Do you know why buns in Pan Pi Market are only sold at 4 p.m. every day, and there is only a limited supply of 1,000?
Did you know that during the Chinese New Year, the brine duck in Panbiao City can sell for 1,000 catties a day?
Did you know that the city of cān, which you have been reading all along, is actually pronounced correctly as the city of sūn?
Panpiao City is the originator of Chengdu pickled brine small goods, Ren Huaxing Street has changed over the past century, the price of pork market has risen steadily, and Panyi Market has been standing still. Try this one from 1925 when you have time, it won't disappoint you.
Panpi City is located on Huaxing Street behind Wangfujing, next to the Jinjiang Theater and Yuelai Tea House. The place is easy to find, walk into Huaxing Street, and see where someone is queuing. If you are really a road fool, you can ask the nearby passers-by, and when asking, you must say "Pancan City".
After so many years, everyone has become accustomed to calling it so, and if you really bite the pronunciation of the word "飧" (sūn), it seems to be out of sight. It is worth mentioning that the name of the shop in Panyi City is taken from Du Fu's poem "Kezhi", "Panyi City is far from having a taste, and the bottle restaurant is poor and only old". The couplet on the door of the store, "Hundred vegetables or cabbage is good, the meat is still pork", is simply the truth of the world, the most reasonable quote, put in today, let people feel the deliciousness of pork.
Pan Piao City (specifically referring to the pickled brine takeaway in Pan Piao City) opens at 8 a.m., and the four chefs in charge of brine dishes arrive at the store at 7 o'clock, and they generally put the ducks that have been pickled overnight into the brine first, and then it may be arched, stomach, ears and so on.
In the morning, the suppliers will deliver the goods one after another, and the masters will also follow the raw materials to taste first, and then put into the brine brine, while brine and sell. Therefore, the 16 dishes on the menu will not be available as soon as the door is opened, but will be made up one after another, and the dishes will be the most complete in the afternoon, unless the individual dishes are sold out.
In the morning, nearby residents come back from grocery shopping and take a detour to Panyi City, just to buy a baby duck or half a crispy rabbit; there are also young people who come from afar, waiting to open the door and pack a bunch of freshly baked brine goods for spring excursions, to catch a plane, to take a train. 11:00 a.m. and 4 or 5:00 p.m. are two peak periods, and there will be a short queue, from new customers to hungry customers.
It doesn't matter what's on the counter for regular customers, and they don't stretch their necks like new customers, trying to look at the menu on the wall from the small window where money is collected and delivered. What to buy today, on their way to the road has long been confident, open the mouth can be reported to the clerk name: duck tongue 2 pounds of vacuum, and then a pound of duck foot board, half a rabbit, a pound of pig's trotters.
When buying a brine dish, you'd better remember how much you paid, because this is your voucher to pick up the dish. The clerk was so busy that he couldn't remember who ordered which, and would only shout "50!" 100's! 200's! ......”
If you encounter the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, New Year's Day, Spring Festival, these big festivals, ducks have to sell more than 1,000 pounds a day, arches, hooves also have to sell 5, 600 pounds, basically the sales of dishes have to double or triple, the team to buy brine vegetables can be lined up from the entrance of Panpi City to the Jinjiang Theater.
Unlike most brine shops, there is no signature dish in Pan Piao City that must be recommended, because in terms of taste, every dish can be a signature dish. Foodies have different tastes, and each person has their own favorite, whether it is marinated pork belly, pig trotters, pig tails, or brine ribs, duck tongue, crispy rabbit, all according to their own preferences.
The legendary brine pot helmet, it is best to go in the morning, and it really depends on luck to go in the afternoon and not to eat it. There are only 1,000 buns sold on time at 4 p.m., and whether or not you can buy them is also fate.
Buns have been sold for 7 or 8 years, and the time to buy them without queuing does not add up to more than a month. Every day at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, foodies rush from all directions to queue up, rain or shine throughout the year.
Since its opening in 1925, Panyi City has experienced several generations of Chengdu delicious mouth tests, until today's hot business, relying on the "Chinese time-honored brand" fame and the feelings of old Chengdu people.
Sichuan people are delicious and spicy, but Panyi City is not spicy, and the aroma of brine is more prominent, which is related to the experience of Leng Yuanju, one of the founders. Mr. Leng was originally a well-known chef in Chengdu at that time, and later worked in Guangdong for a while.
Old layout of Huaxing Street
Therefore, the brine dishes in Panyi City take the Sichuan brine technology as the root, and draw on the Cantonese style brine technique, first marinating the raw materials to make them flavorful, and then brine into the brine pot, which has both the aroma of Sichuan brine and the Cantonese sauce, wax and wine aroma. Chengdu writer Jie Chen used "old and mellow" to describe the taste of panpiao city brine dishes.
A delicious brine shop must have a shocking pot of old brine. In 2010, the "traditional production techniques of Panpiao City Pickling Brine" were identified as "Chengdu Intangible Cultural Heritage List", so the outside world is also curious about the pot of aged brine in Panpiao City.
"The brine in Panpi City definitely has its own unique recipe, plus the brine-making skills that have been handed down from generation to generation. But this does not mean that Pan Piao City can do it now just by relying on a pot of old brine. Zou Xiao, manager of Panpiao City, does not myth the power of brine.
He said that in fact, the recipes of brine are all the same, at most there are subtle differences, and the technology of making brine is not so complicated, "and it is not an atomic bomb, which is so mysterious!" Zou Xiao said that once some stores under the head office wanted to sell brine vegetables, scooping a large basin of brine from Panfeng City, selling for the first two days, and the taste was not right later.
"The same brine, why does it taste different?" Because their measure can't be lifted. Zou Xiao said that every dish in Panyi City has to be brine for more than two hundred catties every day, the same pot of brine, the more brine dishes, the heavier the oil and gas, the more the brine is used more and more lively.
In addition, the requirements for raw materials in Panyi City are also particularly strict. Zou Xiao would often ask the clerk to send a sample to his office after the first batch of brine flavors came out in the morning. Just by looking at the color of the dish, he can judge whether the raw materials of the day are bashi, "If there is one raw material that is not bought well, a pot of brine will be damaged." ”
Raw materials are safe, fresh and of good quality, which is what Panyi City has always insisted on. Zou Xiao's mother also worked in Panyi City before retiring. Zou Xiao remembers that when she was a child, every day her mother came home from work to make dinner, and after the meal, she went back to the store to pull duck feathers, a duck for 5 cents, and then pickled the duck feathers for one night, and then brine the next day. "Earlier, the rabbits sold in the store were all pickled and marinated in the store. The ducks were bought at the market at the skydiving tower every day, and then rushed all the way back to the store to kill them. ”
Zou Xiao said that although it is certainly impossible to do it now, rabbits and ducks are killed now. But they all kept the ingredients fresh to the maximum, except for the ducks that needed to be pickled all night, which were delivered the night before, and the other ingredients arrived in the morning.
Panyi City has been open in Chengdu for 94 years, with a single store. Zou Xiao said that every year he receives various invitations to open stores, some from Chengdu and some from other places. The reason why no branch has been opened so far is also very funny to say, stemming from an insurmountable problem - the marinated dishes are very squeamish.
"The marinated vegetables start to change color and dry after 2 hours, and the oil and gas run away." After the marinated duck is left overnight, it begins to turn black and the skin wrinkles. The more stores open, the more inventory there will be. Zou Xiao said that at present, the dishes in Pan piao City can guarantee that they will be sold out on the same day of brine, including the buns sold at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
When the buns in Panpiao City first began to sell, the business was not as good as it is now, and the buns that could not be sold were lower than the cost price, and 5 cents a bun was sold to employees. Even now, the business of buns is getting better and better, and it is still limited to 1,000 per day.
Although famous for its marinated dishes, the Sichuan cuisine restaurant in Panpi City is also a must-visit place for old Chengdu people to pursue traditional Sichuan cuisine. The master team also comes from this street, from the once-popular traditional Sichuan cuisine restaurant of Shimeixuan.
Zou Xiao said that this is not some hunger marketing, when the first sale of buns, just an unintentional attempt, the store just happened to be a master who made buns. Why does it start selling at 4 o'clock and finish work at 5 o'clock? It is because at two o'clock in the afternoon, after the employees finished eating after work, they began to have time to make buns. At this time, the steamer basket of its snack bar was also empty. The buns must be sold out before 5 o'clock, and the staff who sell the buns have to prepare for the evening for the Chinese restaurant and snack bar in Pan piao City.
Pan piao city has been open for 94 years, whether it is new or old guests, you can eat simple, reassuring, authentic traditional marinade dishes in pan piao city, to some extent, it should benefit from its chinese time-honored background.
The four chefs who are currently in charge of the brine dishes in the back kitchen are all third-generation heirs, and they have been learning brine dishes in Panpi City since they were in their 10s, and they have been dry for more than 30 years, and the taste has lasted for more than 30 years.
"The technique of brine may be learned in a month or two, but to make them so skilled and stable, it is impossible without decades of experience." Zou Xiao said that only the descendants of these old brands can withstand loneliness and temptation, and they have been tied to Panpi City for most of their lives, and even married in Panpi City's own restaurant.
This should be the "craftsman" spirit of Chengdu people.