The Game of Life

Chapter 463: Chapter 461: Taifeng Building Part II (4000 words)

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‘Having dedicated so much ink to describing the exquisite culinary skills of Mr. Jiang Weiming, I cannot be biased and must now turn to Mr. Jiang Weiguo. The life of Mr. Jiang Weiguo itself is nothing short of legendary. Though he was the seventh son of the great master Jiang Chengde, he was merely a 10-year-old child when his family had to leave Beiping due to the turmoil of war. Consequently, he didn’t learn many of the Jiang Family Dishes techniques.

After that, Mr. Jiang Weiguo traveled widely across the south and the north, dabbling in dishes from various regional cuisines, not just the Red Chef, but also excelling at white-case dim sum. He was a rare all-round talent with exquisite chef skills. Here, I must add in passing that Mr. Jiang Weiguo’s third son also works in the kitchen of Taifeng Building. That father and son join forces in battle is already a beautiful story, but having three generations of the same family working in the kitchen of the same restaurant is truly extraordinary, even bordering on the miraculous.

Mr. Jiang Weiguo is particularly adept at pork dishes. According to his son, not only is he skillful at cooking pork, but he’s also proficient at pig farming. Unfortunately, due to the restaurant’s busy re-opening, Mr. Jiang Weiguo hasn’t farmed pigs in a long time, depriving me of the chance to see for myself the pigs that have received high praise from numerous professional chefs.

Readers must be at the edge of their seats at this point, since pork dishes encompass a broad concept. If you ask any passerby on the street, they could easily list a dozen different pork dishes off the top of their head. Mr. Jiang Weiguo is proficient in a wide range of pork dishes. In fact, when I requested to taste a few of his signature dishes, he couldn’t make up his mind and ended up cooking six or seven different types of pork dishes for me, varying in kind, flavor, and even style. This made me secretly admire his stamina; I feel at 84 years old, I might not even be able to lift a frying pan.

Due to the sheer number of dishes, I will only discuss two particular dishes that left a deep impression on me.

The first dish is Nine Turns Intestine, a classic Lu (Shandong) cuisine dish, notable for its all-encompassing flavors. I’ve tasted it in many famous eateries before. The Nine Turns Intestine prepared by Mr. Jiang Weiguo made a particular impression because it had a notable heavy sauce flavor. The dish was bright red and glistening, with a tender texture that still provided a solid chew after biting into it. The seasoning was hearty but not excessively salty, primarily salty with sweet and sour as secondary tastes, and even a hint of bitterness and spice that didn’t feel out of place. With careful chewing, one really could discern the layered flavors, as if concocting an elixir in one’s mouth. Eating this dish felt like consuming a Nine Turns Elixir, representing an extremely authentic yet distinctive Nine Turns Intestine.

If I were to score the dish, I feel it should receive more than 90 points. It’s a good Nine Turns Intestine, but certainly not the best; after all, such a significant dish in Lu cuisine has always been a highly contested area among the masters of Lu cuisine. While there’s no need to make a special trip just to try it, if you happen to be interested in dropping by Taifeng Building for a casual meal, I can assure you trying this dish won’t lead to disappointment.

The second dish is a very common home-style dish—Guo Bao Rou (Sweet and Sour Pork). Since this is the first time I introduce Guo Bao Rou in “Taste”, I’d like to take a moment to elaborate on its origin. Guo Bao Rou was originally a savory and lightly salted dish, later changed to a sweet and sour flavor to cater to foreign tastes. It sounds like a significant alteration, but I personally prefer the sweet and sour version, at least I did when I was younger.

Although Guo Bao Rou is a home-style dish, it also tests a chef’s control of heat. Perhaps due to its commonplace nature, I rarely see the dish in high-end restaurants, but it’s more often found in little roadside diners. Compared to the Guo Bao Rou we usually eat, Mr. Jiang Weiguo’s version is quite distinctive. It seems he uses a special marinating method that renders the meat incredibly tender and flavorful.

After being fried at a high temperature, the outside of the Guo Bao Rou is golden and crispy. Coated with sweet and sour sauce, it looks even more appetizing. I’ve tried many versions where the taste solely relies on the sauce; while the sauce is good, without it, the meat itself could be considered bland. This is not the case with Mr. Jiang Weiguo’s dish. The exterior is crispy, the sauce is perfectly sweet and sour, and the interior carries a savory taste reminiscent of the original flavor, yet not quite the same.

For those who don’t like sweet and sour dishes and want to try the original Guo Bao Rou, I recommend asking for it without sauce. Because even without the sweet and sour sauce, this Guo Bao Rou is a highly accomplished and delicious dish.

In essence, this is a version of Guo Bao Rou that has been improved with the personal touch of the chef. If I were to grade it, this Guo Bao Rou would undoubtedly receive more than 90 points, even nearing 95—a high score and worth trying. Of course, it is priced much higher than your typical home-style dish, so if you’re just looking to try an ordinary home-style dish, the price might be beyond your expectations.

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Apart from these two dishes, Mr. Jiang Weiguo also had some dishes that caught my eye. Dishes like braised lion’s head meatballs, Fengjing steamed pig’s trotters, and lychee pork are all worth recommending. If the diners are interested, you might want to give them a try.

Compared to Mr. Jiang Weiming, Mr. Jiang Weiguo’s culinary skills might be slightly inferior, and although he has many decent dishes, he doesn’t have any particularly standout signature dishes. This might also be related to his earlier experiences; Mr. Jiang Weiguo spent his early years traveling and learning from many masters, including renowned chefs as well as ordinary cooks in street corner eateries, absorbing a diverse array of styles, which resulted in him not having a particular specialty. However, what surprised me was the strong personal style that Mr. Jiang Weiguo exhibited in his dishes, which is uncommon for chefs who have learned a variety and mix of styles, yet Mr. Jiang Weiguo was decidedly different. Even if the dishes he made were from completely different cuisines and cooking techniques, you just knew that “Ah, this is the chef,” from the first taste.

Mr. Jiang Weiguo excels at making elaborate main courses, especially meat dishes; it seems that hearty feasts are his true love. (Although for health reasons, I think one should eat more light dishes, it’s often the meat dishes that truly showcase the beauty of meat.) According to his third son, Mr. Jiang Jiankang (who is also a chef at Taifeng Building), their family tradition dictates that Mr. Jiang Weiguo is the only one permitted to cook from New Year’s Eve to the Lantern Festival, a span of over ten days, signifying his status within the family. Perhaps it’s this domineering and even flamboyant nature that allows us to enjoy such bold and flamboyant dishes.

Besides the two aforementioned elder chefs with superb skills and the three chefs mentioned earlier, Taifeng Building also has a very talented young chef—Miss Ji Xue. It’s worth noting that Miss Ji Xue also participated in the culinary competition hosted by my good friend, Mr. Han Guishan. Although she unfortunately stopped at the quarterfinals, she is still a highly skilled young chef.

Here, I must express my admiration for the magical nature of the culinary competition organized by my good friend Mr. Han Guishan, who is completely clueless when it comes to appreciating fine food. (I don’t mean this in a derogatory sense, but his taste is indeed quite unique.) The competition wasn’t well-known, yet it attracted so many talented young chefs. I hope that he will organize more such competitions in the future; if every event he hosts can discover as many talented young chefs, I believe the culinary world will be wonderfully diverse and exciting.

I may have digressed too much, so now let’s return to talking about Miss Ji Xue. She is not very talkative, quite shy, and low-key, but her dishes don’t allow her to stay in the shadows.

Her signature dish is clay pot flower carving chicken.

I believe everyone is familiar with this dish, which I devoted all my literary skills to describe in the first issue of “Taste.” It once was the glory of Chinese cuisine, created by the late Master of Cantonese Cuisine, Mr. Tan Weizhou. Due to differences in culinary skills and age, Miss Ji Xue’s clay pot flower carving chicken is naturally not as good as Master Tan Weizhou’s, but it has all the essential elements; what it lacks is just a bit more culinary refinement. Miss Ji Xue is just a young woman under 20 years old. In addition to the clay pot flower carving chicken, I also tried some of her other dishes. I won’t recommend them here because they didn’t have much uniqueness, but her culinary skills are still commendable, at least excellent among chefs of her age.

If any of the readers here are devoted fans of Master Tan Weizhou, then I suggest you make a special trip to Taifeng Building to taste Miss Ji Xue’s clay pot flower carving chicken. This familiar flavor will certainly move you to tears. After all, there is nothing more exhilarating in this world than regaining what was lost.

At the end of the article, let me talk about Taifeng Building itself. It is a restaurant that combines both age-old and youthful features, with the weight of history yet exuding the vitality of youth. It has weathered many storms and experienced changes through the ages, yet it is growing anew like a child. The chefs within this building are the same, with two who are like reclusive experts, and a group of very young chefs with boundless futures.

It’s a restaurant that keeps surprising people. Having been involved in food criticism for so many years, I have seen many once-glorious restaurants fall from grace with the departure of the head chefs and witnessed many obscure restaurants rise to prominence. I have a strong affinity for the word “heritage,” and I loathe it when many old establishments I once admired and loved abandon their heritage, and it’s distressing to see no evidence of heritage in many newly opened, trendy, and popular eateries. I hope the heritage of this restaurant continues to flow, constantly evolving with new blood rejuvenating the old, unceasingly.

Jiang Feng, having finished reading the entire article: …

As the true owner of Taifeng Building, Xu Cheng was naturally very happy to endorse Taifeng so enthusiastically. Jiang Feng believed that if Ling Guangzhao were the owner of Taifeng, he would probably have been so ecstatic by now that he might even have the urge to run naked in the streets.

But he understood all that, so why did it seem like Ji Xue’s section was even longer than his?

He had just calculated that, if the part where Xu Cheng advertised for Han Guishan and the punctuation were included, the description of Ji Xue totaled 600 characters.

That was 600 characters without even describing the dishes.

Xu Cheng summed up only 313 characters for him.

Jiang Feng, who had even started to quibble over the number of characters, was caught in a dilemma.

“Son, son,” Jiang Jiankang shook Jiang Feng, who was buried in his numbers again, “are you done reading? Once you’re done, remember to give it to Zhang, he looks quite strained over there.”

“Ah? Yeah, done,” Jiang Feng looked up and noticed that many people had joined the kitchen staff while he was busy counting.

Ji Xue had finished reading “Taste” and had started to work, and her copy was now in the hands of Zhang Weiyu and Han Yigu, who were looking at it together. Sang Ming tried to join in, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get his head in there.

Zhang Guanghang was attempting to read with Wu Minqi, but Tangtang was already by Wu Minqi’s side, and Zhang Guanghang, unable to squeeze in, had to use his height to stand behind them and look down at the magazine from an angle—which Jiang Feng guessed he could hardly see anything from.

It was really hard to imagine that with a face like Zhang Guanghang’s, there was a place he couldn’t fit into.

This just showed how the Taifeng kitchen was a place that didn’t judge by appearances, or perhaps it meant that handsome men with girlfriends were not at all attractive.

“Zhang, want to take a look?” Jiang Feng waved the magazine in his hand.

Zhang Guanghang quickly walked over to Jiang Feng, twisting his neck as he moved—clearly, his previous posture had been quite uncomfortable.

“Thanks,” Zhang Guanghang took the magazine, and Sang Ming, sensing an opportunity, hurried over, only to be beaten to it by another dishwashing station staff member who didn’t even have a name.

In such a big kitchen, there were only three magazines to read.

“Didn’t you guys stop by the newsstand on the way and buy one? I remember ‘Taste’ should be stocked in every newsstand,” Jiang Feng asked curiously.

“We did, but they were out,” Zhang Guanghang said helplessly, as he buried his head into the magazine.

Without a magazine to read, Sang Ming could only chat with Jiang Feng: “There is a newsstand near the house I rent, but it’s not on the way, so I thought I’d buy it from a newsstand here. But when I got there, the owner told me that they were already sold out and he said that this magazine usually doesn’t sell, yet this issue was selling like hotcakes, and that he would only restock it at noon.”

Jiang Feng quickly did the math; he bought one, Ji Xue bought one, Jiang Jiankang bought one, Mrs. Jiang bought one—that made four out of five copies spoken for, no wonder Sang Ming and the rest couldn’t get theirs.

It was all because the rent in this district was too expensive, leaving only one newsstand.

Jiang Feng had intended to chat with Sang Ming a bit more and slack off before getting to work, but he was called out by Wang Xiulian.

“Feng, have you been in touch with Sun Jikai recently? I saw in the back of this ‘Taste’ there is an article that seems to be about their Jubao Building, hey, you go ask how they usually set their dish prices. I need to look at that so I can figure out how much to increase ours,” Wang Xiulian said, holding a brand new copy of “Taste.”

All five copies accounted for.