In the following days, Ning Weimin suddenly entered an extremely busy state.

Because if the Danmiya branch in Ginza wants to open smoothly, there is still a lot of follow-up work that needs to be done, and it is not just about bringing people over from China.

In addition to helping these employees from China adapt to life in Tokyo as soon as possible, become familiar with the working environment of the branch, and standardize their work processes.

He had to lead these people to carefully drill and drill the newly renovated shop and kitchen, the stage in the restaurant, and even the purchase channel and warehouse.

See if there are any inappropriate things that hinder business operations and actual operations. Problems must be solved before opening.

In addition, Ning Weimin adheres to the business philosophy of "museum restaurant", and in order to increase the cultural interest of the Ginza Tan Palace branch and create a corresponding cultural atmosphere, this time he also brought a batch of special exhibits from the capital.

For example, there are replicas of the entire court uniforms and armor of Emperor Xianfeng and the two empresses in the movie "The Burning of the Old Summer Palace".

Replicas of the Qianlong Dynasty's Imperial Household meal menus, meal cards, recipes, as well as royal wine utensils, tableware, hand stoves, and wine and meal picks.

A copy of the Ming Dynasty "Picture of the Capital Palace".

The last prince and the last princess from Japan - Fu Jie, Saga Hiroshi and his wife's handwritten inscriptions.

A complete set of silk figures from "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and a scene in the imperial dining room of the Qianqing Palace decorated with hairy monkeys made from cicada sloughs.

There are also palace lanterns with Kowloon beads, flower and fruit bonsais, fruit and vegetable ornaments, bionic porcelain of birds and animals, mother-of-pearl lacquerware, gilt Ruyi, pastel gourds, enamel charcoal hotpots...etc.

All these things require him to put in the proper display locations and arrange the lighting fixtures scientifically and rationally.

What's more, the most important thing is that the selection of raw materials for the dishes must be determined as soon as possible. This is the top priority.

Even though Ning Weimin and the chefs have already drawn up a reasonable menu, they have already contacted suppliers of ingredients and seasonings in Tokyo.

But this is only a theoretical assumption, still wishful thinking, and not entirely based on reality.

After coming to Tokyo, in order to eliminate business risks as much as possible, I pursued the quality and taste of the dishes to the greatest extent.

Ning Weimin must take the chef to find out the local tastes in Tokyo, the market situation of ingredients, and master the types and characteristics of ingredients on the Japanese market.

It was precisely because of this that he took the people in the country to eat and drink for two full days, regardless of money.

Then we went to the nearby Tsukiji Market in a group with the chefs.

I don’t know how much chicken, duck, fish, sea cucumber, abalone fin, matsutake mushrooms, vegetables and fruits I bought back.

Not only did I cook it almost exactly according to the predetermined menu, but I even made some dishes several times using different ingredients.

This is really not a wasted effort.

Apart from anything else, it is extremely necessary to be careful in the selection of poultry.

You know, you can't eat live chicken in Japan, and the texture of cold and frozen chicken is not very good.

What is available on the market and can be eaten by ordinary people are basically Western varieties.

Rhode Island Red chicken from the United States and White Cornish broiler chicken from the United Kingdom are cheap, but tasteless and do not meet the standards of Tan Palace cooking dishes at all.

For domestic chefs, it is actually no different from wood residue. After tasting it, they can only sneer at it.

What’s especially unbelievable is that in such a big city, it’s hard to find a whole chicken.

Regardless of whether it is a supermarket or a vegetable market, all the chickens sold are dismembered.

Of course, it’s not that Japan doesn’t have domestic chickens and native chickens. They also have them, which are called “local chickens” locally.

But the problem is, what is better than mainland chicken, Nagoya chicken, and Satsuma chicken? They are extremely expensive and scarce in quantity.

One piece easily costs tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of yen, and the annual output is only 10,000 pieces.

Even if price is not considered, it is almost impossible to achieve long-term stable supply.

So the final result was that Ning Weimin and the chefs almost visited Tsukiji Market before finally finding a suitable Japanese white bantam chicken.

This kind of chicken is definitely not as good as a real free-range chicken that has been raised for 170 days.

But the quality is better than ordinary broiler chicken, and it can taste a little fresh.

However, there is a price to pay for being a general in Jiuzili, and that is the additional increase in procurement costs.

Even if Dan Gong orders thirty of these chickens every day, the merchant who can supply them will charge at least 2,500 yen per chicken.

Ordinary frozen chicken only costs 1,200 yen, which is twice as expensive in comparison.

Think about it, if it’s so hard to choose a chicken, it’s even harder to find a duck.

Ning Weimin and the others looked around and found that none of the ducks on the market were suitable. They were disappointed after buying one.

In the end, he almost gave up, but unexpectedly, Yang Feng accidentally discovered a kind of Kyoto duck in a pet store.

As a result, he and Ning Weimin decided to buy it and bake it.

Once it tasted good, I found a kind of duck that was barely usable.

Although the meat of this duck is lean and the fat is not fragrant enough, it cannot be used to make duck fat snacks.

But fortunately, the meat was tender, the taste was decent, and the duck skin was barely crispy.

Later, after Ning Weimin communicated with the Japanese supplier, they agreed to supply the goods.

I just pointed out that this kind of duck is free-range and is a specialty of Kyoto. It would cost a lot of money to bring it to Tokyo.

The lowest price is 4,200 yen per piece, and the order quantity is at least 25 pieces per day.

Yes, at this price, it is more expensive than three Canadian ducks in the supermarket.

The key is that in terms of size, this Kyoto duck is simply not comparable to other ducks.

The big thing weighs only five kilograms gross, and the duck embryo only weighs three kilograms, which is not much bigger than a chicken.

But there is no way, little devils, little devils, everything is small, this is already the best alternative species that we can find at the moment.

As for pigeons...don't even think about pigeons.

Eating pigeons is illegal in Japan.

If Ning Weimin really dares to sell this stuff in Japan, he will have to go to jail and be fined, and he will be closed down not far away.

So you can imagine how difficult it is to make Chinese food in Tokyo these days without looking out of place.

Not only is it difficult to find suitable raw materials, but the key is that they are quite expensive.

Even based on the current official exchange rate, this is equivalent to 88 yuan for a duck and 50 yuan for a chicken.

With such purchasing costs, is it possible to make dishes that are not expensive?

Even Japanese people, most of them can't afford it.

What's more, the menu required by a restaurant, no matter how simple the dishes are, must have sixty or seventy items.

There can be hundreds of ingredients involved. How much energy and money would it take to select them one by one?

The workload of this matter alone is huge! Can Ning Weimin not be tired?

But this is nothing, there is more to come later.

After roughly deciding on the raw materials, Ning Weimin had to quickly prepare a menu in four languages: Japanese, Chinese, English and French.

Then the work of determining the tableware style, plate presentation and service standards will follow.

Unfortunately, the number of service personnel was not enough. At the same time, Ning Weimin had to find time to recruit people.

After all, most of the direct descendants transferred from the country are chefs. For such a large restaurant, it would be impossible to just point to Liu Jianxing and his limited number of people.

He can only hire some Japanese to expand his own puppet army.

Fortunately, since they are definitely puppet troops, we don't expect these people to fight a tough battle.

You don’t need to be highly skilled in professional skills, nor do you need extensive relevant experience.

What they really need to do is to greet guests at the door, communicate normally with Japanese customers, and be responsible for ordering food.

As long as you have an optimistic personality, are diligent, obey management, and have good English skills, you will be able to communicate with Huaxia employees on basic work matters.

However, it is also for this reason that the huge gap in the income of employees between the two countries is a troublesome issue full of hidden worries.

Don't forget, this was the heyday of Japan's economic growth, and the average salary in Tokyo was very high.

Especially in the service industry, the job cannot be said to be stable and long-term, and you have to pay for your smile.

For example, the average employee of a high-end restaurant in Tokyo today earns about 250,000 yen per month.

Senior employees and management positions can even cost up to 400,000 yen, which is far more than white-collar workers working in ordinary companies.

And for Japanese people, there may be some psychological barriers to working for Chinese people.

Anyway, compared with local catering companies in Japan, if Ning Weimin had to pay more, they would definitely not let him work.

Then he would have to pay at least 30,000 to 50,000 yen more to hire people.

But looking at the direct troops from the country, it immediately became unbalanced.

Take Yang Feng and Jiang Dachun as examples. Their salaries among Tan Palace chefs are among the best, and they are undoubtedly high-income groups in the country.

The monthly salary is almost 1,000 yuan, and the unique savings bonus of Tan Palace is about 800 yuan, which adds up to almost 1,890 yuan.

After I went abroad, I lost this bonus and had an overseas subsidy of 50,000 yen per month.

Calculating, they now get a little more than the domestic ones, and they can get 2,000 yuan.
To be continued...