Chapter 100:
Mixed Rice
IT WAS FRIDAY NIGHT. Standing before a shining, silver object, the master thought, The season’s here yet again.
The end of summer heralded the coming of autumn. As far as Nekoya was concerned, fall was the season of food. The regular menu didn’t change, but all sorts of seasonal ingredients were used for the daily specials, and the restaurant served cheap, delicious seasonal dishes.
Thanks to the specials’ cheapness and variety, they were the restaurant’s main attraction, so the master never skimped on ingredients. He tasted everything he was going to cook himself. One of the many ingredients he’d use—fresh salmon from the local fishmonger—now sat in front of him.
“The first salmon of the season,” the master murmured.
The fresh salmon available in the fall was cheap and delicious compared to the frozen and imported salmon sold year-round. Fall salmon was particularly fatty, so there were all kinds of ways of cooking it.
“Now, what’s the most delicious way to use this guy?”
Generally, the master cleaned fresh autumn salmon and served it as sashimi. However, he could also just salt it and run it over a flame; that’d be delicious enough, too.
“Didn’t I just get a new shipment of rice in?” he asked himself. Rice and salmon… Thinking of a dish that fully utilized both ingredients, the master came to a decision.
He brought down a tiny rice cooker from his apartment and then prepared the salmon. Cutting off a large piece of fish, he put it in the rice cooker with mushrooms and freshly rinsed rice, setting the timer so the dish would be ready the next morning.
“There we go. Tomorrow morning’s going to be a delight.”
The master rolled his neck gently after finishing his prep work. Stretching his arms, he returned to his third-floor apartment.
✦ ✦ ✦
Aletta walked through the rundown neighborhood. Lately, she only found herself visiting this area when she was going to the restaurant.
It’s gotten a bit cold recently, the demon girl reflected. The morning air was chilly on her skin, and she appreciated the warmth of her one presentable winter outfit. Fall had settled on the capital city. Freshly harvested autumn crops and wheat filled the marketplace, and summer’s hot sunlight had faded.
On her way, Aletta passed and greeted the robed young mage who’d moved into the poorer district in the year since she’d started living and working at Sarah’s house. “Hello! Good morning. You’re up and about early.”
“Yup! Morning,” the mage replied.
The open space Aletta walked to had been cleaned up recently; the rubble was gone. In the center of the space was the door to the Restaurant to Another World. As soon as Aletta set foot in the area, she grew impatient to open the door and step in. I’m going to give it my all today!
Eager to do well, she passed through the doorway, her destination in sight.
✦ ✦ ✦
The sound of the door’s bell ringing through the air signaled Aletta’s arrival.
The young waitress tilted her head at the unfamiliar sight in the kitchen. “Um, what’s this?”
In front of her was a box made of neither wood nor metal but some otherworldly material. A steady stream of steam, and the pleasant aroma of fish, came from the box.
“Oh, that?” said the master. “It’s a rice cooker. I always use one to make rice.”
“This is a rice cooker?” Aletta cocked her head again. She was familiar with the magic tool that somehow produced hot rice if you simply inserted uncooked rice and water. However, that was a silver metal box. The strange black object in front of her didn’t resemble the rice cooker she was familiar with at all.
“See, what I’m cooking this time is a little delicate,” the master explained. “Using a professional-grade rice cooker isn’t the right move.”
The dish he was making was, in fact, delicious. However, it didn’t suit Nekoya’s “Western cuisine” schtick, so the master usually didn’t serve it. Since he’d gotten fresh salmon and rice, though, he’d decided to cook some for a staff meal.
“All right. It should be good to go,” the master said, opening the rice-cooker lid and allowing the autumnal scent to fill the air.
The aroma of soy sauce, rice, and fresh fish brought a smile to Aletta’s face. “Wowee! It smells amazing.”
“Right? This is Nekoya’s special salmon-and-mushroom mixed rice.” Seeing Aletta light up, the master couldn’t help but grin himself. “I made quite a bit, so you can even have seconds.”
Aletta sat down and watched the final touches with anticipation. The master put some radishes, rolled omelets, miso soup with fried tofu, and hot tea on a tray and set it in front of her. “Here you go.”
Also sitting on the tray was, of course, the main dish itself—mixed rice in a large tea bowl. Bits of pink fish meat were mixed with rice dyed brown with soy sauce. This traditional Japanese breakfast was a rare sight at Nekoya.
Aletta picked up the bowl. “Thank you so much!”
“Let’s dig in.”
“Right—time to dig in! Oh, Dark Lord, thank you for bestowing the gift of food upon me!” Mixing her own grace with the master’s words, Aletta started eating.
The first thing she tried was the brown rice piled in the bowl in front of her. This kind of looks like pilaf, but I guess it isn’t “Western” cuisine, she thought, considering the food it resembled most closely. The breakfast dish certainly looked similar to pilaf, which contained steamed meat and blessings of the sea but didn’t smell like butter.
Furthermore, instead of eating the mixed rice with a spoon, Aletta was offered two rods called “chopsticks.” The square omelet garnished with grated vegetables wasn’t topped with ketchup, either—something she’d never seen at Nekoya.
Aletta had already worked a full year at the restaurant, so she soon realized what she was looking at. Wait. Could this be Eastern cuisine…?
The master rarely made Eastern cuisine. You ate that using chopsticks, and many of the dishes were rice-heavy or eaten with rice. The handful of dishes on Nekoya’s menu that leaned toward Eastern cuisine were generally ones people from the other world’s West quite enjoyed. According to the master, other restaurants served better Eastern cuisine, so he rarely offered it even to staff.
With that in mind, Aletta took her first bite. Ah…this is really good!
The rice’s sweet flavor filled her mouth, pairing incredibly with the saltiness of the soy sauce. The plentiful pink meat and mushrooms were also excellent. The perfectly cooked fish smelled fresh and was delightfully fatty; each time Aletta bit in, its savory juices flowed into her mouth. When she’d lived back home in the dangerous mountains, Aletta had never eaten fish, yet somehow the pink fish felt nostalgic.
The mushrooms in the dish had the flavor of autumn. Aletta was familiar with mushrooms from soup she’d eaten in the mountains; even when soup consisted of basically nothing but a little salt and herbs, mushrooms gave it a meaty flavor. The mushrooms that absorbed the broth were also delicious—Aletta remembered that well.
Better yet, this mixed rice included two kinds of mushrooms—thinly-sliced mushrooms called maitake, and shimeji mushrooms, which had black caps with faint white patterns. Both bestowed their savory taste upon the dish and in exchange absorbed the flavors of the soy sauce, rice, and—most importantly—fish, making them small treats in and of themselves.
Rice, fish, and mushrooms—as Aletta enjoyed those three harmonious flavors, the bowl in front of her soon emptied.
“Ha! Want seconds?” the master offered. His bowl was also empty.
“I’d love some!” Aletta nodded immediately.
When she’d first started working at Nekoya, she’d held herself back during staff meals. As time went by, however, Aletta had realized that the master liked seeing how his staff enjoyed the food. So she’d begun eating her fill—although she listened to the master’s occasional warnings not to eat so much she couldn’t work.
Waiting for her second serving of mixed rice, Aletta finally started on the rolled omelet. Mmm. These are definitely different. Every bite into the moist, slightly sweet eggs complemented the saltiness of the soy sauce and other savory flavors.
The rolled omelets weren’t entirely dissimilar to the egg Aletta herself had bought for several coppers and boiled out of curiosity. Of course, a true chef like the master could cook eggs far better than she could. (According to Sarah, the master was on par with the royal castle’s best chefs.) But that wasn’t all. Eggs normally didn’t taste like these—the egg Aletta had boiled was dry, and although it was tasty, it lacked something.
The master probably uses super-duper secret seasoning. Aletta mulled it over as she chowed down, dribbling a little soy sauce on the grated, slightly dry radish. The radish’s spicy bite and the soy sauce’s strong umami added a new dimension to the omelet.
“Salmon and rice pair well,” the master told her as he passed her a second helping. “The rolled omelets are good with the mixed rice too, you know.”
“Oh?” Aletta was quick to take his advice. She followed a bite of eggs with some mixed rice and soon realized the truth of the master’s words. The fish—apparently called salmon—and eggs were a wonderful combination. “Wow—you’re right!”
Aletta and the master quietly enjoyed their mixed rice together. When they finished their meal, the rice cooker was entirely empty.
“I didn’t think we’d be able to finish all of it,” the master observed, surprised. He realized he’d probably eaten too much; he hadn’t had mixed rice in some time, so he’d wolfed it down in excitement.
Aletta had eaten just as much mixed rice as the master. “Ah…that was wonderful.” She sipped her hot tea joyfully, her heart and soul satisfied. I wonder whether he’ll make mixed rice again sometime.
The master was delighted by Aletta’s expression. “Okay,” he told her. “Our stomachs are full, so let’s get to work!”
“All right!” Aletta grinned.
Another busy day at Nekoya began.