After Amandine and Uwa came out of the old man's place, they walked down the mountain, discussing the matter of opening a restaurant. The first step, of course, was to exchange the gold coins for shillings. The two finally found a bank and exchanged the 17 gold coins for more than 10,000 shillings. With the original money, they now had a huge sum of more than 12,000. The next step was to find a place. After looking at four stores, they were not satisfied. Finally, they found one more than 300 meters away from the old couple's restaurant. This store was also a restaurant, so they saved the money for decoration. The rent was 500 shillings per month. The two bought some new tables and chairs, as well as kitchen utensils. At Amandine's strong request, they also bought a TV. The total cost was more than 3,600.
"Brother, where is the chef? Should we hire one?" Uwa asked.
Amandine pointed to himself and said, "What are you talking about! I am a chef." The main purpose of opening a restaurant was to satisfy his addiction to being a chef. Whether he made money or not was not important to him.
"Oh!" Uwa didn't say anything, just nodded.
As soon as he said, he would open the restaurant today. Amandine bought a lot of vegetables and piled them in the kitchen, and then waited for customers to come. After a while, a father and son really came into the store. They lived nearby and came in out of curiosity when they saw the new restaurant. After the two sat down, Amandine asked with a smile, "What do you want to eat?"
"Is there no menu?" asked the father.
"This!" Amandine remembered that he had forgotten the most important thing, and what was even worse was that he didn't know what dish he could cook. He smiled awkwardly, "How about you order some egg fried rice?"
"Okay!" The father and son were easy-going. They agreed that this should be the signature dish of this restaurant.
Uwa heard the reminder and said, "Brother, we didn't make rice, how can we fry it?"
"Then let's do it now," Amandine wanted to make the first business, so he turned around and went to the kitchen to cook.
When he entered the kitchen, he remembered that he had never made rice. The rice in the past was ready-made and he just picked it up and fried it. He called Uwa and asked, "Can you cook rice?"
"Of course, it's very simple. Aren't you a chef? Don't you know how to cook?" Uwa asked curiously.
Amandine blushed and said, "I used to ask my assistant to cook. Now you are my assistant, you have to be more serious."
"Am I a kitchen helper now?" Uwa asked happily.
"Of course, you won't suffer any loss following me, don't worry." Uwa was so happy when she heard that she was a kitchen helper that she immediately started to get busy. She washed the rice first and put it in the pot to steam it. Then she started to wash and cut vegetables and beat eggs.
The customers outside were getting impatient and kept coming in to ask, "Boss, how long will it take? It's been more than half an hour, why isn't it ready yet?"
Amandine said with a smile, "Please wait a little longer, it will be ready soon."
After more than ten minutes, the egg fried rice was finally served. Amandine stood aside and watched the father and son eat. He was eager to get their praise. The boy took only one bite and shouted, "What kind of fried rice is this? It's so bad, I waited so long for nothing. I thought it would be delicious!"
When Amandine heard this, his face changed instantly. He asked angrily, "Why is it bad? Tell me."
"You will know if you try it yourself," Amandine didn't believe it. He reached into the boy's plate and grabbed a handful and ate it. He took only one bite and immediately spit it out, cursing, "Damn it, who fried this rice? Feed it to pigs!"
The father and son looked up at him at the same time. They thought, didn't he cook this rice? After cursing, Amandine remembered that he cooked the rice himself. This time, without saying anything, he picked up the two portions of fried rice on the table and dumped them into the trash can. Then he fried two more portions and tasted them. He thought they were good, so he served them to the father and son. The boy refused to eat anymore and asked his father to try first.
"Not bad!" the man said.
The boy took a bite and found that it was indeed much better than last time. The main reason was that the last time was too bad, which showed how good it was this time. Amandine hid in the back kitchen and eavesdropped on the conversation between the two. When he heard the two words "not bad," he felt that he was a qualified chef again. After the father and son finished eating, they paid. Amandine took the first money he earned as a chef and was happier than getting the gold coins from the old man in the wooden house.
"Brother, should we make a menu?" Uwa asked.
Amandine racked his brains and thought that he could do nothing but fried rice! What should he do? It would be embarrassing to admit that he could only make fried rice with eggs, so he decided to buy a book and learn while doing. He turned to Uwa and said seriously, "You stay at home and look after the restaurant, I'm going out for a while."
"What are you going out for?"
"You're asking an amateur question again, of course, I'm going to design a menu!" Uwa smiled and said, "Then go ahead! The earlier you go, the earlier you can come back."
Amandine left the restaurant. He was quite familiar with the area. After walking for more than ten minutes, he found a bookstore. After walking in, he searched the bookshelves for a long time and finally bought two books, one was "How to Be a Good Chef" and the other was "Restaurant Guide". After paying the bill, he walked and read.
The first page introduced the method of curry beef and potato: "First, wash the potatoes, carrots, onions, beef, etc., and cut them into pieces for later use. Then add a little oil to the pot and stir-fry the minced garlic and beef. Then add the onions and stir-fry evenly. Then add the potato and carrot cubes and stir-fry. Then add water. Next, cover the pot and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. After simmering, add the curry and stir constantly. After the curry cubes are dissolved, cook for another 5 minutes until the curry becomes a thick paste, then cook over high heat to reduce the sauce."
He was very interested and decided to try this dish first. After arriving at the restaurant, he asked Uwa to help him cut vegetables, which is also the job of the kitchen assistant. After all the other side dishes were prepared, he found that there was no beef. Uwa hurried out to buy it, and Amandine was waiting at home, sighing, always feeling that today's bad luck had not passed, and things were not going well at all.
More than 20 minutes later, Uwa bought the beef. She rinsed the meat first and then started slicing it. Amandine lit the fire and added oil to the pot. Following the instructions on the recipe, he threw in the chopped garlic and beef and began to stir-fry.
"What a nice smell! Brother, you really learned it."
"That's right, I learn things..." he just said halfway when he felt something was wrong and stopped talking.
"Hurry up and throw the potatoes down. I can't handle it alone." Amandine shouted.
Uwa picked up the potatoes and threw them in, and added water to it, then covered the pot.
"The book says to simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. How many minutes is it? Can't it be written more clearly?" Amandine said dissatisfiedly.
"Does it mean to wait for fifteen minutes?" Uwa said.
"Why?"
"After 5, another 10 minutes will be fifteen minutes," Uwa explained.
"Yes! That should be what it means."