Su Chen remembered this location very clearly.
Back when he was a food vlogger, his team never even bothered visiting the Eight Great Mansions for their Capital City series.
For one, the Eight Great Mansions had already been done to death by countless vloggers, like the more famous Master Tang and Master Sui.
And for another, their budget was tight...
Back then, Su Chen’s team had taken a different approach, producing a special episode titled "The Hidden Life in the Streets and Alleys." This was the very spot Su Chen had discovered one night while wandering the streets, hungry.
"Miss, seven orders of Fried Dough Drops, please."
"Huh? Seven orders?" The middle-aged woman looked a little surprised, but then she picked up her wok. "Please wait a moment!"
"Boss Su is really..." Shang Mingke stood on the curb, chuckling softly as he watched the traffic on the overpass. "One of a kind."
There wasn’t even a small stool to sit on at a place like this.
And if you were eating this kind of food, it probably didn’t even have a business license.
For Shang Mingke, it was certainly a novel experience.
"Should we wait in the car? The owner here is a bit slow."
"Good idea."
The group returned to the car. Through the window, they watched the woman begin to cook. What made them curious was that only after Su Chen and the others placed their order did the woman scoop flour out of a bag in the back of her tricycle and start kneading the dough.
"No wonder you said she’d be slow. If she only starts kneading after a customer orders, there’s no way it can be fast."
Su Chen nodded. "That’s right."
The woman kneaded the flour and water into a ball, cut it into slices, then into strips. She rolled the long strips into cylinders about two centimeters in diameter before finally pinching off the round dough drops.
Every step looked simple and unadorned, and every step was unhurried.
...
"They... they didn’t take a single bite of the food!"
Cuihua Building.
After a waiter told Wang Peixing that the guests had already left, he immediately rushed up to the private room where Shang Mingke had been.
Wang Peixing rarely acted this way with other customers. After all, Cuihua Building served mostly tourists, and most of the time, it was a one-off transaction.
The Capital City was never short on tourists!
But Shang Mingke was different. The attitude of a business partner like him was very important. When he arrived at the private room and saw a table full of virtually untouched dishes, Wang Peixing was dumbfounded.
"Even if it was terrible, they wouldn’t just leave without a single bite, would they?"
Several dishes were in the exact same state as when they’d been brought out from the kitchen.
For a master chef, this was nothing short of an insult!
Wang Peixing tasted a bite of the Stir-fried Pork Kidney and Tripe. This was a dish he took great pride in; looking across the entire Capital City, there was absolutely no one who could make it better than him!
Forget the Capital City—across the whole country, he feared only Master Li from the Cuihua Building in Lu Province could do it better. After all, this dish was all about pure heat control.
He took a small bite of the pork tripe. Although the dish had cooled down and the texture was much inferior to when it first came out of the wok, the flavor was still spot on.
"That’s not right. There’s nothing wrong with the food..."
Wang Peixing tasted every dish one by one, and the more he ate, the more confused he became.
Even the few dishes prepared by his disciples were flawless. Because these were distinguished guests, Wang Peixing had given special instructions, so the dishes were made to a much higher standard than for ordinary customers.
"What on earth happened..."
After leaving the private room, Wang Peixing’s mind was a complete mess. After thinking it over for a long time, he decided to ask about it himself.
Because the City Construction Group often hosted guests here, Wang Peixing was fairly familiar with Shang Mingke, even if they had no personal relationship. He found President Shang on WeChat and, after carefully wording his message, sent it.
[Wang Peixing: President Shang, I noticed the dishes in the private room were barely touched. Was there a particularly important guest today? I am deeply sorry for the poor service! I was wondering when you might be free, so I can apologize to you in person!]
To his surprise, Shang Mingke replied instantly!
Of course, Wang Peixing didn’t know that Shang Mingke was currently quite bored waiting for his food in the car.
[President Shang: That won’t be necessary. It was indeed an important guest, but it had nothing to do with your food. You don’t need to overthink it.]
Wang Peixing’s heart sank the moment he saw the reply.
’It’s over. I’ve definitely offended someone!’
’If he had just come out and said the food was bad and they weren’t happy, that would have been easier to handle. I could have personally prepared another table, brought out some good wine, and apologized, and that would be the end of it.’
’But instead, he insists it’s fine and even goes out of his way to say it has nothing to do with the food.’
’Isn’t that just sarcasm?’
Thinking of this, Wang Peixing quickly replied, "President Shang, you didn’t eat dinner. Are you busy right now? I’ll personally cook a few dishes for you and have them sent over shortly."
’That should be sincere enough, right?’
Besides showing his sincerity, Wang Peixing had a hidden motive. He wanted to test the waters!
’I have to see if Shang Mingke and his group went to another restaurant to eat.’
’That would be a disaster!’
However, his message was like a stone sinking into the sea—the other party never replied.
Frustrated, Wang Peixing kicked the corner of the wall.
’Fucking ridiculous! No matter how bad my Cuihua Building’s food might be, it can’t be so bad that they wouldn’t even take a single bite, right?’
Especially since Wang Peixing himself had cooked.
After all, he was the one who had revived the reputations of the old brands Dongxing Building and Cuihua Building back when they were failing.
’To say he wasn’t good enough was to deny the quality of all the Lu Cuisine restaurants in the Capital City, wasn’t it?’
Wang Peixing was fiddling with his phone in frustration. "Huh?"
’Why did Shang Mingke just post on his Moments?’
He subconsciously tapped on the post. The first thing he saw was a picture of a middle-aged woman under an overpass, cooking something in a steaming pot.