Chapter 32: Tanmen

Chapter 32:
Tanmen

It was already nine at night.

“Now then. What to do, what do…”

The master was lost in thought in front of the kitchen table. He had left Aletta alone to finish cleaning the dining room. Another special business day at the Restaurant to Another World had ended, and the place was mostly cleaned up. There was just one big problem: it was late and they still hadn’t eaten dinner yet.

Today they made a killing.

Too much of a killing, even.

Nekoya found itself on the receiving end of ten halflings, those bare-footed little people with seemingly endless stomachs. As far as the master could tell, it was an entire family of them.

According to Aletta, halflings were a different race than the humans, but the master really couldn’t tell the difference between them and children.

Ten halflings. Just ten. That’s all it took.

A single halfling could eat an entire family’s worth of food. Now imagine an entire group of them coming together. The master always found himself impossibly busy on days like that, which was especially rough when the halflings in question were bigger foodies than the usual.

It certainly didn’t help that halflings could often only visit the restaurant once every few months. Halflings didn’t really understand the concepts of “planning” or “saving,” so they typically spent all the money they had on food. This had a bizarre trickle-down effect on the rest of the customers, who would then go on to order significantly more than usual.

And so, the Restaurant to Another World’s placid Saturday would eventually come to resemble the battlefield that was a weekday lunch rush, and the master and Aletta’s dinner would be delayed until well into the night. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only issue.

“We don’t even have any pasta left? Geez,” he muttered.

Nekoya was all out of its primary stock dishes. This too was part of the halfling’s aftermath. As mentioned previously, halflings didn’t seem to understand the concept of “self-restraint.” Long ago, there had once been a rat-faced halfling who tried to dine and dash. He failed and rumor of his fate seemingly spread across the entire other world, because not a single halfling ever tried to repeat his behavior.

Oddly enough, there were quite a few halflings who emptied out their wallets long before they filled their stomachs. Fortunately for them, they still managed to fill up on refills of bread, rice, and soup.

Nekoya offered free refills on all three foods. No matter how much a customer ate, the price never changed. Which of course meant that the halflings would keep ordering refills in the hopes of satisfying their hunger. Miso soup and rice. Normal soup and bread. The halflings freely explored every possible combination. They’d even take the various seasonings and sauces on the table and mix and match them.

It appeared as though they took something away from the pork soup with butter served on Meat Day, because the halflings had started to save the butter they received with their bread, instead using it on the steaming hot rice and pouring soy sauce atop the whole shebang. The master never gave them a single hint, and yet here they were, discovering new ways to eat on their own.

Needless to say, the rice, bread, and soup were all gone. He had already been low on pasta and flour to begin with, so there wasn’t even enough left for one person. Fortunately, the master still had meat and vegetables left, but as a citizen of Japan, a meal without the core food was rough on the stomach.

“If I start making something now, it’s gonna get real dang late. But I can’t not feed her…”

If he were on his own, the master could always just sleep on an empty stomach. But since it was Saturday, it meant he had one final customer: Aletta. Now that he thought about it, the day had been so busy that the staff lunch wasn’t anything special to speak of. That wasn’t good.

“C’mon, there’s gotta be something… Oh, I know!” The master quickly formulated his thoughts. “I’m pretty sure I had a reserve of instant noodles left up on the third floor.”

Every now and then the master had a craving for instant salt ramen, so he had bought a five-pack a few weeks back. He’d only actually used one pack to boot.

“Which means today we’re eating tanmen.”

The master gently rubbed his hand across his slightly protruding belly. He had recently made it a point to start eating more vegetables.

With the evening’s menu decided, he got to work. After running them through hot oil, he’d cook up some meat and veggies and toss them on top of some tanmen. As of late, whenever the master felt the urge for instant ramen, this was his go-to dish.

“Right. Guess I’ll get started!”

He had about ten minutes until Aletta finished cleaning the dining room. That was more than enough time to wrap things up on his end. He shuffled off to the elevator and headed to his home storage space on the third floor of the building.

Meanwhile, as the master was proceeding with his dinner plans, Aletta had just wrapped up cleaning the restaurant.

“Great! All done!”

In her right hand was a mop, in her left a tablecloth. She surveyed her work with a satisfied expression on her face. The wooden tables were sparklingly clean, and there wasn’t a single crumb to be found on the floor.

“Now then, I better go wash my hands before letting the master know I’m finished,” Aletta whispered to herself and put away her tools before trotting off to wash her hands. First, she wet her hands using the mysterious magical device that ran water just by waving one’s hand underneath it. She then took some of the green stuff used for cleaning hands and let the suds build as she rubbed her hands together. Aletta made sure to do just as the master instructed her so many months ago, cleaning under her nails and in the spaces between her fingers.

“That just about does it. All clean!”

With her hands glistening clean, the only job left was to clean the kitchen after she and the master ate dinner.

“I wonder what’s for dinner today…”

Just the thought alone was enough to trigger strange sounds from her stomach. For lunch she had eaten three sandwiches, leftovers from the halflings. Each one of them was differently flavored, but they were as delicious as usual. The only problem was that they simply weren’t enough to fill her. Aletta was still a growing young woman after all. While she certainly couldn’t pack it down as hard as the halflings could, she was still quite the eater.

Aletta made her way to the kitchen.

“Master! I’m finished cleaning the dining room!” She alerted the older man who seemed to be in the middle of making their food.

“Aye, good work. I’m just about done here.”

Just as the master anticipated, he was right on time. Two large, deep bowls were filled with a pale yellow soup. The master then took two servings of freshly boiled noodles and split them up evenly between the bowls. He then topped the noodles with cooked vegetables, meat, and small shrimp that he’d sautéed alongside the rest of the ingredients.

“Perfect. My special tanmen is done!”

The kitchen was filled with the warm aroma of the slightly spicy soup.

Aletta had to stop herself from drooling. “Oh, gosh.”

The scent was enough to once again trigger her stomach’s voice, making Aletta’s face turn bright red. The master chuckled.

“Looks like you’re hungry, so how ’bout we dig in?”

“O-okay!”

The pair made their way to one of the tables in the dining room.

“Thanks for the food,” the master said.

“Yes. Thank you, oh god of demons, for this, my daily bread. I offer you my gratitude.”

As per the usual, both the master and Aletta offered up their respective pre-meal “prayers” and began digging in. The former took a big sip of the soup using the soup spoon and nodded in satisfaction at the flavor.

“Yup. If you’re gonna eat instant ramen, this is the way to do it!”

It was a flavor from the master’s childhood. Of course, he’d gotten significantly better at cooking since then, and he obviously enjoyed proper ramen. But at the end of the day, there was something special about tanmen.

Or maybe I’m just a fan because I grew up with it. Well, it’s not like I didn’t use proper ingredients for everything else.

The master slurped down some noodles and grabbed a bite of the cooked vegetables, which had absorbed the flavors of the pork and shrimp. A long time ago, back when he’d worked part-time at a Chinese restaurant, he learned one of his boss’s special techniques for stir-frying vegetables. Even now, the master knew it was key to make sure that all the ingredients passed through the fire equally. He also remembered to pass them through hot oil as well.

It wasn’t long before the ramen disappeared from his bowl.

On the other hand, Aletta was still carefully exploring her tanmen. She began by taking a bite of the stir-fried vegetables atop the noodles.

Ah, this is delightful!

Each batch of stir-fried veggies she grabbed with her fork left her surprised. Every single bite was delicious. They had absorbed the rich flavors of the pork, broth, and shrimp, creating something truly brilliant. The ingredients included a light-yellow vegetable that felt delightful to bite into, as well as a black, slightly translucent food of some kind. There were also the dark green, bitter vegetables she’d grown used to seeing and eating at this point. Additionally, Aletta spotted some light green veggies that had been carefully run through flames, as well as a thin, white, translucent root of some kind. The young girl also noticed that the dish featured karoots and oranie that had been cooked to the perfect level of softness.

Despite all the vegetables being properly cooked over fire, they still maintained their moisture and texture. Each bite was satisfyingly crunchy, while also bringing out the vegetable juices that had fused with the fat of the pork and the savoriness of the shrimp to create an incredible ensemble of flavor. Aletta felt herself utterly charmed by the dish.

And these noodles, too!

Indeed. The noodles hiding below the rest of the ingredients were not to be underestimated.

They were quite different from the “pasta” and “spaghetti” that Nekoya usually served. They were thinner and wavy. After wrapping her fork with some of them and taking a bite, Aletta found that these noodles paired wonderfully with the slightly seasoned, salty soup.

Speaking of which, even the broth was different from what Nekoya usually served. That said, the balance between the spices and savory flavor was as perfect as always. The ingredients, the noodles, and the soup: these three elements morphed into one whole known as tanmen.

If Aletta had a single complaint…

Ah, it’s all gone.

The bowl emptied out in no time at all. Even though Aletta had literally devoured an entire bowl’s worth of the stuff, it still wasn’t enough. It certainly didn’t help that she’d worked all day long with barely a break.

“Would you like seconds?” the master asked Aletta after watching her stare sadly at her empty bowl.

She looked up. “Huh?! Can I?”

“Aye, of course. I know you didn’t get to eat much today. I happen to have two more packs of noodles, and well, I was thinking of just finishing them all off. I could use a partner in crime.”

“Gladly!” Aletta nodded not once, but twice at her boss. She was still far from being full at this point, so as far as she was concerned, she could fit at least another whole bowl’s worth in. She was all but sure of it.

“Excellent. Let’s see about getting some eggs up in here.”

The master stood up and began cooking the day’s second serving of tanmen.

Thus a long and profitable day came to a close with a quiet evening of noodles.