Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 453: Chapter 287: A Hugely Profitable Food Business

These noodles looked a bit like angel hair pasta, much thinner than regular pasta.

The noodles themselves were an off-white color, completely coated in a brownish-red sauce and seasonings that glistened under the lights.

He’d noticed earlier, when Lin Chen was preparing the sauce, that he had added a very strange, black-colored egg.

He took a disposable plate, grabbed some noodles with a pair of tongs, and made sure to add two pieces of the crushed black egg and some roasted pepper on top.

The moment he set the tongs down, a rich sesame aroma wafted up from the plate. He had never smelled such a fragrant and mellow sesame scent before.

Sesame wasn’t common in Western cuisine. Only in recent years, as Asian food culture has grown in popularity, have things like sesame paste and sesame oil slowly entered the purview of Western chefs, who have since created many sauces featuring the two.

For people living in a remote suburban port town, it was a bit too much to expect them to be familiar with sesame paste and sesame oil.

Even if the local Asian convenience store stocked them, the average person wasn’t likely to just buy a foreign sauce they’d never heard of.

"This smells amazing."

Magnus leaned close to the plate and sniffed, tilting his head in thought.

Fortunately, he quickly gave up, because a much simpler, more direct method was right in front of him.

He reached out and picked up the newly opened bottle of oil from the counter.

’Sesame oil?’

He twisted open the cap, and an even richer fragrance wafted out.

The unfamiliar scent piqued his curiosity even more. He stuck his fork into the noodles and twirled it a few times, winding the slender strands up while ensuring they were fully coated in sauce, before bringing it to his mouth.

The moment it entered his mouth, his palate was assaulted by a multitude of flavors all at once: salty, savory, spicy, sweet, and sour. It was a completely different style from any of Lin Chen’s food he had eaten before.

The noodles were soft yet springy. Having been soaked in ice water, they had a satisfying chewiness. Because they were so thin, they easily soaked up the sauce, absorbing all of its flavor. The texture and style were distinctly different from pasta.

The roasted green peppers carried a faint charred flavor, so subtle it was almost imperceptible. The steamed eggplant had been mashed into a viscous vegetable purée, blending perfectly with the seasonings and sauce.

If you didn’t single it out to eat a piece on its own, you would never even know it was there; it only contributed to the moist, smooth texture.

But the most important part was that mysterious black egg.

The mashed egg white was a translucent, dark cyan color. Part of the yolk was still solid and grayish. It looked less like an egg yolk and more like something solidified from the ash of burnt plants.

He had initially been worried that this strange black egg would have an odd taste, but as he chewed, he found it had no strange flavor at all. In fact, its texture was almost like Jell-O.

The minced garlic and ginger paste did a perfect job of masking the century egg’s alkaline taste. Combined with the complex blend of sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, chili oil, and sesame oil, its ammoniac flavor was almost completely undetectable.

Magnus had never tasted noodles with such complex flavors before. The multi-layered stimulation instantly awakened his palate.

He couldn’t even be bothered to twirl his fork anymore. He just brought the plate right up to his mouth and shoveled the noodles in.

Seeing him slurping the noodles down with such gusto, many curious customers gathered around to pick out food they were interested in and sample it.

"What is this? The taste is so unique, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted food with this kind of flavor."

"What are you talking about? This is eggplant? No way!"

"I can’t believe eggplant cut into strips, battered, and deep-fried tastes so much like french fries. Interesting. I’ll have to try making this myself sometime."

"Are these Great Xia-style noodles? They’re so red, they look really spicy, but they smell amazing. Magnus, how are they?"

Magnus said nothing. He just silently served himself another large helping of the mixed noodles and went back to shoveling them into his mouth from his plate.

"Move aside, everyone! Those are my eggplants, let me have a taste!"

From a distance, Bella, the greengrocer, saw the large crowd. She instantly realized the eggplant dishes must be ready. Abandoning her own stall, she jogged over, eager to taste what kind of delicacy Lin Chen had managed to create from those awful eggplants.

When she finally squeezed to the front of the crowd, she saw five serving dishes on the counter, picked almost completely clean.

She froze for a second. Glancing around, she was surprised to see that the disposable plates in nearly everyone’s hands were coated with a conspicuous red sauce.

’Clearly, the mixed noodles are the most popular dish!’

When Lin Chen returned after making a round with the samples, he was stunned to find his stall already surrounded by people. He did a quick headcount—at least a dozen.

For Westerners, who weren’t accustomed to queueing, this was an incredible sight. They usually only showed this kind of patience for famous, long-established restaurants.

The five serving dishes on the counter had long been cleared, but it seemed no one had touched the large containers of food behind them.

The crowd stared eagerly as Lin Chen stepped into his stall, their hands outstretched in anticipation.

"Lin, you’re finally back!"

"Please give me an order of the noodles!"

"I want all five, can I get it to go?"

"I never imagined eggplant could be this delicious! Are you going to post the recipe online?"

"This would be even better with some fried chicken skin. A bite of chicken skin followed by a bite of these noodles... I can’t even imagine how amazing that would be."

"Alright, alright, everyone please quiet down for a moment!"

The noise was giving Lin Chen a headache. He quickly raised his hands in a calming gesture, and the boisterous crowd finally settled down.

"This was just a last-minute trial, so I have limited ingredients and didn’t prepare large quantities. To make sure everyone who wants some can get some, the individual portions won’t be very big, and the price will be reasonable."

"Why don’t you all discuss it and tell me what you think is a fair price?"

As he spoke, he grabbed a kraft paper box and used his tongs to put in a generous portion of the pounded-chili-and-century-egg noodles.

It wasn’t a huge amount—about the size of a standard rice bowl, enough for just three or four bites.

He piled the noodles into one corner and filled the remaining space with the other dishes to make a full combo.

"Who was it that said they wanted one of everything? You, sir? Here you go. What do you think a box like this is worth?"

The man took the heavy kraft paper box, leaned in, and took a deep, intoxicated breath, the rich fragrance filling his senses.

"They might be cheap ingredients, but rarity adds value. You’re the only one in this entire city who can make eggplant taste like this. So, for this box... I’d definitely be willing to pay if you sold it for $18.99."

"$18.99, for all five items, what does everyone think of this price?"

"Sounds fair to me. But I only want the noodles and the shrimp and eggplant ’burger.’ The other three seem more like side dishes, so they should probably be cheaper. How much for just those two?"

A hungry customer nearby immediately pulled out a ten-dollar bill. "How about $9.99?"

"Five bucks each for those two, and three bucks each for the other three? That sounds really cheap. I’m definitely buying."

"Okay, let’s go with that. I’ll take a combo too, please. All five items."

The Westerners weren’t ones to overthink things. Once the first suggestion was made, everyone quickly agreed.

Lin Chen was happy to go along with it. He had originally planned on selling them for two or three dollars a piece, given the portion size. After all, that was about the price of a McDonald’s hamburger, and his dishes were mostly vegetables.

He hadn’t expected someone to set the price so high right off the bat—and that no one would complain. He certainly wasn’t going to argue with making more money. He immediately grabbed a whiteboard, scribbled down the prices, and propped it up on the side before starting to pack orders for the customers.

Even Bella, the greengrocer who had supplied the eggplants, obediently paid after ordering a combo.

She took her food and was about to leave when Lin Chen called out to her.

"Hang on, Bella. I still haven’t paid you for the eggplants."

"Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it," Bella said, shaking her head with a smile as she eagerly picked up an eggplant fry and dipped it in ketchup. "If it weren’t for your skills, these eggplants would’ve just rotted without anyone buying them. Now, this is great! Maybe people will actually want to buy eggplants now. I’m already making a profit!"

Without giving Lin Chen a chance to reply, she scurried away.

"So these eggplants are from Bella’s stall?"

"She’s right. I think I’ll buy a few eggplants to make for the kids, give them something new to try. I’m not sure about the other dishes, but that one with the balsamic glaze looks simple to make. It would be a great appetizer; the kids would definitely love it."

Perhaps they had overheard Bella, because a few female customers in their thirties, after buying their food from Lin Chen, headed straight for Bella’s stall.

Once he had finally served the last customer, Lin Chen wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked at the empty stainless steel basins before him with a sigh of resignation.

’After all that work, I didn’t even get to eat a single bite myself. It’s all sold out.’

"How much did we make?"

Erica hadn’t gotten to eat either, but when she saw the thick wad of cash in the money box, her slight hunger was immediately replaced by a sense of excitement.

"Two, four, six, eight... two hundred and forty-eight dollars! That’s a lot more than I expected. I thought we’d be lucky to break two hundred."

Lin Chen fanned the wad of bills, a wide smile on his face.

The cost of the black tiger prawns, the most expensive single ingredient, was covered by the sale of just one combo. The rest of the vegetables added up to only about twenty dollars, and with the extra seasonings and noodles he’d bought, his total cost was just over thirty dollars.

Over an hour of work for a net profit of two hundred dollars!

If he extended his hours and expanded his scale, he could easily clear a net profit of five hundred dollars a day, if not more.

The other stall owners who’d had samples and their employees hadn’t even had a chance to buy yet, not to mention the customers who had arrived too late. That was all potential income.

Five hundred a day meant fifteen thousand a month. For most workers who only earned minimum wage—around twenty-five hundred Canadian Dollars a month—that kind of income was like striking it rich.

The main reason he’d quit his restaurant job to open a stall was because the pay was just too low. After rent and living expenses, he barely had a few hundred dollars left over each month to save. It was a life with no future.

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