Chapter 12 Mini Soup Buns
After a couple months, Shen Shaoguang finally found a suitable store. Not far from the Lane Gate, and had living quarters attached in the back. The small storefront was only about ten square meters. It used to be a goat meat shop. The owner was an elderly and injured his leg when he went out in the rain. Even after he recovered, his body could no longer bear the hardships of maintaining the store. Moreover, without any descendants, he could not pass on his trade, so he decided to rent out the storefront. This way, it would help sustain his living expenses.
Most rental properties in the Lane would lease out both the back and front, so there weren’t many people interested in a building that just leased the front shop. When he, by sheer chance, encountered Shen Shaoguang, who had a temporary place to live and limited funds, the two instantly hit it off.
After listening to all the fuss and critiques by the previous prospective buyer, the old man lost the ambition to rent out his storefront at a high price, and quoted Shen Shaoguang a monthly rent of five hundred wen. Shen Shaoguang agreed without hesitation. After they both signed a written contract, she paid one year's rent in advance, and brought A’Yuan over to help clean.
The walls were riddled with fly droppings, oil stains, and mutton blood stains. The ground was also uneven, with small craters scattered around. There were two tattered table tables with oil stains thrown at a corner of the store; the whole place looked unsightly.
After throwing away all the trash left behind, the two started to clean all the stains up. Once everything was sanitized, Shen Shaoguang then asked a craftsman to paint the walls. Afterwards, she made a trip to the brick kiln in the outskirts of a city and bought some flawed but cheap clay bricks and retiled the floor. Shen Shaoguang visited the carpenter and ordered a customized kitchen prep table, some wooden food trays, and several chairs. Lastly, she went to the West Market and bought cups, crockery, and various utensils. She had spent five taels of silver to rent the store, and spent another five taels of silver setting everything up; Shen Shaoguang felt distressed to have spent so much of her savings in a single day. It’s ok, this is just the initial investment, it’ll be earned back soon.
Without picking an auspicious day, Shen Indelible Eatery quietly opened for business.
Just relying on the verbal advertisement she had done the last couple days while selling her crepes at the Lane Gate, several of her regulars, who enjoyed her crepes, came on her opening day. This included Court Scribe Liu, the breakfast straw buyer– he had even brought a small pot of peony as a congratulatory gift.
"Miss, congratulations on your grand opening." Liu Feng smiled shyly, and put the flowerpot on the window sill.
This gesture crossed the line of a relationship between a hawker and their regular customer. Shen Shaoguang was about to refuse, but Liu Feng left in a hurry after giving her a small bow, not even taking the two-egg savory crepe he had just ordered.
"Sigh——" Shen Shaoguang pursed her lips, smiled helplessly, and handed the crepes to A’Yuan.
A’Yuan had already eaten three zongzi, one crepe, and a bowl of porridge in the morning. Seeing Shen Shaoguang handing her one more crepe, she silently accepted it and quickly opened her mouth and hungrily devoured it.
"Miss, has that gentleman surnamed Liu taken a fancy to you?" A’Yuan suddenly asked in a quiet voice halfway through the crepe.
Shen Shaoguang hurriedly looked out the door, the last customer, who just bought a zongzi, was long gone.
"Best not to mention such things in the future." Shen Shaoguang warned. The most embarrassing thing in the world was to shower affection on an uninterested party.
A’Yuan thought for a while. "True. If he did have such intentions, he should send a matchmaker, this is nothing."
"..." Shen Shaoguang raised a brow and looked at A’Yuan. Those words actually made a lot of sense! Could it be that this little girl was actually an intelligent person just hiding her wit behind an unassuming facade?
A’Yuan laughed and said, "Two egg crepes taste much better than single egg crepes."
Shen Shaoguang smiled. "If we surpass three thousand wen in earnings this month, I will make you a crepe with double eggs every morning."
Unexpectedly, A’Yuan shook her head and waved her hands. "No, no, we have to save money first, didn’t Miss want to buy a house?"
It was rather surprising that she could recount and act upon her casual words. Shen Shaoguang patted A’Yuan on the arm and assured, "Your food expenses aren’t anything to worry about."
Now that she had her own location, Shen Shaoguang was able to diversify her menu. With the limited time for breakfast, she mainly sold savory crepes, as well as zongzi and glutinous rice cakes, which were made the night before. Before opening each morning, Shen Shaoguang would buy fresh soy milk from the tofu shop. She kept it heated above the stove, serving it as a readily available beverage.
It was not as busy during the day, so Shen Shaoguang took this leisure time to experiment with various kinds of filling for pointed steamed buns or seasonal flower filled cakes.
The pointed steamed buns, or as the palace called it ‘Sharpened Mutton Jade’, were actually just shaped steamed buns— unlike the common round stuffed bun, the top would be sharpened into a dome, with a little bit of filling slightly exposed.
Of course, the steamed buns provided at her eatery couldn’t be compared with the ones served at the palace. During special occasions, the imperial palace would serve steam buns filled with specially selected ‘bear cub’ and ‘deer tenderloin’ meat, while their regularly used fillings included ‘quail wings’ and ‘crab roe’. Shen Shaoguang’s filling, though, was mainly pork– pork stuffed steamed buns.
People in this dynasty mostly ate mutton, but Shen Shaoguang was a fan of pork; she believed that pork was the most succulent and appetizing meat in the world. Of course, it was also because pork was relatively cheaper.
Making ordinary big steamed stuffed buns was not in line with Shen Shaoguang's perfectionist foodie preferences, so she decided to make Xiao Long Tang Bao (mini soup buns).
Xiao Long Tang Bao were developed close to perfection in the future generations. It was available all over the country with Huaiyang Style Xiao Long Tang Bao being the most popular. However, no matter which way it was made, the soup was almost always added using aspic. The difference in taste relied on the various stuffings and type of dough.
Shen Shaoguang wasn’t born a chief, so she didn’t bother to care if her Xiao Long Tang Bao was authentic nor did she follow a traditional recipe. She just focused on making a delicious product, with this goal in mind, she didn’t skimp and generously used high quality ingredients. On top of the common pure-pork filling, Shen Shaoguang also created two more variations– pork with mountain mushrooms and pork with bamboo shoots.
When the Xiao Long Tang Bao were cooked, she allowed A’Yuan to have the first taste.
A’Yuan took a bite and the soup immediately flowed out. Seeing this, A’Yuan quickly reacted and sucked the dripping soup and also the inside of the Xiao Long Tang Bao. Shen Shaoguang hurriedly shouted "be careful", but it was too late, her silly maid had already burned her tongue.
Even though she was scalded, A’Yuan refused to spit out the soup, and hastily swallowed it. Shen Shaoguang was helpless as she watched A’Yuan continue to burn her mouth bite after bite.
After devouring a basket of each stuffing, and under Shen Shaoguang's persuasion that "there will be more in the future", A’Yuan reluctantly put down her chopsticks. When Shen Shaoguang asked her which one was most delicious, A’Yuan blinked her eyes with a perplexed expression. "They were supposed to be compared?" She was only focused on eating just now.
This completely embodied ‘Zhu Bajie eating ginseng fruit[1]’!
Shen Shaoguang's favorite was the pork with bamboo shoot filling, it had a faint fragrance of bamboo shoots and didn’t taste as greasy. However, it turns out that her taste was a bit off, because the pure meat ones were the best sellers.
This Xiao Long Tang Bao was also beautiful in appearance, although they didn’t all have eighteen folds[2], but this was not a major flaw and still could be served. This skill was learnt when she was just child in her previous life, taught by her grandmother, who opened a steamed stuffed bun shop, in Jinmen. In terms of outward shape, it looked much better than the popular Sharpened Mutton Jade and regular stuffed buns.
What's more, the stuffing was fragrant, and had the surprise element of soup.
Shen Shaoguang's soup-filled steamed stuffed buns were an instant success. As soon as it was meal time, she almost couldn’t even keep up with the orders. The customers crowded in the store, and even lined up at the door. In order to avoid possible disputes, Shen Shaoguang created small bamboo waiting number plates to keep everything in order. Shen Shaoguang was caught by surprise and hadn’t expected that so many people of this Lane would enjoy her Xiao Long Tang Bao.
It was only after listening in to her customer’s chat did she realize that there are also people from outside the Lane coming to her store. Shen Shaoguang was in a daze. Following this momentum, selling Xiao Long Tang Bao might just make her rich. Was this the start of a chain store opportunity?
Shen Shaoguang wasn’t to blame for such wishful thinking. Due to its pure meat stuffing, these soup-filled steamed stuffed buns catered to the mid-to-high tier clientele. A single Xiao Long Tang Bao was four wen coins. With the average consumption of an adult male, one would need to eat about six to be full. That meant spending twenty-four wen coins in one sitting– that’s the price of at least seven flat cakes!
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Footnotes:
[1] Zhu Bajie eating ginseng fruit - This is a saying based on the novel <Journey to the West>. Most people may know the Monkey King (aka Sun Wukong)… well Zhu Bajie was the glutinous and lascivious piggy in the same traveling group.