Side Story: Fran and Kune 04

「Here it is! This is my favorite place, nya!」

Following Kune’s lead, we arrived at a local eatery.

Before introducing any new dishes, we needed to understand the preferred tastes of the locals. You can’t just force new food on people.

Even in Japan, many foods like frogs, crayfish, and certain large fish from China were never widely accepted.

No matter how much the government or celebrities praise something, people won’t eat what they don’t want to eat.

「Hey owner! Three of the usual, nya! Oh, and make one big enough for the wolf!」

「Got it!」

She really was a regular. Her order went through with just “the usual.”

「The usual?」

「Yep! It’s my absolute favorite, nya! Fran, you’ll love it too!」

「What dish is it?」

「Nyahaha, just wait and see, nya!」

Kune struck a dramatic pose and brushed off Fran’s question. She must be incredibly confident in her recommendation.

「This is the best food in Raydoss. You’ll be blown away, nya!」

「Looking forward to it.」

「Woof!」

I was going to ask about Raydoss cuisine while we waited, but…

「Here is your slop porridge!」

「Time to dig in, nya!」

「Hmm.」

「Arf?」

Damn, that was fast! That said, I understood the speed once I saw the dish. As the name suggested, it was just a barley porridge with some sort of broth poured over it, containing a few shreds of fish.

Honestly, it looked quite plain. But the real test was the taste. Simple dishes can sometimes be surprisingly delicious.

「I can never get enough of this stuff! Quick, cheap, and tasty! Perfection, nya!」

Kune gobbled down the porridge with joy, genuinely content. On the other hand, Fran and Urushi looked far from enthusiastic.

『Fran, how is it?』

（…Okay, I guess?）

Since Fran found practically everything delicious, “okay” basically meant “awful”.

『Urushi?』

（Arf…）

Urushi also looked pretty apathetic. While it wasn’t inedible, it seemed far from enjoyable…

Noticing Fran and Urushi’s reactions, the owner lady approached us with a wry smile.

「Seems like you two have functioning taste buds.」

「What do you mean?」

「You see, Kune is the only one who enjoys this dish so much, though I’m not sure if it can actually be called a dish. I was starting to think maybe all black catfolk liked it…」

「So tasty! This is the best, nya!」

Fran and Urushi turned to watch Kune’s reaction with a mixture of pity and confusion.

「Guess I was mistaken.」

「Nn.」

Apparently, when Kune first came to the eatery, she made an urgent request for food. Anything would be fine, as long as it was given to her immediately.

Meanwhile, the lady had been exhausted and low on ingredients after the busy rush hour. She simply gave Kune a makeshift meal from the leftovers that she was going to eat herself.

This ended up being an overcooked porridge flavored with salt and some shreds of dried fish. She had expected Kune to complain that this was not something to be served to a customer.

Once Kune started complaining, she would counter with “You’re the one who said to make it fast”, but…

「Kune said it was great and gobbled it all down.」

Ever since then, Kune visited the store on a regular basis and demanded the same dish.

The lady attempted to serve Kune various proper meals, but Kune always insisted that the porridge was the best.

Kune refused to back down no matter what she did, so the lady eventually gave up trying.

The makeshift porridge was begrudgingly added to the menu, and the only one who ever ordered it was Kune, her very peculiar regular customer.

In which case, we had a problem.

「So this isn’t Raydoss cuisine?」

「Calling this Raydoss cuisine would get me in trouble with the other customers.」

Turns out Kune is completely useless!

「I want to try authentic Raydoss cuisine.」

「Authentic, huh? Well, we mostly serve local home-style dishes.」

「That’s fine. Bring me five of the local favorites.」

「Got it!」

The dishes that followed were well-prepared, ordinary recipes.

There was boiled meat in honey mustard, sweet and salty braised fish, sweet mashed potatoes, sweet and salty minced meat-stuffed gnocchi, and a fish and vegetable soup. Fran enjoyed all of them.

The issue was that nearly all the dishes were heavily sweetened with sugar or honey, flavors the locals were likely accustomed to.

Moreover, the only spice they used was mustard. According to the lady, other spices were rarely available, so the locals had little experience with them.

If even a cook like her didn’t use other spices, then the general public might not even know of their existence.

I thought all we needed to do was make curry, but maybe it won’t be that simple.

「Nom nom… Seconds of this.」

「Coming right up.」

「Kuhn.」

Looks like Fran enjoys their sweet dishes. Hopefully, the people of Raydoss will come to love curry just as much.

And make sure to share with Urushi too!

「This is so good, nya!」

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