After all, the Qingyuan County Seat was also close to the Qing River, so fish was a local specialty here as well, and their most famous restaurant had a chef who was very skilled at cooking fish.
But when she heard the word ‘fish’, Su Tang could only shake her head wryly, “Is there anywhere else?”
When she said that the attendant suddenly recalled that the girl in front of him was wearing mourning clothes and probably couldn’t eat fish, so he hurriedly corrected, “Sorry, I misspoke. If the young miss wants to eat vegetarian dishes, the chefs at the Fu An Resuturaunt are pretty good. The Fu An Restaurant’s specialty is a special warm room that can grow vegetables out of season. You can eat green vegetables even now in the dead of winter, which is a rare experience. Also, their chef is also a good cook who is skilled with vegetarian dishes.”
Hearing the attendant’s explanation, Su Tang nodded along. She was convinced and wanted to head over there for lunch, so she asked where to find the Fu An Restaurant. At the same time, she was secretly feeling impressed. She had only traveled a short way from Qinghe Town to the Qingyuan County Seat, but the situation was completely different.
Sure enough, people still needed to go out and experience the world for themselves in order to gain knowledge. If she hadn’t coincidentally found out about this restaurant growing vegetables in a warm room today, then she would still be thinking that it was a concept no one else in this era had ever thought of.
It seemed that the wisdom of the ancients really shouldn’t be underestimated, and the ordinary working people really were, in fact, very smart.
She didn’t bother to find Niu’er to drive her over in the carriage. After all, they would need to run around all over the place this afternoon, so it would be better to let the horse and Niu’er stay put and rest for now. Thus, Su Tang walked over to the Fu An Restaurant on her own feet.
The Fu An Restaurant was on one of the County Seat’s main streets. It was a three-story building and Su Tang happened to arrive right around lunchtime, so it was very lively inside. When Su Tang walked over, the waiter at the door warmly greeted her, “Are you here to have a meal? We have excellent vegetarian cuisine, little miss, why don’t you come in and have a taste?”
Su Tang was wearing her mourning clothes, so the waiter greeted her enthusiastically. Su Tang smiled and walked inside, and the waiter quickly led her to an empty table to sit down.
“Little miss, would you like me to explain our specialty dishes?” The waiter asked politely.
“Alright.” Su Tang felt that the service of this Fu An Restaurant was quite good, not much worse even when compared to modern times. Thus, when the waiter volunteered to recommend their specialties, she agreed.
The waiter quickly began to introduce their specialty dishes, and Su Tang listened quietly. However, just when she was about to order, suddenly a young man in fine clothes strolled inside the door with several attendants in tow. One of the attendants called in a large voice. “You there, come open up a private room for our young master.”
When the waiter talking to Su Tang heard the attendant addressing him, his face changed and he sent Su Tang an uncertain look.
Seeing his predicament, Su Tang opened her mouth and said, “I’m in no hurry, if you need to…”
But when the young man heard Su Tang’s words, he sharply cut her off, “There’s no need. Please go ahead and order miss.”
Su Tang looked over again. Unexpectedly, the young man seemed somewhat familiar. Su Tang raised an eyebrow, however, before she could think further another waiter had already arrived and taken the young man and his party to the second floor.
“Well, give me your braised bean curd and the cabbage, egg, and vegetable soup, and also a bowl of rice.” Su Tang returned to ordering.
Meanwhile, her waiter seemed to notice that someone else had gone and greeted the arrogant young man, and he immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Then, when he heard Su Tang ordering, he quickly smiled and replied, “Understood little miss, just wait a moment please and the food will be out soon.”
When the waiter finally left, Su Tang couldn’t help but look up at the second floor. She smiled and said, “Hmm, the County Seat is kind of interesting!”
The Fu An Restaurant served their food very quickly, so before long everything Su Tang had ordered arrived at her table. And somehow, seeing this touch of green on the plate despite the winter weather was a bit comforting. Of course, although vegetarian dishes were the special characteristic of the Fu An Restaurant, they also sold meat dishes as well. And if you looked around the main room, most people were actually eating meat dishes.
After all, vegetarian dishes were much more expensive than meat dishes at this time of year, so only rich people would go out of their way to order them. After all, in another few months, there would be wild vegetables springing up from the ground all over the place, so most people felt like they could afford to wait.
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