The 32nd Shanghai Tourism Festival
In the early 1930s, as soon as the butterfly puff pastry was launched, it captured the taste buds of Shanghainese. Today, butterfly puff pastry has incorporated more Shanghai flavor. The butterfly puff pastry of the International Hotel is not only a memory on the tip of the tongue of Shanghainese, but also attracts guests from all over the world to smell the fragrance.
——Xu Liming (born in 1960, Director of Catering Department of Shanghai International Hotel and Director of Fansheng Cake House. In 2019, Xu Liming Haipai West Point R&D Model Labor Innovation Studio was rated as the ninth batch of "Shanghai Model Labor Innovation Studio")
Butterfly crisp, elegant in name, dexterous in appearance, mille-feuille crisp, and sugar grinding between the lips and teeth when entered. In the early 1930s, as soon as this French dim sum was launched, it captured the taste buds of Shanghainese. Recipes for making butterfly puff pastry are at your fingertips, there are many restaurants selling butterfly puff pastry, but butterfly puff pastry in international hotels can be famous and sell well.
The International Hotel's Sail Sound Cake House is a factory in front of the store and back, and when you walk into the factory on the second floor, the raw materials are just the common butter, flour, salt, sugar, and water. The dough is stacked with butter, sprinkled with a handful of sugar, folded eight times to create 256 layers, and then the dough is sliced by hand and sent to the oven. In the high temperature, the face oil and sugar dance in each other's arms, and the "butterfly" wings gradually take shape and rise high, and at this time, the home-made raw materials burst out an irresistible fragrance.
On this day, Xu Liming, the director of the Fansheng Cake House, patrolled the operation room, wearing overalls, hoods, masks, etc., only a slightly slow pace revealed that he was more than sixty years old, and when he picked up the cutting knife, he was still as sharp as a young man. The butterfly puff pastry of the International Hotel is still hand-cut to this day, which is one of the reasons why it is better than similar products. Xu Liming explained: "Machine cutting, you need to freeze the dough to a certain hardness to cut it, and after the frozen dough is sent into the oven, the crisping effect will become worse. ”
After cooling, the butterflies crisped downstairs to the cake house, where they were packed in transparent bags, and a father and son bought two large bags. A girl who came to Shanghai to travel from abroad saw the recommendation of a social networking site and also came to buy two boxes of gift boxes to take home as souvenirs. After watching for a while, Xu Liming went out, turned to Nanjing West Road, and walked into the International Hotel, where he had worked for 40 years. In 1934, Hudak's "tallest building in the Far East" was inaugurated here, like a sailing ship on land, overlooking the city.
In 1979, at the age of 19, Xu Liming entered the International Hotel. His first position was as a waiter, and later as a driver, a maintenance worker... It was not until the age of 50 that he took over the business of The Sails cake house. "Butterfly crisp is good, if it is limited to the plates of international restaurants, only Shanghainese know, it is far from enough."
So he started from sales, one link after another, until he mastered the unique skill of making butterfly crisps. In the era when the Internet economy has not yet fully taken off, Sail Sound Cake House has created a "flash delivery" concept, customers in the inner ring can order remotely, and Cake House has free delivery.
Behind the cost of manpower and transportation, Xu Liming is eager to open up the market. Butterfly crisp business list, slowly from individual customers to corporate single, at the same time, the international hotel also took the initiative to undertake many major tasks, in the World Expo, the Expo and other major occasions, exquisite butterfly crisp and other exquisite special snacks frequently appeared, the participants all praised. In 2011, with the official operation of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, Xu Liming promoted butterfly puff pastry, almond puff pastry and other snacks to board the high-speed rail train in the form of pocket versions. The railway is getting longer and longer, and the butterfly puff pastry flies into thousands of households along with the high-speed rail train. Some passengers ate the butterfly puff pastry, but also deliberately kept the wrapping paper, after returning home, they called the international hotel and placed an order again.
This year, Butterfly Crisp is embarking on entering the live broadcast room of the short video platform to broaden the online sales channels through live streaming. "Since the reform and opening up, Shanghai's economic development has been at the forefront of the country, and Shanghainese people have accepted more new things and innovated things. So even though I'm a little older now, I want to keep up with the times. Xu Liming said.
Author: Zhou Chen
Editor: Liu Liyuan