Ch47 – Transition

He Yun Chen liked spicy foods, so the spicy side of the hot pot was facing him. He Yun Yi didn’t like eating spicy foods so the white soup was placed in front of him. Ruan Tang could accept both, so he sat in the middle.

“Hurry up and eat. If the meat is overcooked, it won’t taste good.” He invited them to start eating.

“You should also eat.” While He Yun Chen ate, he also paid attention to which foods Ruan Tang liked. Seeing that Ruan Tang was fond of the lamb roll slices, shrimps and fish, He Yun Chen would give those to him. Ruan Tang also returned the favor by giving He Yun Chen the foods that he liked.

He Yun Yi: “…”

He Yun Yi felt like a third wheel…Looks like his younger brother’s a lost cause…

Regardless, the three people enjoyed the delicious hot pot and ate until their bellies were round. Even then, they were reluctant to stop.

When the He Brothers left, Ruan Tang simply washed his face and rinsed his mouth before lying down to sleep.

As expected, for a time, there was a great deal of enthusiasm for hot pot in the empire.

Ruan Tang remembered his promise to the audience. He got up early the next morning, and made a batch of shrimp balls and meat rolls. He gave them out together as the prizes for that morning’s lottery, which made the viewers very happy.

The star network’s shopping site also quickly followed. After asking Ruan Tang about the production method for the hot pot’s base ingredients and some inconvenient to process ingredients, they hurriedly made these items available for sale. They even came out with a concentrated soup base puree. In this way, even someone completely inept in the kitchen would just need to boil a pot of water with the concentrated soup base puree and other ingredients and they could readily enjoy a delicious hot pot meal.

All the ingredients were available at the shopping site. Most of the ingredients were ready-made and as for the other ingredients, you only needed to slice them. Even the pot for the hot pot was readily available. You only needed to boil the ingredients in the soup and you could already eat it. It was fast and convenient.

In the current situation where good food was underdeveloped, scarce and often costly, the demand for this type of convenient cooking that even klutzes could grasp quickly swept the entire empire.

He Yun Yi also had news for Ruan Tang. Several companies had seen the commercial opportunity for hot pots. They reached out to the Academy to purchase the right to use the hot pot to open up restaurants in other star systems, making it even more convenient for the citizens for the empire to enjoy good food.

After several thousand years of development, the Blue Star Empire had become bigger and bigger. There were more than 50 planets within the Empire’s territory, and the population had reached an astonishing 100 billion people. One could consider this as a huge business opportunity. Hot pot, this delicacy which didn’t require culinary talent, didn’t require any aptitude and didn’t even require that much manpower — It was like the goose that laid golden eggs. How could this not get those enterprising capitalists’ blood pumping?

Naturally, Ruan Tang readily agreed. His efforts alone, wouldn’t be able to satisfy the entire empire’s desire for good food. With more hot pot restaurants, all the more people could sample the deliciousness of natural foods. This was a good thing.

Although the hot pot’s ingredients and base materials were provided by the Academy of Sciences, the idea for the hot pot came from Ruan Tang. Thus He Yun Yi insisted on giving him half the profits. Ruan Tang didn’t decline his offer, he only asked him to donate it in his stead, same as before.

It’s not that Ruan Tang was some benevolent goddess nor was he particularly selfless. However, he really did not lack money. He now had hundreds of millions of fans. A single live broadcast, could net him nearly a million from gifts. He didn’t need this additional income to add flowers onto brocade. Especially since in his view, things like the hot pot and those home-cooked dishes weren’t his own creations. They were the accumulated “wealth” of generations upon generations of mankind.

He was allowed to escape death and was given new life in this new world. There must be a reason. Maybe God wanted him to use his knowledge of cooking to change the present situation of this world, so he would never willingly use these profit for his own selfish interests.

For a while, hot pot was very fashionable in the empire. So much so that the trending topic on the star network was “Have you eaten hot pot today?”. It showed the extent to which the imperial people loved it.

However, after all, hot pot was a kind of food for that was suitable for sharing with a lot of people. Consequently, there were not a few single dogs living alone who cried out piteously. “Single dogs have no human rights! Eating hot pot by myself feels so sad QvQ”

” +1! Wishing for a product that a single dog couch potatoes can enjoy!!”

Single dog favorite, couch potato favorite…

Seeing these two descriptions, Ruan Tang couldn’t help but to think about that seemingly magical product that was very popular in China. You didn’t need to buy or cut up any vegetables, you didn’t even need to use a pan or pot, you just need to let it steep in boiled water.

“We could produce some instant noodles.” Ruan Tang thought about it as he stroked his chin. There was also that soft drink called ‘Fat House Happy Water’, when iced and drank together with hot pot, it was unbelievably satisfying.

However, if these things came out, the empire might soon see a lot of salted fishes and fat houses. Picturing this made Ruan Tang laugh. Maybe that would bring about the development of the weight loss industry.

He shook his head and sighed in his heart:

Wouldn’t that make me a devil?

He thought of this but still sent He Yun Yi a message about his new idea. In any case, given the level of technology of the empire, coming out with safe and healthy instant noodles and soft drinks shouldn’t be a problem.

**********

As for the military dining hall, Ruan Tang still went to report at the military headquarters every day. On the one hand, Ruan Tang wanted to continue to teach his apprentices. He wanted to increase their consciousness and understanding of cooking unlike before when he was simply force feeding them the lessons. It could be said that they were now on an advanced level. On the other hand, he was also preparing for the official opening of the dining hall.

Three days later, the dining hall finally formally announced that it was open for all the soldiers and officers. Although it can only serve lunch for now, it was still enough to get everyone excited.

The back kitchen made the unprecedented move of employing smart robots to do the cooking. The smart robots perfectly replicated the steps Wang Jun, Zhao Guangming and the others did when cooking. They copied everything down to the seasoning. In no time at all, they were coming out with batch after batch of steaming hot and delicious food.

Although the presence of the smart robots released Wang Jun and the others from working on the stove, they still had more important things to handle. They were in charge of drafting up the menu, ordering the ingredients, supervising the smart robots and dealing with unexpected situations that arose in the dining hall. These six soldiers were still as busy as ever.

At eleven o’clock, the doors of the dining hall opened as scheduled and all the soldiers entered the cafeteria in an orderly manner.

Because there were too many people coming to take their meal, in order to save the most time, the dining hall opened the online ordering function. There were eight dishes to choose from and two different flavors of soup. The soldiers could freely choose and match dishes according to their preferences. They could even select their seat. Their orders would be sent to the kitchen and once the smart robots receive the orders, they could prepare their selected dishes. Later, when they come in, they could simply sit down at their reserved seat and then they could enjoy their steaming hot meal.

Ruan Tang and He Yun Chen were among those who came to have their meal at the dining hall. However, their main purpose for coming was to inspect the operations of the canteen. When they saw everyone eating in an orderly manner, they nodded their heads in satisfaction.

He Yun Chen and Ruan Tang also took their seats. Their meals were laid before them. He Yun Chen chose spicy chicken and Yuxiang eggplant paired with a tomato egg drop soup. Ruan Tang’s was sweet and sour spareribs and cucumber with scrambled eggs paired with tofu with minced meat soup. All of them tasted quite good.

“It’s delicious! I could eat this every day!” One soldier couldn’t help but praise as he wolfed down his food.

“Exactly! I think it’s much better than what they serve at the Rose Restaurant! Unfortunately, my wife and children can’t eat here. It would be great if I could take this home.” His companion thought deeply and nodded.

“That’s a beautiful idea. Where can we find such a good thing? Sigh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were more restaurants like our canteen? Then our families could also have a taste of such good food……”

Listening to their conversation, Ruan Tang couldn’t help but be moved. Nowadays, many of the so-called star-rated restaurants were expensive and the variety of dishes were limited. Their cooking methods were crude, they would simply steam it in broth, deep fry or roast the ingredients, which made the dishes very monotonous. Dishes like the hot pot were much better. It was cheap and people could make their own at home. It would give a lot more people the chance to taste and eat delicious food.

Spices like star anise, cinnamon, gingko as well as cooking wine, oyster sauce and doubanjiang, these sort of condiments — he needed to ask the Academy to come out with these as soon as possible. With the help of these rich seasonings, he could display his cooking skills to their fullest.

Although the people of the empire couldn’t taste it, Ruan Tang knew the true standard for these dishes. For him, these were just passable.

Even after eating these ordinary tasting dishes for a few months, Ruan Tang still couldn’t help it. Reminiscing now, Ruan Tang missed the countless exquisite delicacies on Earth — heavily spiced Western foods, and effortful dishes like the Buddha jumps over the wall soup that required a lot of ingredients. He also didn’t have enough time to try out those new dishes he had been planning…

Ingredients, seasonings — they must all quickly be restored!

He Yun Chen looked at his expression as it became even more and more resolute and fired up. He couldn’t help but ask suspiciously, “Xiao Tang, are you…very hungry?” Otherwise, why would he suddenly be overcome with emotion as he ate?

“Ah, no, I just thought of something.” When Ruan Tang returned to his senses, he looked at He Yun Chen with sparkling eyes, “In the future, I’ll make even more delicious dishes to share with everyone!”