The Other World Dining Hall (WN) Chapter 81

Barbecue Once Again

For Western restaurant Nekoya, there's Obon festival.

Every year in the middle of August, the restaurant closed for a whole week.

The main reason was because the salary workers that were the main customers of Nekoya did not go to work, and because the restaurant was an old store, there was an idea that it was necessary to rest from work during holidays for the store's predecessor and the present owner.

Well, before the Obon festival began, there were customs to serve "special cuisines" at Nekoya.

The price was the upper limit of the restaurant, 1,000 yen. However in order for the "all you can eat" customers could be satisfied, it was a dish that wouldn't be served except during festivals as it would result in a deficit.

Ever since long ago, before the owner was born, at the time when the restaurant was still in deficit (there's no money yet due to the predecessor who was responsible on the mistake of overstocking on food and he laughed when given a good scolding by his wife who was in charge of financing) and there's a lot of food at the restaurant… it seemed.

It was the time just before Obon festival, when spiritual consciousness was strong and the restaurant's warehouse was much smaller compared to now, after the customers stopped coming during Obon festivals, the owner was greatly perplexed due to the overstocking of ingredients for Obon festival.

As the result of brainstorming for one night, the predecessor came up with a certain plan and came up with a signboard.

—Today, there's a special all you can eat menu of "barbecue", both meat and vegetables.

On the day he made such plans, the customers of Nekoya explosively increased, and the ingredients that were supposed to be overstocked were used up in just two days. Though there's hardly any profit due to everyone eating high quality food like shrimps, the predecessor said that he did not waste any food and was relieved.

…However, it was a great miscalculation that next year, various customers asked for another all-you-can-eat barbecue and it was impossible to avoid doing so.

That's why every year during Obon festival, Western restaurant Nekoya held "barbecue" once a year for two days.

Obon festival was held just before Friday. An on the next day of Sat.u.r.day, customers would come in droves for the 1,000 yen barbecue.

And this year again, that day came.

[Yos.h.i.+, let's work hard today as well.]

On Sat.u.r.day morning, the owner raised his spirit.

Friday yesterday was successful, it was a battlefield.

Students on summer vacation would come from daytime for the barbecue, and the salary workers would come during evening and ate a lot. The business of a typical noon time would last from opening to closing time.

The owner who was six year past 30 years old had endured it. To be honest, he would like to take a day off.

However, it was a week off for the owner starting from the next day, so he would feel motivated if he thought so.

Thus the owner silently cut the meat, washed the vegetables and prepared the seafood.

[Good morning, master.]

[Ou, I'm busy right now, so take a shower and eat. I made a sandwich for you.]

Even though Aletta came as usual, he couldn't stop working. He couldn't stop his hands.

On Sat.u.r.days, the number of customers that came was less than Fridays, but the staff was also less. The serving had become much easier ever since Aletta took that position, but the number of chef was limited to him only.

[Yos.h.i.+, this is it.]

After a while, it was finally ready.

'Chirinchirin', with the sound that announced the arrival of customers, the battle began.

When she heard that today's daily set was barbecue, Ellen's smile deepened as her prediction hit the mark.

[Ou, it's today after all.]

Along with her, Hermann and her two children, Kai and Bona, smiled.

A barbecue that was held only once a year during summer, on Satur's day once in 7 days.

Ellen who had been visiting for a decade could predict when it would happen after encountering it several times.

[I see. It's as I thought… then I wish to order barbecue for 4 people. With it…]

[Beer! Beer please!]

[Kaa-chan! I want cola!]

[Me too!]

For the once a year Obon festival, Hermann and co. requested drinks.

[I understand. Excuse me, one beer and two colas please.]

Usually she would reject it as soon as possible, but for this yearly barbecue day, she wanted to eat and drink as much as possible.

From such feelings, Ellen accepted it as much as possible and ordered additional drinks.

[Yes, thank you very much. Well, you can choose the ingredients for barbecue, but what do you want first?]

The waitress asked for the specified ingredients.

[Beef and pork. Also, I would like chicken legs with barbecue sauce.]

Ellen responded with a smile.

Speaking of barbecue, it was a day to eat delicious meat.

That was barbecue for Ellen's family.

The barbecue was a special dish that was served on a summer Sat.u.r.day at the otherworld dining hall once a year.

The price was quite high, but not just bread, rice and soup, but also "the main dish itself, you can order your favourites as much as you like". It's a lavish cuisine, but there's value to eat it with a fee of a silver coin.

Especially the meat. It was an opportunity to eat the fine otherworld meat; it's like a festival for Ellen's family.

After a while, a platter of barbecue was served before them.

[Thank you for waiting. Here's you barbecue platter.]

[Also, here are your drinks.]

Due to the large amount, the owner brought the food while the waitress brought a tray with the beverages.

The savoury aroma of burned barbecue sauce drifted from the grilled meats.

To that fragrance, their mouth watered and reached for the food.

The beef was skewered alternatively with Oranie while the pork skewer was just meat. They could see that each of the chicken legs was cooked carefully.

(How irresistible…)

While having a skewer in hand, she could smell strongly its fragrance. Ellen couldn't stand it anymore and bit onto the beef skewer.

The moment it entered her mouth, the meat juice and fat along with the sweet and sour barbecue sauce spread in her mouth.

(Aa, the meat here is so delicious…)

Ellen's eyes narrowed in pleasure.

The barbecue sauce was sweet, sour and slightly spicy. And while the meat was exquisitely grilled with fire, the high quality meat was not tough at all. The beef was especially tender, did not smell of milk, and there's plenty of meat juice every time she chewed… it was to an extent that Ellen wondered whether it's the same cow as the ones that Ellen knew

(I wonder how they can grow a cow this delicious.)

Beef was one of the ingredients for festival food held for autumn harvest festival at Ellen's village.

After the year's harvest had finished successfully, the festival, which was carried out as a thank you for the Earth G.o.ddess, would feature roasted beef.

They would either use an old cow that couldn't work anymore or a spent cow, then they would roast it.

It was a delicious meal for Ellen's family that couldn't normally eat meat, but it was too tough for old people and had a peculiar bad smell.

Still, Ellen's evaluated that it was not as good as pigs that were raised for eating.

But the beef meat here was completely different. It was not less delicious than pork meat and had no bad smell; once she ate she couldn't stop.

While eating the roasted Oranie sandwiched between the meats that only had a bit of its texture and bitterness left, she finished eating one skewer and reached for the beer.

Fresh cold bitterness went through her mouth and throat, was.h.i.+ng away the taste of meat.

She sighed from that feeling and looked at the other three people that were also satisfied with their food and drink.

(Well, this family is similar to each other.)

She laughed after thinking that.

[Ou, kaa-chan. This pork meat is delicious. Try it.]

After a breath, Hermann said so while taking another skewer of pork meat.

The pork barbecue with its red meat and white glossy fat meat. It was roasted with just meat and its meat juice dripped down from the skewer.

When one bit through the fragrant surface, the fat would gently leak with the meat juice into the mouth. It was exquisite when combined with barbecue sauce.

[Kaa-chan! Try this chicken leg too!]

[Please eat it! It's really delicious!]

The children recommended the chicken legs. It was roasted chicken legs with barbecue sauce that's usually sold as roast chicken, but it had more barbecue sauce than other meats. The chicken skin coated with the sauce was crisp while the leg meat was soft and tender.

The leg meat where one could enjoy various flavours at one time was a favourite of children.

[Yes, yes, I'll eat them. Aa, the beef meat is also delicious, so please eat it. It's almost a different thing from the ones of the village festival.]

Ellen also recommended the beef meat, in response to the love of her husband and children.

For them, barbecue was a dish to enjoy delicious meats only.

Another party of two men that looked like father and son along with two different dogs were enjoying meat as the highlight of the dish.

[How is it? This place's barbecue.]

[It's very good… is it true that we can eat so much delicious food with just one silver coin?]

[Of course. Though it doesn't include alcohol or sweet drinks. Eat as much as you want. Both rice and meat.]

Mas.h.i.+ra, a middle-aged skilled hunter, said so to his disciple Yuuto while stroking the head of the two dogs that were eating unsalted roasted meat while wagging their tails.

[Yes, thank you very much.]

He strongly nodded to Mas.h.i.+ra and started to eat with a skewer in his left hand and chopsticks in his right hand.

He removed the pork meat seasoned with sauce made of shoyu and sugar from its skewer and heaped it on top of the rice.

The sweet white rice soaked in the meat fat and juice.

The savoury taste of the fragrantly roasted meat was compatible with the sweet steaming rice, he felt like he eating as much as he wanted.

[The rice here is delicious after all. Even it alone was already a good treat.]

[I know. Even for me, I don't know whether I come here to eat the meat or the rice.]

Mas.h.i.+ro too nodded at Yuuto's words.

Certainly the meat here was delicious. He always ate ginger pork or stewed pork belly that the samurais were fond of, and then today's barbecue. He thought that these meat dishes were the best taste of Mountain Country.

However, it's true that the rice here tasted different than the ones planted at the Mountain Country.

Due to their occupation, for these two that constantly ate meat, it was natural that this one felt like a feast.

(Aa, I can't endure this fragrance.)

Mas.h.i.+ra breathed in the rice's steam, it was rich in fragrance.

Even though he had just eaten the meat and rice until then, he still wanted to eat, it was such a mysterious thing.

(I will still eat; I won't lose to a young fellow.)

Then Mas.h.i.+ra picked up his chopsticks again in order to not lose to his disciple and ate meat and rice with raging momentum.

Faldania, a traveling elf, gently cut it with her knife and brought it to her mouth. She frowned; it was as delicious as always.

(I'm beaten… to think a roasted Meranza1 is so tasty.)

While thinking such, she carried her fifth piece of Meranza to her mouth.

The green flesh contained a terribly good umami. The Meranza was sprinkled with furikake2 made from tororo kelp3, shoyu and the sharp tasting juice of grated ginger, highlighting the best flavor of Meranza itself.

The violet skin was cleanly peeled off; the vivid green-fleshed Meranza was a summer vegetable. Its thick flesh was soft; it absorbed the soup's flavor and was delicious when it was cooked in a soup or the like, but when roasted with salt, it was good in its own way.

However, if that was the only thing, there's no way Faldania would ask for "another serving".

(This shoyu is sneaky after all. With it, I can eat various things deliciously.)

She glimpsed at her disciple who was gnawing at the sweet roasted corn.

Looking at Alice who was gnawing at the yellow vegetable with thick core, it seemed that she liked it.

Fragrant when it's freshly roasted, the sweet juice burst in the mouth when one chewed on it.

And the salty shoyu brushed on it made it even more delicious.

The distinctive taste of the salty burnt shoyu went well with the sweet corn and seemed to have captured Alice's heart.

[Excuse me. Onee-san, please give me another corn.]

She did not ask for the s.h.i.+take mushroom, the sliced Oranie or the Cobbler's fruit anymore. She only asked for corn now.

(This thing called "corn" is also sneaky.)

She lifted the green gra.s.s draped over the Meranza with a fork to identify it.

The owner said "usually I add katsuobus.h.i.+4 with ginger and shoyu, but it would smell bad for you" so he used this tororo kelp instead.

This gra.s.s was like a ma.s.s of umami, it was a mysterious gra.s.s with faint ocean smell and its flavor oozed out when she chewed on it.

(…Camilla might know its ident.i.ty.)

The smell of the sea, she glanced at the witch living near the port town who invited Faldania and Alice to the otherworld dining hall that day.

A witch named Camilla who was called as the witch of the cape; she sold medicine to the townspeople.

As she was familiar with the ocean, Faldania hoped that she might know something.

[Un. I don't think this is freshly harvested, but it seems to be stored properly in a cold place to prevent rot. Something like that.]

The Camilla in question was eating seafood.

The skewer had curled Schripe and largely cut Clarco. There's also scallop that was grilled directly on its sh.e.l.l.

Everything seemed to be seasoned with shoyu, the Schripe was chewy, the Clarco had elasticity that pushed back on her teeth, while the chewy scallop unraveled in her mouth.

The shoyu, which looked similar to fish sauce that was used by the Sea Country of Western Continent, was slightly scorched. Its aroma and taste combined with the fresh seafood that could only be obtained near the sea and no degradation due to its preservation method stimulated her appet.i.te.

[Nee, Camilla…-san.]

While she was enjoying her meal, she was called.

[Is something wrong, Faldania-san?]

She stopped her fork and looked at Faldania… the female descendent of the elven invaders who had come to her place to ask about fruit jelly.

The invaders that came from north of the Blue G.o.ddess' territory long before Camilla, whose age was beyond hundred years old now, was born.

They were barbarians that lumped together the six pillars and the "Chaos of Myriad Colours" as the "Supreme King of 7 prismatic colours"; they were also excellent magicians with highly developed magic that were able to beat even the high priests and priestesses.

They were aggressors that attacked the continent of a Great G.o.ddess' kin and had insufferable arrogance that thought themselves as the ruler of the world, but that's a story of far past.

Now that they had declined in number and outnumbered by humans, they lived in small villages at forests while hiding their former arrogance.

As the people of the Blue G.o.ddess lived in the ocean, their relations.h.i.+p with the elves that primarily invaded the land was thin, so Camilla did not dislike the elves a lot.

That's why they sometimes shared their actions.

[This… I think it's a sea gra.s.s that's placed over this; do you know what this is?]

[Hmm, let me taste it for a moment.]

Camilla reached out her fork towards the green leafs that Faldania had enthusiastically offered for her question.

[Un, I guess it's probably that gra.s.s.]

Faldania tilted her head while hearing her explanations word by word.

It was night time. After sending off the last customer, the owner heavily sat on a dining chair.

[…It finally ended.]

The voice leaked out unintentionally. He felt more and more tired every year, but he didn't want to feel that he's getting older.

It was so busy that his eyes were spinning that day. From evening, the customers who usually came to drink alcohol became enthusiastic after hearing about the barbecue and repeatedly ordered another serving of barbecue and alcohol.

The last customer of the day… the demon that usually ordered beef stew lingered around for "a little taste test" and had eaten five family servings of barbecue.

He was really exhausted now.

[Maa, I can have a good rest from tomorrow with this.]

Nonetheless, if he survived that day, he would be on holiday from Sunday to next Sat.u.r.day and he intended to take it easy.

What should he do this year, which was what he was thinking then.

[Well, I suppose I should finish the last cooking.]

The owner prepared a barbecue of their own for the employee that was currently showering at the bathroom.

メランザ - it reads as Meranza. Seeing that it's a roasted vegetable with purple skin, I'm guessing that it's an eggplant.  Furikake(振り掛け / ふりかけ) is dry j.a.panese seasoning meant to be sprinkled on top of cooked rice, vegetables, and fish. It typically consists of a mixture of dried fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate.  Ohoro (tororo) kelp consists of thin shavings of pale green lconba (Saccharina j.a.ponica) marinated in rice vinegar. Some are thin, soft blades, while others are thick and tough. After the kelphas been harvested and rinsed, it is normally dried in the sun, then pressed and packaged whole or in pieces, or ground into coa.r.s.e granules.  Katsuobus.h.i.+ is dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna. It is also known as Bonito flakes when young bonito is used as a cheaper subst.i.tute for skipjack tuna.