Chapter 861: Exploring the shops

If they hadn"t seen it with their own eyes, they would have never believed that this street was the garbage dump they had been avoiding for the past few years.

Yan Zhao who was in charge of calculating the silver and taking care of the food material, had come to this street every day and thus he was very well aware of how this street had developed. What was more he had seen all sorts of novelties happening, the stinky and slimy fish that he thought could never taste good enough to eat and turned into nothing but delicacies in the hands of Madam Lin.

And the thing that surprised him the most was that Su Wan had controlled everything very well. The butcher never saw how the dishes were cooked and the chefs never saw how the fish were cleaned and dealt with, the one in charge of sauces could not see the main dish cooked and the one in charge of cooking did not know what went inside the sauces.

This way even if someone grew some kind of evil intentions they could never betray their snack street.

" Madam Su, you have even built concrete roads. How did you come up with such an idea?"

Su Wan was at the snack street during the day as she wanted to see how the snack street"s construction was going. Yan Zhao had never found Su Wan alone as she was surrounded by either her husbands or her uncle and grandmother. If neither of these people were around her, then the workers would surround her asking her if she wanted to hire them for more work.

And Su Wan had never let them down as she told them about the hotel plus bar construction which had set the heart of the masons at ease.

" It"s nothing, I have read a lot of books and have experimented a lot," replied Su Wan as she turned to look at Yan Zhao. " I stayed in the countryside for a year and since I had nothing to do, I started to play around a little. When we were in the countryside, during building our house we ended up mixing the mud ration incorrectly but who would have thought that we would come up with concrete."

" I only used it, because it"s much stable and hard to break."

Su Wan only spoke nothing but nonsense. The formula that she came up with was something that she had learned while watching her restaurant being constructed of bricks and coal. She lived in the village with her grandmother where the villagers would want to save as much money as possible.

Thus they would not go to the town to buy bricks and coal, instead, they would think of a way to come up with making bricks and coal in the village thus she knew how to use kiln and coal pits.

Although Su Wan wanted to use bricks to repair the road, she decided that she better use concrete to repair it as it was much more feasible and practical.

" Can this be used to repair the entrance of the city? I mean, the city wall requires some repairs," Yan Zhao asked, his eyes alight with excitement. He never thought that something so good could ever exist. If this thing was much more stable than mud, Yan Zhao couldn"t help but think of using it to rebuild the broken parts of the city wall.

" Of course but you have to pay the workers," Su Wan was generous with the material but she would not allow anyone to take advantage of the workers.

" You do not have to worry," Yan Zhao rubbed his hands and smiled. " I will definitely pay the workers." Even though there was not enough money in the treasury of the county office at the moment, he could still take out a decent sum to pay the workers.

He then turned to look at the concrete road and then asked, " Just how long will it take for the concrete to dry up?"

Su Wan looked at the workers who were laying down the road and then replied, " If everything went well, then it would dry up in four days completely."

The weather was cold and they had to lay a roof over the top to make sure that the snow would not cover up the road and ruin it.

Yan Zhao looked at the snack street that was almost finished and could not help but ask, " Can I take a look inside the stores?" He really wanted to see what went inside these stores given that they always gave out white fumes and a good scent.

" All right."

Su Wan took Yan Zhao to a random store where he wanted to take a look inside. The two of them entered through the back door and Yan Zhao saw that the back side was clean and large with enough s.p.a.ce to walk around, he could see that it was the kitchen area that had been constructed first and from the looks of it, the kitchen was quite innovative.

The stove had five to six burning stoves and the inside was very smartly created such that it would not hinder anyone"s moment and the fire could be controlled easily.

After the kitchen, there was a cleaning area where the chefs and the butchers needed to clean their hands and feet, the front hall was then connected to another corridor which led to an open area where the butcher worked. Special workers had been hired to clean the area every hour to make sure that the sanitization of the butchering room was clean.

The second room was the dining area while the front area had long circular tables for those who wanted a quick bite or take out.

Each floor had been smoothed by concrete and the walls were coloured with dark colours such that the fumes and smoke wouldn"t ruin the wall paint. Yan Zhao wanted to ask Su Wan whether or not she was going to sell the paint but decided to hold back, he did not want to show Su Wan that he was greedy for quick benefit and was eyeing her skills.

Yan Zhao walked over to another shop where he found a weird thing inside the room next to the kitchen and could not help but ask, " What is this?"

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Su Wan turned to glance at the thing that he was pointing at and then explained, " This is a grill. It"s not finished yet but it will be used to grill fish, squid and barbecue." Though Su Wan intended to keep the seafood as a primary resource of the snack street, it did not mean that she was not going to use any other ingredients.

She wanted to use these grilled snack shops to sell, grilled sandwiches, grilled beef and BBQ along with roasted seaweed and grilled rice cakes.

She even added short ribs to the menu as it would be too lacking if she only sold grilled squid and fish.

There was no such thing as a grill in this era and thus most of the seafood was cooked by boiling which made it taste fishy. Su Wan could not use the boiling method in a snack street where people would only stop for a quick bite. Was she supposed to ask workers to spend three hours to boil fish soup? It would be a waste of time and manpower.

In her hotel, she could arrange for a team to be in charge of fish soup but not at the snack street where she did not want to charge the people too much as the customers targeted by this snack street were none other than the commoners rather than the officials.

When Yan Zhao heard that Su Wan was going to use this grill to make grilled squid, he could not help but ask, " Can..can you grill one for me? I have been missing the taste of grilled squid for a long time."

Although the grilled squid would be released sooner or later, Yan Zhao wanted to take a bite before it was released, it wasn"t that he was greedy but the grilled squid really tasted really good and one could not help but wish to have more.

Su Wan nodded and then turned to the young chef. This young boy was an orphan and had three siblings to raise thus he worked hard and learned quickly. Thus he was very much skilled in not only using the grill but also cleaning and cooking on it, he could use it with ease now.

Thus it did not take long for Pei Huai to turn the fire up as he asked someone to bring a grilled squid from the stock room.

In a short while, Yan Zhao was holding a wooden tray with the grilled squid placed on it. The delicious red and brown sauce was giving out a tantalizing scent and Yan Zhao could not help but gulp when he smelled the scent coming from the grilled squid.

What was more in winter a meal as warm as this was much appreciated when the food in his lunch box had gone cold.

Yan Zhao took a bite from the grilled squid and closed his eyes in satisfaction, " This is really good!" He turned to look at Su Wan and asked, " How are you thinking of selling this grilled squid?"

Su Wan pursed her lips and then explained, " Cleaning a squid is harder and grilling it requires coal which is quite expensive though I have come up with a way to make coal, it doesn"t change anything. It can only be sold for eighty cents, I cannot go any lower than that."

Though Su Wan wanted to sell the grilled squid at fifty cents, she realized that it would end up in a loss as the workers in the restaurant had to take special care while dealing with the squid and the coal that was used in the grill was not less either.

What was more grilled squid could only be sold in winter, as for whether or not it could be sold in summer. Su Wan hadn"t thought about it, she needed to earn a decent sum to keep the workers happy —— for whether or not to operate in the summers it would depend on how cold the temperature was at night in this city.

Eighty cents was a little expensive but Yan Zhao understood what Su Wan meant and thus did not refute her.