Great Ming, 1498: My Restaurant Connects Two Worlds

“Shopkeeper, may I ask what you’re eating?”

“This is the delicacy known as instant noodles. Do you have a ‘Chickens Pecking at Rice’ painting to trade for it?”

Song Xiaoyi’s little restaurant was miraculously nestled across two levels at Taoyedu Ferry: the first floor was Ming China in 1498, and the second was the modern world in 2018.

From the moment he used the kitchen connecting the two floors to sell his first serving of instant noodles in Ming China, business at the restaurant never let up.

“At Taoyedu Ferry in Yingtian Prefecture, South Zhili, stands the Song family’s ancestral restaurant, truly the leader of the culinary world in our Great Ming. Every day, as soon as its doors open, customers crowd outside in an endless line stretching hundreds of meters, a spectacle without equal. The dishes prepared by its chefs send an exotic fragrance drifting over the Qinhuai River, carrying for miles. More astonishing still, pleasure boats on the river anchor there to await their meals, packed so tightly that they clog the Qinhuai waterway and leave almost no room for other vessels to pass. It is truly a sight to behold.”

Excerpt from Records of the Great Ming: Miscellaneous Notes.