Chengdu is full of hot pot, and the competition has always been fierce, and it is not easy to stand out. Although the story of Ah Niu mainly promotes hot pot, it is better known as an ecological villa. The main store of Ah Niu Story in IT Avenue opened in 2013 and expanded to four stores in just a few years.
There used to be a saying in Chengdu's catering industry: "The old stove hot pot blooms in the Third Ring Road, and the firewood turkeys fight outside the Third Ring Road", and the second half of the sentence describes the catering brands located in the suburbs that focus on "ecology", "green health" and "nostalgia". In this case, Ah Niu Story combines the local people's favorite farmhouse with hot pot, changes the crowded environment of the hot pot restaurant in the city, and aims at the mountain villa near the road in and out of the city, and the semi-open-air form makes the dining process full of natural atmosphere.
The area of the Ah Niu story store is quite large, take the Tianhui store as an example, walk into the inconspicuous door, turn a corner, there is a stone staircase in the middle of the shady green trees on both sides, and you can see the staggered ceiling and curtains below, the tea house and mahjong table are mixed in, and the children's amusement equipment is placed a little farther away, and there are even a few crane machines. In the center of the courtyard is a lotus pond, which overflows with lotus fragrance in summer, and the stage next to it holds performances such as Sichuan opera and juggling from time to time. The pleasant environment, spacious seats, and simple farmhouse atmosphere attract many city people to come and enjoy a comfortable holiday. However, the kitchen, toilets, and other areas of the store are not tidy up, and there is even a sense of dirt, and customers are infested with mosquitoes in the summer. The waiters in the store are older, and the store area is large, so the response speed of various services is difficult to call in place, and in some cases, customers need to take the initiative to find a store staff.
The beef products of Ah Niu Story come directly from the slaughterhouse, and the hairy tripe, duck intestines, and goose intestines, which are the main ingredients of the hot pot, are required to be "served within 12 hours after slaughter". This slogan is true on weekends and holidays, when it is more popular, but it is more suspicious during periods when there is less traffic, which is why the level of related ingredients in the store fluctuates. In addition to the beef products, the vegetables in the store are sourced from the lodge's own vegetable plots, and the signature tofu is ground in-house to ensure freshness. As for the base material that most affects the taste of the hot pot, Ah Niu Story uses the traditional butter hot pot, and after the guests order, the Ming kitchen uses butter with dried sea pepper, Pixian bean paste, Sichuan pepper and other accessories, and stir-fries on the spot, eliminating the possibility of "10,000-year-old oil". It is worth noting that there seems to be no unified standard for the spiciness of the restaurant's hot pot, and there are occasional cases of spicy and not spicy enough, so remember to propose to the waiter to suit your taste when ordering.
