novelraw Chapter 462 - 389: Getting Ready to Set Up Shop, Three Flavors of Tea Eggs (Part 2)
Chapter 462 - 389: Getting Ready to Set Up Shop, Three Flavors of Tea Eggs (Part 2)
Originally, I wanted to continue taking Sun Jianhong to the city to handle the paperwork, but seeing him using rope to tie seven or eight drink barrels around his waist, Chen Mo decisively refused Sun Jianhong.
He let him ride the tricycle by himself.
With Sun Jianhong leading the way, the efficiency was quite fast. It was evident that this young man had indeed done a lot of homework for setting up a stall.
First, he paid the monthly rent fee at the street office, which was 500 yuan per month.
Then he purchased a street office custom-made food truck, costing 1500 yuan.
The size, width, and advertisements posted outside these trucks were all custom made, with identical colors and styles, which is the look of most city night market food streets nowadays.
"It seems I can’t use the dining truck to set up a stall; what about the Experience Value?"
Chen Mo wasn’t very keen on using the street office-made food trucks.
[Please check the reward content for this task!!!]
Huh?
Yesterday, because of the old lady’s attitude, Chen Mo only looked at the task content and didn’t check the task reward.
After the system reminder, he remembered.
[Fantasy Dining Truck Transformation Ticket*1]
This reward wasn’t unfamiliar. The last time he used a transformation ticket, it directly turned the caravan into an ice cream truck. It was pretty cool.
"But this thing is random, what’s the use of it?"
[Please... can’t you just try using it first?]
Chen Mo left Sun Jianhong to fiddle with the new truck and ran back to his own, where the smart drive function showed that the caravan could be transformed into an ice cream truck for three hours, with a 24-hour cooldown.
"Use the transformation ticket!"
[Congratulations, you’ve activated the "Imitation Vehicle." The caravan can transform into any type of food truck according to your needs. Note: the first use can last for 6 hours, subsequent uses only for 2 hours.]
"Honestly, do you issue rewards based on my needs?"
Chen Mo was a bit skeptical.
[Don’t ask.]
"Alright!"
With this experience feature, everything was perfect. Although it was only an hour less than a regular transformation ticket, it was still enough.
Transforming into a street-office food truck was a minor thing; Chen Mo thought of more interesting ideas, like turning into a candy truck, milk tea truck, or beach sausage truck.
After settling everything, Sun Jianhong happily pulled Chen Mo, "Brother, I still have a budget of one thousand yuan, when shall we start setting up?"
He was already a bit impatient.
"Didn’t the street office say? The food street operates from 5 PM to 2 AM, and it’s not allowed to operate at other times."
"Oh, oh, then I’ll go buy eggs."
"Go ahead."
Sun Jianhong busied himself delivering his food truck to his designated spot on the food street, then ran to the supermarket to buy eggs.
Chen Mo, on the other hand, sought a secluded place, left the food truck at the parking lot, and transformed the caravan to look like a street office food truck. "Damn, it made me space out again?"
[You can’t watch it.]
Every transformation was like this, you couldn’t see what the food truck went through to change its appearance, it was just a moment of spacing out, and when you came to, the transformation was complete.
Chen Mo’s preparation work was relatively simple.
The eggs peeled by the young girls were not nearly enough, so Chen Mo sat in the new, simple version of the food truck, first using chopsticks to crack the raw eggs, then tweezers to remove part of the broken shell.
This work was much easier for him.
In just over two hours, he cracked a full forty pounds of eggs, roughly over three hundred.
The shelled eggs couldn’t be stored in a pile, as they might leak due to pressure.
Over three hundred eggs were neatly arranged on the surface of the food truck’s operation table. Chen Mo found a black pot from his food truck, turning it into a slightly deeper big pot, then pushed the truck to the nearby night market.
Meanwhile, he was analyzing the recipe in his mind.
To say that making skinless tea eggs is not difficult is true, since [Tea Eggs], no matter how you put it, is just the process of boiling eggs.
"Just the usual five-spice, nothing else fancy."
"But to boil eggs with..." Chen Mo walked, his eye twitched slightly, "Coke?"
He’d heard of Coke chicken wings, but Coke eggs, not so much.
"And you want to differentiate flavors, providing a variety of options for customers?"
Chen Mo stopped the truck, quickly ran back to the food truck, and fished out several smaller pots this time compared to the previous black pot.
As per the recipe, he had to make at least three different flavors.
"So, tea isn’t enough either." Chen Mo wasn’t well-versed in tea, generally drinking more juice and beverages.
This time, placing the food truck next to Sun Jianhong’s spot on the food street, Chen Mo prepared to walk out and find a place to buy tea leaves.
Walking on the food street, it was only around three o’clock in the afternoon, not many people around, and Chen Mo couldn’t help but feel a bit emotional.
Sun Jiante didn’t want his brother to set up a stall, probably not just because of the freakish "broken eggs" but for other reasons too.
The food street would be bustling and crowded every night, but in reality, only a few stalls actually made money.
When they went to the street office earlier, many people were doing the paperwork. Why does the street office charge monthly rent instead of yearly?
Because this job wasn’t easy, even if you did it, you might not make money, and the 500 yuan monthly rent wasn’t refundable even if you couldn’t sustain it for a month!
"These days, making money isn’t easy. Sun Jianhong’s three thousand yuan is a month’s salary for his brother, and could be a year’s income for his parents, sigh."
No wonder there were many left-behind children in that small village. With no income channels, young parents could only leave to work, there was no other way.
Lost in these thoughts, Chen Mo followed his phone’s map to a nearby medium-sized supermarket and walked to the tea section, where different kinds of tea were displayed.
"If we’re highlighting flavors..."
Not understanding tea doesn’t mean never drinking it. "All black teas actually taste similar, to highlight flavors we need something else."
Jasmine tea was Chen Mo’s first choice, then he picked a West Lake Longjing, and finally a Fenghuang Dancong.
These three types of tea are all highly fragrant varieties. Jasmine tea is made with a green tea base mixed with jasmine flowers, offering a full and lasting floral aroma with the fresh return sweetness of green tea.
West Lake Longjing needs no explanation, the epitome of a fresh and elegant fragrance.
Fenghuang Dancong is interesting, nicknamed the "perfume of tea," its intense aroma never dissipates from beginning to end.
According to the analysis of the recipe, Chen Mo felt that [Tea Eggs] as a snack should mainly use "five-spice" to enhance the base flavor, a fact that wouldn’t change.
As for the presence of tea, it’s to give new flavor to eggs on top of the five-spice, and this flavor would change according to different people’s preferences.
"Try with three kinds first, if they’re good, I’ll consider adding more later."
Having bought the tea leaves, Chen Mo returned to his spot on the food street. Back and forth it had taken some time, even though it wasn’t yet the street office’s designated business hour, the crowd was starting to trickle in.
As for Chen Mo, his system’s business hours started in the evening, so he wasn’t in a hurry. Watching others busy setting up, organizing items, and preparing ingredients.
Chen Mo leisurely laid back in a camping chair behind the food truck, eyes half-closed, enjoying the various aromas drifting through the street and guessing the kinds of snacks they originated from.
He had just guessed a few when an excited voice interrupted.
"Brother Mo, Brother Mo, aren’t you starting?"
Chen Mo opened one eye to look at the round face in front of him, "You go ahead, I’m not in a hurry."
"Hey Brother Mo, you’re letting me have a head start huh? Hehe, then I’ll get started!"
Chen Mo nodded and closed his eyes again. After guessing the flavors of five snacks, a pungent smell of urine wafted into his nose.
Chen Mo jerked his eyes open, incredulously watching the busy Sun Jianhong.
Damn... and you said it’s not expired?