Wild JK Kashino Yukiko Opens a Bar in Another World

Episode 20: The Ex-Royal Chef

Translated by AmaLynne

「I’m buying you lunch to thank you for all you’ve done for me. I’m the new meat supplier for this restaurant.」

「Sounds like a nice place.」

「I recommend it. That’s why I’m a meat distributor.」

The next day, Mirko-san invited us to lunch as a thank-you for my advice on aging meat.

It was a rather expensive-looking restaurant, and I, Lara-chan, and Bonta-kun looked a little out of place…

「Mirko, are you sure you want to dress like that?」

「It’s not a problem. This restaurant is one step away from a high-class restaurant with a dress code. The guy who used to be a chef at the royal palace has started his own business, and I’m trying to find a way to get him to sell aged meat to this restaurant.」

「Mirko-san, are you acquainted with the owner of this restaurant?」

「He’s a childhood friend. He’s not much older than me, but he’s a great guy with his store.」

「But Yukiko-san opened her store at a much younger age.」

「Lara, Yukiko is an exception to the rule.」

「That’s true.」

Mirko-san no longer calls Lala-chan a little girl.

Lara-chan also changed her perception of Mirko-san as a frivolous fellow who is all talk, looks, and family background, and their relationship seems to have improved considerably.

「Mirko-san, what kind of food does this restaurant serve?」

「Is that a concern for those who have experience? We’re still working on aging the meat to bring out the best flavor, but we can wholesale fresh meat that has been perfectly prepared. The main dish is steak, a meat dish topped with various sauces that Anson, the chef, has acquired through his training in royal cuisine!」

What is the difference between the food of the common people and that of the upper class?

I think the simplest explanation is the sauces.

Due to the freshness of the ingredients, the dishes that royalty and aristocrats eat are, in any case, very elaborate in terms of sauce.

Since they cannot magically produce soy sauce or miso like I can, they make their original sauces by making soup stock (fon) from bones, meat, fat, aromatic vegetables, herbs, etc. of magical beasts, and adding just the right amount of saltiness, oil, etc. to it.

Some people ferment various ingredients and make their seasonings like fish sauce.

It was said that the recipe for the sauce made from these ingredients is the life of the chef, and that each chef has his or her original sauce, and that the evaluation of the sauce’s taste determines the difference in the chef’s skill.

「Is he a good comparison to Yukiko?」

「I’m not a professional cook in the strictest sense of the word.」

I have no experience working in a restaurant.

I used to be a high school girl, and when I had free time, I would go hunting in the mountains with my grandpa, so I never had any training as a cook.

I just learned from my grandpa how to treat and process the game we gathered from traps and other sources, and how to cook with it.

My grandpa had lost his wife, my grandmother before I was born, and he was a good cook for a man of his age.

He also enjoyed drinking in moderation, and he taught me how to make the best snacks to go with it, which I think was one of the reasons I opened the bar.

Maybe it’s more like familiarity than training.

Mine is home-cooked, amateur food. The chef who owns this place must be a professional. After all, he used to work in the royal castle.

「Well, you’re a very modest owner. For the owner of a cheap bar.」

「Anson, I’m glad to see you’ve taken the time to greet us yourself.」

「Hello, Mirko. This is my restaurant.」

The young chef who appeared in front of us appeared to be Anson, the owner-chef of the restaurant and Mirko’s childhood friend.

Although slender, his body was quite muscular and he looked more like a skilled hunter than a chef.

He was dressed in pure white, well-washed cooking clothes and a cook’s hat, and when he removed the hat in greeting, his head was shaved smooth.

Probably to keep his hair from falling into his cooking.

He’s not a shaved-hair handsome…priest, though.

「But I’m not pleased to hear you talk like that to Yukiko.」

「I can’t help it. I’m a man who has served His Majesty before. But still…」

The owner of the restaurant, a chef named Anson, looked at Bonta-kun for some reason.

「Alas! You are supposed to be a cook too, but your hair is…」

Bonta-kun doesn’t have long hair, though.

He regularly cut his hair and kept it short.

「Even though cooks are supposed to shave their hair!」

「Really?」

「I suppose all of them who work in the royal castle do.」

So if the hair were to fall on the dishes of His Majesty or royalty, there would be a scandal?

So they shave their hair to the limit.

You sound like an ascetic monk.

I’m trained in cooking, so maybe it’s similar.

「The owner must not have trained her employees properly. It’s a restaurant for commoners after all.」

You’ve been talking about commoners and commoners for a while now.

I’m not a commoner myself.

As for the situation of cooks in the Royal Capital, I hear that cooks working in the royal castle are often either chefs for generations or people from families who run high-end, well-established restaurants who have come to the city for training.

This is because no matter how good the chef is, the king or the nobility cannot be served food prepared by an unknown chef.

This is the reason why this man runs a restaurant that is in the delicate position of being one step short of a high-class restaurant.

It is because his background and bloodline do not allow him to run a fine restaurant.

So the top is packed.

And yet, they underestimate our restaurant as a cheap bar for commoners.

It must be some kind of incestuous hatred.

「It is the custom in the royal castle for the cooks to shave their hair, but not so much for the rest of us.」

「Is that so? Bonta-kun.」

And here, Bonta-kun quietly fired back.

Bonta-kun quietly retorted that the only cooks who shave all their hair are the ones who work at the royal castle.

「If it’s not too long and clean, it’s good. If the hair is too short, it will be difficult to find it when it falls into the dishes. The bottom line is that it is important to take measures to prevent hair from falling out.」

Bonta-kun, Lara-chan, and I all wrap a cloth around our heads instead of a towel to prevent our hair from falling out while we are cooking or serving customers.

The waitress at this restaurant also seems to keep her hair tied up with a ribbon or something similar.

Maybe it’s because they can’t shave off the girls who are serving customers just because their hair falls off.

「You seem to know some common sense about cooks…」

I don’t care what the cook, Anson, thinks, but I’m hungry enough and I want my food to be served as soon as possible.

What?

You mean you won’t get up from your seat?

Because it’s Mirko-san treat, it’s a waste.

Besides, I’m curious about the dishes of other chefs, even those who used to work in the royal castle.

「You should enjoy my cooking and feel the difference. That’s part of the learning process.」

As one would expect from a former royal chef.

He had served the king before, and he seemed very confident.

He told us that inexperienced amateurs like us should learn from his cooking.

「(Yukiko-san, he is indeed a friend of Mirko-san’s. He’s very confident.)」

「(He doesn’t seem to have any bad intentions…)」

In a whisper, Lara-chan and I discuss Anson-san.

He is indeed a confident man, and although he may not have meant to offend, it is also true that it irked me a little.

I can’t wait to eat the food and start preparing for the restaurant.

「Sorry to keep you waiting!」

Anson-san, confident as ever, brought his food, probably because his friend Mirko-san was there.

It was the standard menu: steak, soup, salad, and bread.

He says they serve a more varied course menu in the evening.

I don’t have time to go there, though.

「You’ve got sauce on you, owner.」

「This is the life of a chef, isn’t it?」

It is similar to a fon de veau in French cuisine.

It is made by simmering the bones, meat, organs, various vegetables, and herbs of the magical beast.

Each cook has his recipe for the sauce, which he does not share with anyone.

A cook who can make a good sauce will have many customers, and in fact, Anson-san’s restaurant was crowded with many customers.

The restaurant’s sales pitch is that although royalty and aristocrats do not come here, wealthy commoners and merchants can enjoy the food at a slightly lower price than in high-class restaurants, and the taste is not inferior to that of the high-class restaurants.

It was no surprise that the restaurant was so popular.

「The meat is fresh and doesn’t smell like animal flesh.」

「Bonta-kun, my man, I went through a lot of trouble for this.」

I taught him how to drain the blood and disassemble the meat, but whether or not he could do it after being taught is another story.

I think Mirko-san has mastered it well in such a short period.

Above all, it was amazing that he was able to hire the right people and keep the business in the black.

I had a bad impression of him at first, but then again, he is the grandson of that grandpa.

「I think they use watercow bones, but the sauce is light yet rich and delicious.」

「Bonta-kun, you know your stuff.」

「I used to make it. I can’t make it this good though…」

He didn’t tell me any more than that, but it seems that Bonta-kun has training as a chef.

He was immediately recognized as a ready-to-work chef when he arrived at my place.

Moreover, Bonta-kun is only 15 years old.

I am sure he will grow up to be a good chef.

「Yukiko-san, this meat is fresh, but it would taste even better if you use aged meat.」

「Is it so hard to generalize?」

Some people in the world prefer fresh-tasting meat that has not been aged.

Most people will say that aged meat tastes better, though, because of the striking difference in umami flavor.

If I don’t say so, that confident Anson-san will get angry.

I can’t wait to finish my meal and get back to preparing.

「I, too, was so impressed with that aged meat that I’m trying to replicate it, but it’s difficult.」

I’m sure Mirko-san will be able to master it in no time if he can perfect the temperature control.

「I think that if this restaurant can add aged meat, it will become popular again together with this restaurant’s sauce, don’t you think」

「Oh, but… The steak that Yukiko-san served as a meal the other day was delicious.」

「I, too, was surprised at how good that sauce tasted. The meat was just regular, but it tasted better than this one.」

「Did you think so too, Bonta-kun? Me too.」

「Oh, both of you…」

There was still Anson-san here, eager to hear the praise from us, and if he heard that my meal was better than his steak, he will…

With that in mind, I tried to stop them both, but alas, it was not in time.

「Huh? The owner of that restaurant made better steaks than I did, and those are her meals, too!」

I guess it’s a matter of taste.

I’d like to eat lunch and get back to work as soon as possible, but I don’t think I’ll be able to…

「Bonta and all that! Do you mean it?」

「Yes. This sauce is very wonderful, but since the technique has already been perfected to some extent, you will find only similar sauces in other restaurants. So I would check for slight differences in saltiness, smells, or umami. But the sauce that the landlady served me was the first one I had ever tasted, so I was so impressed that I forgot to check for it.」

「I know. These sauces tend to taste quite similar, don’t they? So when you get a delicious sauce that you have never tasted at all, it tastes even better.」

The only seasonings in this world are salt, herbs, and flavored vegetables.

There is also fish sauce, but the more skilled cooks don’t like to use it as a sauce because they say it is vulgar.

It is said that there is an idea that fish can’t be eaten by people of noble social status, even if it’s soy sauce, because they walk fast.

TN: Sorry, don’t really get what this means :3

Since the ingredients are limited, it is only natural that the taste is similar.

Therefore, it can be said that the taste is very deep.

But only those who can appreciate the difference in taste can do so.

In my case, I have miso and soy sauce that I can magically produce.

I also have no taboos that a skilled chef has, so I can arrange the flavors freely.

「Hey, lady owner! You can make a better sauce than I can?」

「It’s a recommendation from someone else, so I can’t say for myself…」

Since it’s a waste of time-fighting with this person.

If this happens, I should have never asked Mirko-san to bring me to this restaurant.

「(Next time, I’ll ask him to take me to a restaurant recommended by oyabun-san……)」

「Also! I was going to have Yukiko try some of the new dishes and use them as a reference for the new menu! Hey! Anson!」

「I don’t care! I’m not satisfied until I taste your new sauce! Go ahead, make that sauce!」

And so, for some reason, I was forced to participate in a steak sauce showdown with the owner-chef of the restaurant, starting with a meal at the restaurant.