, and the lying bunny suddenly looked different.
It seemed… like a lazy, sleepy bunny? The thin chef rubbed his eyes. How could he discern laziness and sleepiness from a carved carrot bunny? Was he going crazy!
Whether he was willing to admit it or not, Mi Hongdou’s carrot bunny… was much cuter than his.
So, Ji Junxin now had two bunnies. Without the small radishes, she could still play with these while Mi Hongdou cooked, to pass the time.
Although slightly dissatisfied that Ji Junxin hadn’t discarded the other, uglier bunny, well… her idol was just that kind, there was nothing she could do. After secretly observing Ji Junxin for a while, confirming that she touched her bunny more often than the other one, Mi Hongdou continued cooking, feeling satisfied.
Just as she started the stove, preparing to make the silver carp and tofu soup, the thin chef shuffled over.
“Hey, little girl, how many years have you practiced your knife skills?” he asked curiously.
Are we close? Mi Hongdou glanced at him. Okay, since they were in the same organization, she wouldn’t hold his earlier behavior against him. She calculated that she had started practicing carrot carving after becoming food buddies with Ji Junxin in her previous life. It was to master different animal shapes… because at that time, Ji Junxin was obsessed with animal-shaped steamed buns and dumplings. To impress Ji Junxin, Mi Hongdou had spent more than three years carving countless radishes, finally mastering various cute animal shapes for buns and dumplings. Then she spent even more time studying the deformation that occurred during steaming. By the time she mastered the art of making animal-shaped buns and dumplings, it was just two or three months before her accident. At that time, Ji Junxin’s obsession with animal-shaped food had already passed, but Mi Hongdou thought, what if one day, she became obsessed again? So, she continued practicing, developing exceptional skills in making animal-shaped snacks and carving animals.
“About four years.” Mi Hongdou calculated. If she didn’t count her rebirth, haha, it would be negative six years…
Four years… The thin chef looked at the bunny he had carved after eight years of practice, sitting next to Ji Junxin, and his heart sank.
“No wonder… she didn’t choose us…” he mumbled dejectedly, then looked at Mi Hongdou sincerely. “This kitchen, I’ll leave it to you!”
Mi Hongdou, who was about to pour the tofu into the pot, almost dropped the plate.
“Did you misunderstand something?” Mi Hongdou steadied the plate, carefully slid the tofu into the pot, and then turned to the thin chef. “I’m just here to cook a meal today.”
The thin chef was stunned: “Aren’t you the new head chef sent by the new boss?”
“Of course not!” Mi Hongdou’s face was full of black lines. “I’m just borrowing the kitchen. Who told you that?” Where did she even look like a kitchen manager?
“Uh… Boss Jiang. She said a very, very skilled chef, who makes very, very delicious food, would be coming today, and she told everyone in the kitchen to take a break, except for me and him…” The thin chef pointed at himself, then at the chubby chef still sulking in the corner. “She asked us to assist the newcomer. You know, we’re the best chefs in this restaurant. Which means, no one here is better than us, do you understand?”
Mi Hongdou nodded. She finally understood who made those signature dishes recommended by the waiter when she and Ji Junxin came here for dinner.
The thin chef, thinking that Mi Hongdou’s nod meant she understood, continued complaining, “It’s unbelievable. Our restaurant doesn’t serve breakfast. As one of the two head chefs, I usually start work around ten. But today, before eight, I received a call from the old boss, saying that he had sold the restaurant. He didn’t even give us any warning the night before. So I asked him when he decided to sell it, and he said, someone came to see him twenty minutes ago, and he sold the restaurant fifteen minutes ago. Can you imagine how I felt?”
Mi Hongdou gently stirred the tofu in the pot. She could kind of understand how he felt.
Perhaps he just needed someone to listen. Mi Hongdou didn’t comment, but the thin chef continued excitedly, “He sold the restaurant, fine. He even said he was helpless and explained that he never intended to sell it. He said, someone contacted him, wanting to rent the restaurant. He thought, isn’t that just booking the whole place? No problem, as long as they pay. So he agreed. But then, as they talked, he realized something was off. The person wanted to rent the kitchen too. You know, the kitchen is the heart of a restaurant, how can you just rent it out? What if the person was a competitor, or had ulterior motives, tampering with the food? If something happened, it would be a huge mess. He said as soon as he heard they wanted to rent the kitchen, he refused, saying he wouldn’t even rent out the dining area, the kitchen was definitely off-limits. But you know what happened next?” He paused dramatically.
Was he telling a story? And expecting audience participation? …
“What happened?” Mi Hongdou asked as she added the silver carp to the pot. This story sounded familiar.
“Hey, aren’t you smart? Didn’t I just tell you, he sold the restaurant? Guess why he sold it?” The thin chef looked smug, as if he had just outwitted Mi Hongdou.
“You’re the stupid one! Why else would he sell it, not for money, but for you?” Mi Hongdou, inexplicably called stupid, started adding seasonings to the pot.
“Hey, smart. But it wasn’t just because of the money. After all, this was his life’s work.” The thin chef didn’t seem to mind being insulted by Mi Hongdou and continued enthusiastically, “I don’t know whether to call him unlucky or lucky. He built this restaurant from a small stall. If it weren’t for Shudian Film City being built nearby, he would probably still be running a small family business. But now that it’s successful, when he was hoping to pass it down through generations, hehe, someone came to buy it. His dream of a family legacy was shattered, that’s his bad luck. But he was also lucky, the person wanted to buy it, he refused, they negotiated, the person increased the offer, they negotiated again, the offer increased again… at first, he really didn’t want to sell, but the offer kept increasing until he felt bad for the buyer. He didn’t tell me the final price, but judging by his tone, he was almost scared by the amount…”
Mi Hongdou, who had been mostly focused on the soup and only half-listening to the thin chef’s story, suddenly noticed something. “Wait, what did you say your new boss’s surname was?” She hadn’t been paying close attention, only catching a few keywords like “selling the restaurant.”
“Jiang.” The thin chef looked displeased. “Why weren’t you listening to my story?”
“I was listening… I was… so you’re saying, a Boss Jiang wanted to rent your boss’s restaurant, your boss refused, and then she bought it?” Mi Hongdou pieced together the information she had heard.
“Yes, you were listening.” The thin chef nodded.
Oh my god… Mi Hongdou was stunned. She should have realized it was Jiang Lingling who rented, then bought, the restaurant. How did she only figure it out now? … It seemed her IQ had indeed been consumed by the little foodie.
But Jiang Lingling, you’re so rich, does your godfather really know?
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