Chapter 658 Ji Shilin
If we consider it based on the principal alone.
Although this restaurant is much better than the original Li Ji Liquor Shop, it cannot be compared to the same.
But it was still a bit unsatisfactory to be placed in the Dong'an Market, which was the first of the four major shopping malls in the capital at that time. It was home to various famous stores and full of large and small restaurants.
The hardware conditions are barely average.
But Li Li's shrewdness lies in the fact that the shareholders he selected were carefully considered and he did not just let people invest money casually.
Otherwise, he should talk to Kang Shude.
At this time, Kang Shude also had some savings, and he could still save one or two thousand yuan.
However, Li Li did not.
Not only did he not, he was even willing to let these shareholders account for the majority of the profit sharing, while he only held 20% of the shares.
Specifically to earn pocket money for a few young masters and ladies, and to be a hard-working shopkeeper.
For no other reason than because these shareholders who contributed capital have special uses to Li Li.
What he is trying to do is to use the background of these young masters and ladies to enjoy great convenience in business operations.
First of all, Master Sun of the Ma family is not only Li Li's employer, but the Ma family is the richest man in the capital.
The Capital Hotel, the water company, the tram company, and the Kailuan Coal Mine all have shares in the Ma family.
Li Li brought Mr. Sun of the Ma family into the business. Except for his time, he had a lot of freedom and was able to concentrate on taking care of the store.
He can also use the Ma family's golden brand to increase his credibility.
The price and time for purchasing goods, raw materials and equipment will be significantly relaxed.
You can even get large quantities of ready goods from some merchants without any cash.
This is money.
Secondly, Master Sun of the Ma family fell in love with Yu Yihua, the daughter of the mayor of Peking.
As a driver, Li Li is also familiar with Miss Yu. Who dares not to give him some face by using Miss Yu's name to do things?
Not to mention that the supply of materials will not be interrupted, and the various controls they are subject to will be much less stressful than their peers.
Dong'an Mall even followed Li Li's wishes and forcibly moved out the original merchant and gave him a good location in the middle.
That area has to be passed through whether traveling from north to south, and the location of the business objects is also very favorable.
To the north is not far from the bookstore area of Dongan Market.
Among them, "Zhongyuan" and "Chunming" bookstores specialize in foreign language books, and their customers are mostly university professors and intellectuals. There is a dance hall, Huixian billiards hall and Tian Wenqing dental parlor nearby.
To the south is the South Garden, where entertainment venues such as Shengping Entertainment Club are located.
So, Li Li opened a restaurant here.
Guests at Dong'an Shopping Mall may come to his Quischlin after having fun, shopping, or buying books.
Finally, Li Li also took a fancy to the Jiang family's "foreign manufacturing" background as an overseas architect, and the fourth daughter of the Jiang family's habit of serving delicious food, recruiting friends, and holding parties.
Sure enough, the shop decoration was all handled by the person Miss Fourth found.
Not only did it fully meet his requirements, the effect was excellent and very fashionable, and the final price was extremely cheap.
After the store opened, the fourth lady often invited friends over for dinner and took care of the business.
And due to the unusual social relations of these young masters and ladies, on the day of Ji Shilin’s opening, General Bao Wenyue of the Northeast Army made a special trip to support him.
This master was once General Zhang Xueliang's right-hand man, but later he turned traitor and became the Minister of Military Order of Wang Puppet Government.
During the fall of Peiping, he was still a very energetic military figure who was valued by the Japanese.
Therefore, many people have misunderstood that Bao Wenyue is Ji Shilin's backer and the real boss behind the scenes. (This is true, Li Li fabricated it for the author in the article)
All in all, it is only a small problem that Kishlin’s funds are not large enough.
In addition, it has almost all the innate advantages.
On the day Kishline opened, it was really packed with customers and it was a good start.
Of course, the key to determining whether a restaurant can continue to be prosperous depends on its management methods and the taste of its dishes.
In these two aspects, Li Li did not miss the mark, he did really well.
For example, this time he learned more about Shilin and almost completely adopted Shilin’s business model.
The shop on the first floor is very small. In addition to selling cakes, candies, wine, and cans, it only sells some fast food, sandwiches, and cold drinks.
Upstairs is the serious restaurant, selling a variety of Western dishes.
He even hired several girls from down-and-out Belarusian noble families to serve as waitresses.
Although the upstairs is not wide from north to south, it is very long from east to west.
The tables and chairs in the entire store had to be in the form of "train seats", like a widened train carriage.
Compared with Qishin’s round table seats, the level does seem a bit low.
But Li Li still knows how to add artistic atmosphere in other aspects to make up for the shortcomings.
For example, the east end of the restaurant is the counter and wine table for settling accounts. At the west end, he built a semi-circular high platform, about a foot above the ground, forming a very simple small stage.
There is a grand piano on the stage and a record player next to it.
In this way, in addition to making it easier to hire a band to perform for fun, it also adds a lot of fun for the guests in the store to entertain themselves on weekdays.
The piano on the stage is available for customers to play.
Anyone who feels like it can get on stage and show off their skills.
The record player, commonly known as "electronic record player", has four speeds.
16, 33, 45, and 78 rpm respectively, you can listen to records at four different speeds.
This service of playing records is also free in Kishlin.
In fact, many people use it to listen to records.
Because Jishilin faces the bookstore area in Dong'an Market to the north, many customers buy records in those bookstores and then sit here.
They just give the record to the waiter to play and forget about it.
Just have a cup of coffee and some pastries and take a break.
Speaking of it, it actually has the same effect as putting an expensive automatic record player in the store, but it is more humane.
In short, piano and record player, two of Kishline's special services, are definitely quite clever tricks.
Western classical music and Jiangnan silk and bamboo are intertwined here all day long, which not only invisibly raises the level of the restaurant a lot, but also brings many elegant and musical guests to Gishlin.
It also makes Gishlin never have an empty seat.
This place is not like other restaurants. It is only full near meal time.
Even if you are not a meal fan, you can still get 70% to 80% of seats.
If you want one or two snacks, a cup of coffee, listen to music, meet friends, or just rest here after shopping, it's all good.
Therefore, many celebrities from the cultural, artistic and industrial and commercial circles of Beijing are regular visitors here.
Gislin's status in the minds of young men and women in the capital has also increased day by day, and later it became synonymous with a tasteful and fashionable place.
Naturally, several investors and Li Li made a lot of money.
As for the taste of the dishes, especially Western food. But I have to admit that this was the biggest shortcoming of Kishline when it first opened.
After all, Li Li lacked catering experience and didn't know enough about Western food.
The foreign chef he hired for 80 yuan a month was actually a guy who could do nothing but be good at it.
That guy’s food is very ordinary. To say it has no special features may be regarded as glorification.
So despite the fact that Kishline is just like Kishline, it sells British, French, German and Russian dishes, and has everything on the menu.
But in fact, not to mention the neighboring Guoqiang Restaurant, the Heping Restaurant in the south is much worse.
Even compared to the newly opened Hua Palace in Donghuamen, it's not that good.
Nearly a month later, Li Li finally discovered that the foreign cook was a liar and had no real ability.
When the guests ate his dishes, they all had very little reaction, and there were even some negative comments.
This is similar to a chef who is cooking home-cooked food in a small restaurant and goes to a Cantonese restaurant to get confused.
He was quite anxious about this and had to take remedial measures immediately.
The first is to find ways to poach people and quickly find skilled chefs.
Secondly, he also asked several young masters and ladies for help, hoping that several shareholders could help find a way to save him from his urgent situation.
At this time, the abilities of the two ladies were shown.
Since the mayor of Peking likes Western food, his family also hired a Western chef.
With just one word, Yu Yihua transferred the family cook and lent it to Li Li for a month, which gave him a month's buffer time and gave him the confidence to pay for the foreign cook.
As for the fourth lady of the Jiang family, because she often entertains friends and regularly organizes food appreciation meetings, she is half a food expert in her own right.
Not to mention being good at Chinese and Western food, several of the improved Western food she invented have been well received and remembered by people.
So I passed on a few simple recipes from Gislin for emergencies.
The first is the clear soup packets.
The so-called small bag is something similar in shape to a spring roll. It is slightly shorter than a spring roll, but rounder and thicker than a spring roll.
The outer shell is made of eggs and flour, and the filling is minced beef, fresh mushrooms and chopped boiled eggs.
After wrapping, it will be in a short cylindrical shape, dipped in egg white and bread crumbs, and fried in not too hot oil. The color will be golden and when you eat it, it will not be as crispy as spring rolls, but will have a burnt aroma. Soft and fragrant with egg flavor.
There is butter and white pepper in the filling, but never soy sauce.
Each serving is two small bags, and comes with a cup of beef tea.
The beef tea is placed in a small porcelain cup with two ears. It is fragrant and delicious.
The second is hot dogs.
Hot dogs are the simplest fast food for Americans. To put it bluntly, they are hot sausages sandwiched between bread.
But the hot dog that the fourth lady passed on to Gislin was very unique.
The bread it uses is homemade, oblong, with two sausages broken from the middle, baked in the oven and sandwiched in the bread.
The most important feature is that a layer of sauerkraut is added between the sausage and the bread, which makes the taste completely different.
This kind of sauerkraut is pickled with cabbage, onions, carrots, and bell peppers, and cut into very thin shreds, then stir-fried with a little tomato juice.
After serving, add vinegar to enhance the flavor and increase its acidity.
Putting hot sausage and a layer of sauerkraut between hot dog buns is much more delicious than American hot dogs with ready-made hot dog sauce in the middle.
The third one is crispy butter roasted cauliflower.
Roasted cauliflower in cream was originally a common dish in Western food.
It's nothing more than blanching the cauliflower, then soaking it in milk with salt and sugar, then sprinkling it with a layer of cheese, and baking it in the oven.
But Miss Fourth created another approach.
First beat the eggs with salt and pepper and dip the cauliflower into the eggs.
Then shake off the excess, dip it in breadcrumbs, make sure each floret is covered, and put it in the oven to bake.
Bake until it is deep golden brown and crispy, then set aside a plate to dip into sour cream.
Not only is it more delicious, but the cost of making milk is also eliminated.
In this way, the flaws that Kishline leaked were quickly and effectively made up for.
Particularly Miss Fourth’s dishes have received an astonishingly good response, and are especially popular among young men and women.
Kishlin has actually won many repeat customers and fans with these simple Western dishes, which further reflects the literary and artistic atmosphere of a little bourgeoisie.
And because Li Li was forced to be anxious once, he was afraid of making the same mistake again, so he was really willing to spend money to recruit people.
After that, he first hired Chef Feng from Jie Ying Fan Restaurant, who was good at German cuisine.
Chef Zhang, who is good at British and French cuisine, was hired from the Capital Hotel.
In order to make the name of his store "worthy of the name", he even hired Chef Li, a famous Western pastry chef from Qishilin in Tianjin.
So two or three years later, Gishlin not only had grilled grilled mixed vegetables, crispy chicken noodle boxes, and three-fresh baked macaroni, such famous dishes in the store.
Chef Li from Shilin even joined hands with Miss Fourth to create an epoch-making classic dessert - creamy chestnut powder!
That's not something to drink.
Instead, grind the sugar-roasted chestnuts from "Gongyihao" into powder, just like peanut powder, dry and loose, sprinkle with some white sugar and mix well.
Then pour a large amount of hand-whipped cream on top, and finally put a sugar-water cherry for decoration.
The cream must be fresh and beaten appropriately. If it is not thick enough, it will not taste good, but if it is beaten too much, it will be diluted.
Use a small spoon to eat, the taste is endless.
After one sip, you can feel the granular texture of chestnut powder on your tongue, as well as a creamy and creamy feeling.
The aroma of chestnuts and the richness of cream, such a three-dimensional and delicious feeling, are really a perfect combination.
This stuff is sweet, smooth and delicate!
Not only Chinese people with black hair and black eyes love to eat it, but even foreigners with blond hair and blue eyes will be obsessed with it if they taste it.
Through this, Jishilin has really established its footing and has been recognized by other operators in the industry. It is considered to be the number one among Western restaurants in Beijing.
Every year after autumn, there is an endless stream of guests coming for the creamy chestnut flour.
This sweet dish has also been reported in the press, attracting various Western restaurants in the capital to imitate it.
What is even more unexpected is that creamy chestnut flour eventually returned to Tianjin, and even Shilin’s menu also added this dish.
This should probably be regarded as Li Li’s most brilliant achievement in his thirty years.
To be honest, even he himself did not expect that eating a meal of Shilin would bring such a big change to his destiny.
If major social changes had not occurred in the next few years, he would have been given another thirty years to continue running his Quischling business.
I'm afraid he really has the qualifications to compete with Qi Shilin.
(End of this chapter)