Chapter 7: The Great Spicy Hot Pot Battle 2

  In the capital city in April, although the temperature has already reached over 20 degrees during the day. However, the temperature difference between day and night is still relatively large, and after entering the night, the weather will suddenly drop to around 14 or 15 degrees. But the vibrant spring atmosphere has arrived. Green shadows everywhere are emerging with the arrival of spring. People who had been cooped up all winter began to resume outdoor activities with the arrival of spring, undaunted by the cold. Although it's just getting dark, the night market is already filled with people eating and chatting in small groups.

  Li Xiaoteng set off in the evening. After arriving at the night market, he turned around for half a day but didn't see Zhao Baozi's figure. He took out his mobile phone, found Zhao Baozi's number, and dialed it directly. The phone rang for a while before connecting "Hello? Brother Teng!" Zhao Baozi responded. Li Xiaoteng asked somewhat impatiently: "Where are you? I've been looking for you for half a day and can't find you?" "Sorry! I'm just preparing things, heading to the night market now! Just wait for me at the entrance of Dongxing Restaurant, okay? I'm discussing cooperation with that restaurant."

  Li Xiaoteng hung up the phone, feeling that this empty land should be it? He looked up and saw: "Wow! Old Beijing's zha jiang mian!" Then he looked around and found that not far away was Dongxing Restaurant. He walked over slowly.

  Across from Dongxing Restaurant and on either side of the entrance to other restaurants, various cold dishes, snacks, and roasted skewers were all set out in formation. Just then, a counter was also set up at the entrance to Northeast Restaurant, with several large plates of pre-mixed cold dishes inside. However, Li Xiaoteng took one look, curled his lip, and saw that they had boiled peanuts, boiled edamame, small cucumbers, and pomegranate seeds. The mixed vegetables were mainly shredded potatoes, kelp, and other shredded things. There were a few meat dishes, but they looked black and unappetizing! On the remaining half of the counter, there was a stove and equipment for spicy hot pot.

  Li Xiaoteng pulled out a pack of Seven Wolves he had just bought from the roadside. He lit one up and started smoking while waiting for Zhao Baozi. In his previous life, Li Xiaoteng worked at a securities firm, where although the salary was not high, he could still afford to smoke Red Tower Mountain and Golden Leaf cigarettes. Occasionally, he would splurge on a pack of Huanghe Lou's Meihua mouthpiece Heaven Fragrance cigarettes! After crossing over, however, his funds became tight. Under the circumstances of insufficient sunlight, he had no choice but to settle for smoking five-yuan Seven Wolves cigarettes. As he exhaled smoke and fog, he saw a big fat man about 1.8 meters tall pushing a broken old bicycle with a basket full of large and small bags of various colors. The man ambled over!

  Li Xiaoteng hastily threw away his cigarette and went up to greet him. He saw Zhao Baozi sweating profusely, with a round face and small eyes that were almost closed due to the sweat. When he saw Li Xiaoteng, he shouted: "Teng Ge is mighty!" Li Xiaoteng casually said: "Stop messing around, hurry up, I'll help you unload your stuff."

  Li Xiaoteng was unloading goods when Zhao Baozi suddenly rushed into the Dongxing Restaurant. Not long after, a middle-aged man wearing a light yellow chef's uniform came out. Li Xiaoteng took one look at this slovenly dressed man and thought to himself: "No wonder they say that once you see how food is prepared, you'll never want to eat again! This street stall really has no standards!" The middle-aged chef's clothes were not only greasy but also stained with soy sauce splatters and his yellowed uniform made Li Xiaoteng feel a chill run down his spine. Li Xiaoteng was tempted to ask the chef: "Was your uniform originally white?"

  The chef came over, listlessly telling Zhao Baozi: "This stove is specially prepared for you, just use it directly, the seasonings on the side are free to use, if there's anything inside, call me." After finishing speaking, he turned around and walked into the store. Zhao Baozi thanked the chef's back. Then said: "Teng Ge, sit down first, I'll set up the stall first." Li Xiaoteng came over, helping to carry things while saying: "Damn! I'm here to help out! What are you sitting for?" Zhao Baozi nodded his head in gratitude towards Li Xiaoteng. While setting up two shallow trays on the counter, he poured water into them. Zhao Baozi casually said: "Damn! If I didn't do this, I really wouldn't know that the pot for spicy and numbing boiled fish is so deep, it turns out that the seemingly deep pots are all fake!"

  Li Xiaoteng didn't say anything, but looked at Zhao Baozi with a speechless expression as he continued to pour water into the tray. Then he said: "Dong Ge, who did you learn to make spicy hot pot from?" Zhao Baozi replied carelessly: "Haha, do I need to learn? If it's nothing important, ask Yuan Fang, if it's something important, ask Duan Ma." Li Xiaoteng nodded speechlessly. He watched as Zhao Baozi took out a few dried chili peppers and a small handful of Sichuan peppercorns from the plastic bag and threw them into the water. Then he brought over the seasoning rack from Dongxing Restaurant and arranged it neatly. After that, he added some salt, monosodium glutamate, and red oil to the water. Then he didn't know what he put in the pot, but started preparing the dishes with his head down.

  Li Xiaoteng stared blankly at the pot of thin, watery bottom material for the spicy hot pot, and suddenly felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

  Li Xiaoteng pointed at the pot of base ingredients and asked speechlessly, "Is this the recipe you searched up on Baidu?" Zhao Baozi said without lifting his head, "Yeah, I think it's pretty good. I tried it out at home yesterday and ate over 40 skewers!" Li Xiaoteng was speechless, saying, "You're something else... can you tell me what you don't think is good to eat?" As they spoke, Zhao Baozi had already added all sorts of devilish ingredients like squid rolls, squid mustaches, and waist flower strings to the pot. Meat skewers with fish tofu, oil bean skin, meatballs, and sausage were also quickly added in. Li Xiaoteng sat down at the guest seat, speechless, and ordered a plate of hairy crab and eggplant. He opened a bottle of beer and lit a cigarette. Looking over, he saw Zhao Baozi still busy stirring his spicy hot pot stall.

  Looking at Zhao Baozi's busy figure, Li Xiaoteng knew why his stall would go bankrupt in his previous life. Seeing him messing around like this, if the stall were to catch fire, Li Xiaoteng would think that heaven was blind! He casually peeled open a boiled peanut and took a bite. "Ptoo!" He spat it out immediately. Upon closer inspection, he found sand inside. He casually picked another one, looked at it and thought it was clean enough, but when he put it in his mouth, the taste was off. It didn't have any savory flavor or five-spice flavor. He switched to a mouthful of boiled beans, nodding silently in dismay. No wonder people called them "boiled that". Indeed, they were just boiled in plain water!

  At this time, Zhao Baozi brought a plate of spicy hot pot. A pile of affordable goods, with both meatballs and sausages. It's really quite friendly. Only to see Zhao Baozi wipe the sweat from his forehead, calling out: "Teng Ge, you eat first, I'll go over there to greet them." Li Xiaoteng hurriedly said: "You're busy, why be polite with us brothers?" With a wave of his hand, Li Xiaoteng picked up a meatball. He dipped it in the spicy sauce on the plate and started eating. After eating one piece of meatball, he couldn't eat another. The taste was really extremely bad! He took a sip of wine and saw that the surrounding stalls had already started to attract people, but the Dongxing Restaurant side was still quiet and deserted.

  Li Xiaoteng was originally sitting in a position very close to Zhao Baozi's spicy hot pot, but he couldn't smell the aroma of the spicy hot pot. Looking around at the bustling crowd, everyone was wandering around choosing their own snacks or selecting stalls they liked. Li Xiaoteng felt a bit restless as he watched the crowd.

  The old saying goes, there is no oil smoke shop that doesn't open. When the surrounding stalls were all manned, Dongxing Restaurant also started to have a few tables of customers. Li Xiaoteng watched as the guests ordered some cold dishes and beer. Some even ran across the street to buy a skewer of roasted meat back. Li Xiaoteng couldn't sit still anymore!

  Get up, walk to the edge of the pot, and see Zhao Baozi wiping his sweat. He looked around hastily. Li Xiaoteng asked Zhao Baozi with a hasty expression: "It's been almost an hour. You haven't sold any strings yet, have you?" Zhao Baozi sighed: "Not really, didn't I just cook a pot for you?"

  Li Xiaoteng speechlessly said: "You still want to take my money?" Zhao Baozi shamelessly said: "Brother, let's settle the bill!" After finishing, he shook his head in annoyance and said dejectedly: "I think I did a pretty good job! Why isn't anyone buying? I don't see any other stalls selling spicy hot pot around here either!" "Do you want to hear the truth?" Li Xiaoteng asked. Zhao Baozi nodded and said: "Go ahead, say it! Is it really not delicious?"

  Li Xiaoteng looked at the pot of soup and said, "Let me correct that, this pot of soup isn't bad!" Suddenly ignited by Chakra, Zhao Baozi excitedly asked, "What's the reason nobody buys it?" Li Xiaoteng added, "I want to tell you, it's not just not good, it's really TMD difficult to eat!" Zhao Baozi speechlessly lowered his head.

  Li Xiaoteng looked at Zhao Baozi and said, "Alright, stop pretending to be pitiful. I'll write a list for you. Go buy some seasonings from the supermarket at the intersection." Zhao Baozi looked at Li Xiaoteng with suspicion and asked, "Are you serious? You can't even cook anything except instant noodles at home, right?" Li Xiaoteng was speechless. In his previous life, he indeed only knew how to make instant noodles. He couldn't possibly tell Zhao Baozi that he had been reborn!

  Li Xiaoteng said with a serious face: "Alright, trust me. I'll take care of it. You go buy the seasonings for me! I'll first use this pot to make something for you!" He then took out his phone and started editing a text message. As he wrote, he said: "You follow what's on my message and buy all the seasonings back for me, I'll take care of the stall first!" Li Xiaoteng quickly edited the message with the seasonings he needed, but he really couldn't remember when the concentrated soup base was released to the market. He specifically asked Zhao Pangzi: "Take a look at the supermarket on the street and see if they have concentrated soup base. If not, buy a bag of chicken essence back." As he spoke, he sent the message to Zhao Pangzi.

  Around 7 o'clock is the golden time for people to come to night markets and eat at street stalls, with the largest number of customers in one evening. Around 10 o'clock, another group of people will come to drink. However, during this period, most people are there to drink and chat until midnight, with a small proportion making purchases. The consumption power and the time cost paid by the stall owners are not proportional.

  Li Xiaoteng watched as people came and went, a few little girls wanting to buy some spicy hot pot to eat, but when they saw the pot of spicy hot pot, they turned around and walked away. Li Xiaoteng silently watched, not saying anything. Before long, Zhao Baozi rushed back, panting, holding a plastic bag of seasonings. He wiped his sweat and said: "Teng brother, I really couldn't find any thick soup base. The supermarket's salesperson is really unprofessional, they didn't even know what it was, hadn't even heard of it! Ugh, the supermarkets around our place are just not good!" Li Xiaoteng chuckled: "If there isn't any then there isn't any, did you buy all the other things?" Zhao Baozi nodded: "Everything except for the thick soup base is ready." Li Xiaoteng nodded and started to stir-fry.

  He took out the chicken essence from the bag, looked at it, and then opened the bag and poured it in. As he was pouring, he said: "The authentic S province mala hot pot broth is not water at all, but a broth made by simmering chicken bones and beef shin bones. In the early days, there was no MSG, before the Japanese invented glutamate sodium, also known as MSG. At that time, they used concentrated broth to replace the fresh flavor of dishes." As he spoke, he watched the changes in the broth. Then he continued: "Don't be intimidated by its long name. To put it simply, if you simmer a pot of green vegetable tofu soup and a pot of chicken soup at the same time, the chicken soup will have a more delicious flavor. This is because animals contain natural glutamate sodium, that is, MSG. Hehe." Next, he took out a packet of Chengdu Sichuan spicy seasoning, split it in half, and threw it into two pots of broth.

  After the two pieces of chili were thrown in, the fragrance also floated out. Li Xiaoteng rummaged through the plastic bag for half a day and asked, "Huh? I still need rock sugar. Where's our rock sugar?"

  Zhao Pàngzi pulled out a large paper towel from his pocket, smiling awkwardly: "I saw that the packaged ones were quite expensive. There's loose goods. I just grabbed a handful and wrapped it in paper towels!" Li Xiaoteng suddenly felt dizzy! He snatched the rock sugar from Zhao Pàngzi's hand and threw half of it into the pot. He said coldly: "I don't even know what to say to you, I don't want to try the flavor of this pot anymore. Can we just be clean?" Zhao Pàngzi scratched his head, saying awkwardly: "This stall has a rent of 3,000 yuan per month, and we have to pay three months in advance plus one month's deposit! Isn't that like being bankrupt?" Li Xiaoteng nodded, actually understanding his brother's difficulties. He took a deep breath and continued: "Sichuan cuisine is not mainly about spicy food. The spiciness in Sichuan cuisine is gentle. Many people don't know that authentic Sichuan cuisine requires adding the right amount of sugar according to the dish, but granulated sugar is too sweet. Rock sugar can not only balance out the gentle spiciness but also add a glossy effect!" Zhao Pàngzi nodded repeatedly on the side, looking confused. Although he really didn't understand, he still nodded vigorously, as if he had already grasped it. Zhao Pàngzi was getting tired! After all, he was just an amateur who could only cook instant noodles and scrambled eggs with tomatoes. It wasn't easy to understand this, which was very normal.

  Li Xiaoteng, who had stirred the soup well, felt that something was still missing. He casually took out chili oil from his bag. He twisted open the cap, put some chili oil on his index finger, and licked it. He shook his head, but still poured it in.

  The aroma had already begun to waft out. Li Xiaoteng used chopsticks to scoop up some of the soup and tasted it. He still felt that something was missing! But at this moment, Zhao Baozi looked at the pot of spicy hot pot that had transformed from rotten to magical. He had already started drooling. Li Xiaoteng shook his head and carefully savored the broth, suddenly spotting a small food stall across the street. His eyes lit up, and he said to Zhao Baozi: "Winter brother, go across the street and buy me a portion of spicy fragrant tofu...".