“My bamboo rats are cooked ala Cantonese. Would you guys be alright with that?” When Boss Shao heard the request for four servings of bamboo rats, he agreed to it without a word.
Those who opened restaurants were not afraid of gluttons, much less doctors whom they were familiar with.
For Boss Shao, instead of saying that only two plates of bamboo rats were available per table because he had limited stock, it would be better to say that it was a marketing strategy, just like how housing agents would say that a person was only limited to buy three apartments.
Zuo Cidian patted his belly and said with the tone of a regular customer, “Whatever you cook is delicious, we’ll be good with anything that comes out of your pot.”
“Alright, then.” Boss Shao chuckled and said, “Do you want the lean piece or fat piece? Whichever you choose will be one serving. The ones with lean meat will be three pounds, and the ones with fat meat will be four pounds.”
“Are they freshly killed?” Zuo Cidian’s eyes lit up again.
Boss Shao smiled and said, “That’s for sure.”
Zuo Cidian gave him a thumbs up and said, “Then two fat and two lean rats, pick as you see fit.”
“Then, two of them will weigh three pounds, and the other two will weigh four pounds?” Boss Shao confirmed the quantity.
Lu Wenbin coughed and said, “You can’t judge whether the rat has fat and lean meat by just looking at the weight. Some bamboo rats may weigh two or three pounds, but if it is less active, its meat will be fat. Some bamboo rats may weigh four to five pounds, but it exercises every day, so it would have more muscle, and it would have more lean meat.”
“You have a point, Doctor Lu.” Boss Shao waved his hand. “Why don’t you guys pick the rats in person? Whichever you choose, I will kill them.”
“I won’t be able to bear with it.” Lu Wenbin waved his hand and said, “However, as far as my experience is concerned, the bamboo rat will look like a pork trotter once it’s roasted, right? If that’s the case, we should the type that’s fat, but not those who are sedentary, right? It should be the kind that has a layer of fat with lean meat, and it has an equal distribution of fat…”
Boss Shao laughed after listening to him. “Grilling bamboo rats will be more similar to roasting suckling pigs. They are all roasted until their skin is crispy and oily…”
“You’ll have to roast it until you get rid of the oil inside, and only then will it be fragrant, but when it is eaten, you can taste the collagen and also enjoy the elasticity.” Lu Wenbin interrupted Boss Shao’s words in an instant and came up with a set of techniques on how he should cook bamboo rats.
As the saying went, “When one method was proven to work, it can be applied in other situations as well.” Lu Wenbin had to deal with thousands of pork trotters in a week, and he single-handedly provided for a thousand medical staff and tens of thousands of patients and their family members in a hospital with a high patient flow rate. If they were in the premodern age, an ordinary capital city would not even have as great a population flow rate and consumption capacity as Yun Hua Hospital. In other words, if one were to put a pork trotter cook like Lu Wenbin in the premodern age, he would also have the ability to be famous in a city.
Therefore, although Lu Wenbin had never grilled bamboo rats, he could mention a few methods to cook it.
Boss Shao could not help but nod, and he began thinking about his words. “What you’ve said is quite theoretical.”
“Isn’t it?” Lu Wenbin laughed smugly and asked, “How do you cook it?”
“Ours is simple. The bamboo rat that has been killed is salted slightly, and the skewer will be inserted. It is then grilled over a charcoal fire. Once the cold inside is forced out and the entire rat is hot, we apply a layer of oil over it and apply the barbecue sauce I made on it.” When Boss Shao said this, he confidently raised his head, “I have been barbecuing meat for 20 years. I don’t dare to say about other things, but this barbeque technique has never failed me before at all. Do you know why I serve bamboo rats in the restaurant?”
“Because it makes money?” Lu Wenbin looked at the decorations in the store. The decorations and kitchen utensils in Shao family’s restaurant alone were already comparable to the prince for his BMW.
Boss Shao was rendered speechless. He sighed and said, “There are other businesses that can make money. I cook bamboo rats because they are…”
“They can be sold at a greater profit margin!” Ma Yanlin deliberately fought for the chance to answer, earning a few chuckles from his girlfriend.
“Because bamboo rats will allow you to taste the taste of roasted meat the best!” Boss Shao sighed with a tired heart. “Who is going to choose the bamboo rat with me?”
“I’m coming.”
“Me too!”
Yu Yuan and Guan Fei shouted together.
Ma Yanlin’s girlfriend, Wei Man, stood silently and looked at Yu Yuan and Guan Fei’s heads. There was a hint of playfulness and profundity in her eyes.
Yu Yuan and Guan Fei felt pressured. They stood up, refusing to admit defeat.
Wei Man’s gaze was on Guan Fei’s face while she continued to stare at the top of Yu Yuan’s head.
…..
If they moved a few feet away from the scullery, they would reach the two old bungalows Boss Shao rented that he used to temporarily rear the bamboo rats. A colony of gray bamboo rats was isolated outside, and they were to be selected for cooking today.
“It’s so cute and hairy. It’s a little adorable, the limbs are so short…”
“This is a bamboo rat?”
“Do bamboo rats eat bamboos? Where’re its feces?”
The three girls, regardless of their personality, were somewhat attracted by the bamboo rats.
Boss Shao stood by the side without saying a word. After running a restaurant for so long, he knew that he did not need to urge the customers to do certain things when it came to certain sales, especially when three female customers were gathered together. Anything can happen at that time.
“Do you really want to eat the bamboo rats? That’s so cruel.”
“It tastes a bit like rabbit.”
“Is it normally so tough?”
Boss Shao allowed his three female customers to play with his bamboo rats and the things excreted from the bamboo rats. He did not participate in the discussion.
Finally, the youngest of them all, Guan Fei, was the first to be unable to bear with the thought. After she touched the third honest bamboo rat, she said loudly, “Boss, how can you bear to grill the bamboo rat? Look at them, they don’t even know how to fight back!”
Guan Fei’s question was the sharpest, and it went straight to Boss Shao’s heart.
Boss Shao was stunned by the question for a few seconds before he slowly said, “Because they are really delicious.”
Guan Fei’s imposing mannerisms immediately disappeared.
This answer was very reasonable, how was she to refute him?
“I want this one. It’s the fattest and the longest.” Wei Man, who was a female doctor who graduated from Peking Union Medical College Hospital, was the first to make her choice. She also found the core determining factor that determined the quality of a bamboo rat—its body size!
“Alright!” Boss Shao did not hesitate and picked up the fattest and longest bamboo rat by its butt. Then, he threw it into the iron cage beside him.
Yu Yuan was not willing to lose to her. She imitated Boss Shao’s actions and picked up the bamboo rats one by one, squished their stomachs respectively, before she chose another.
The second bamboo rat was thrown into the cage.
Everyone’s eyes were on Guan Fei.
Guan Fei pouted. Her lips, which were shiny because they were covered by the Giorgio Armani Mauve Lip Gloss Series, reflected the bamboo rats’ puzzled looks.
“I want the one that is white.”
Guan Fei quickly made a decision.
Boss Shao also helped to pick a medium-sized bamboo rat. When he pulled it out, he handed it to the employee who waited beside him.
“We can go back now.” Boss Shao chuckled and returned with the three people.
When they arrived back at the store, they saw a temporary emergency bed at the corner of the room. Ling Ran and Lu Wenbin had gloves on and were busy in front of the bed.
“What’s wrong?” Boss Shao’s tone was calm and steady. He sounded as composed as a chief physician in an Emergency Department.
“There’s a customer who had a metal skewer pierce his mouth while he was eating, and his whole mouth is full of blood.” The man in front of the counter had been working in Shao family’s restaurant for more than half a year. He answered his boss’s question with a calm face.
Boss Shao nodded. “So, it’s a case of skin lesion.”
Once he said that, Boss Shao still went forward and comforted the patient.
Zuo Cidian opened a first aid kit in front of the bed. He took up the responsibility of a scrub nurse, and answered gracefully, “It’s no big deal. We’ll just treat it like a warm-up exercise before the meal.”
It was rare for Ling Ran to nod and agree.
Boss Shao smiled bitterly. “It’s a common sight to see people eat until they have ulcers, but I’ve only seen people get pierced by skewers seven to eight times.”
“We are about to take out the skewer.” Ling Ran reminded the patient and started to slowly perform the operation.
He had seen quite a lot of similar emergency cases such as this, but he had very few chances to operate on them.
Ling Ran took out the metal skewer from the patient’s mouth with a look as if he valued this very much. Then, he felt his stomach growl in hunger.
