The Market District (2)
The market district was far livelier than the guild. Every stall was piled high with vegetables and spices, and I even spotted strange fruits and greens that looked like they'd come straight out of the Labyrinth.
Faced with so many unfamiliar ingredients, I felt like a kid let loose in a toy store.
"Ciel, what's that long vegetable over there?"
"Oh, that's—"
"And what about that purple fruit next to it?"
"Um—"
"Ooh, and there are mushrooms I've never seen before! What are these?"
"Pfft... what am I supposed to do if you fire off questions faster than I can answer them?"
Ciel laughed as she watched me get worked up like a little kid.
Part of me wanted to buy one of everything and test it all, but I'd have to restrain myself. My purse wasn't exactly bottomless.
After walking a little further, we came across a shop that looked quite sizable, its glossy fruits and cuts of meat arranged in neat, tempting rows.
"Hey Ciel, want to check out that shop? It looks pretty decent."
Ciel glanced in the direction I was pointing, then let her answer trail off with a hesitant "Ah...".
"That's a shop under an exclusive contract with the Golden Lion, so unfortunately we can't shop there."
There it was again — those Golden Lion bastards. Really making sure they hoover up everything for themselves, huh.
"We usually do our shopping at the one over there."
I followed Ciel's pointing finger to a rather shabby-looking shop. Honestly, as long as it had what I needed, shabby was fine by me.
We reached the shop, pushed open its creaking door, and stepped inside. Immediately, a pleasant voice called out from a corner of the room.
"Ciel!"
We turned toward the voice to find a beastfolk standing there — cat ears and a tail to match. Arms crossed, she stared at us with eyes that were unmistakably a cat's.
"A cat...?"
"Huh? Never seen a beastfolk before, mister?"
The bristly cat beastfolk growled low in her throat, apparently taking my comment as an insult.
"Ahaha~ I'm so sorry. He's a chef who works at my restaurant — he's from a distant foreign country, and this is his first time seeing a beastfolk. I think it just caught him off guard~"
Ciel apologized while jabbing me in the ribs with her elbow. Apparently I'd committed some faux pas. I quickly bowed my head and offered my own apology.
"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'm sorry if I offended you."
The cat beastfolk's expression melted almost instantly, as if she'd never been bothered at all.
"Eh, it happens. I'm fine, nya. The usual order then, Ciel? Shall I get it ready like always?"
"Yes please. And would it be all right if we had a look around inside?"
"Of course. Just give me a shout if anything catches your eye, nya~"
Leaving the chatty cat shopkeeper behind, I took my time browsing the ingredients. Vegetable stalls and sacks of spices lined both sides of the narrow aisle, stacked like little mountains, and I picked my way through them one by one like a treasure hunter.
Eventually my eyes drifted, naturally enough, toward the meat section.
Alongside trimmed cuts, plenty of the meat hung there still in its hide, whole carcasses suspended from hooks.
Were these all monsters from the Labyrinth too? There were familiar-looking cuts resembling pork and beef, but mixed in among them were strange meats from beasts I'd never laid eyes on.
Then I noticed that one particular pile of meat tucked into the corner was conspicuously cheap. I snuck a glance at the price tag — it was going for roughly a third of what the other meats cost.
"Excuse me, is there a reason this meat is so cheap?"
"Hmm? That's Charging Boar from the lower floors of the Labyrinth, nya. The gamey stench is so strong nobody wants it."
The first rule of business: buy low, sell high. If the stink was the only thing keeping everyone away, then fixing that one problem could turn this into a seriously good ingredient. This might just be an opportunity.
"Could I buy some of this meat, then?"
"I've got plenty in stock, but... you actually plan to cook this stuff, nya?"
"Yes — give me a generous amount, please. And I'll take those spices there, plus the charcoal."
The cat shopkeeper shrugged and obliged.
"Fine by me, nya. A sale's a sale as far as I'm concerned."
Ciel, meanwhile, seemed flabbergasted at how much I'd snapped up in the blink of an eye. She rounded on me, eyes wide.
"Hans! What are you planning to do with all that Charging Boar meat? Nobody buys it precisely because of the smell!"
"Don't worry — just trust me, Ciel. I'll cook it so well it'll blow your mind."
Having declared that with total confidence, I went around gathering this and that. A lot of the spices were ones I recognized from my old world, which made them easy to pick out — all kinds of herbs, pepper, and so on... Just what kind of place was the Labyrinth, that it had all of this?
"..."
Ciel still looked deeply skeptical, but worst case, even if it flopped, it wasn't expensive meat. It'd work out somehow.
***
On the way back to the restaurant, I walked with both arms full of Charging Boar meat and a sack of spices slung over my back, while Ciel hurried alongside me at a half-jog.
"Hans, let me carry half of that. Here, hand it over."
"No, no, Ciel. I'm the one who got greedy and bought all this, so I'll carry it."
That's what I said, anyway — my legs were trembling like a newborn fawn. Oh, how I ached for Coupang Fresh with its dawn delivery right to the door.
Ignoring Ciel's worried eyes, I huffed and groaned my way to the restaurant and finally collapsed at the entrance.
"Good work out there, Hans."
"Yeah, you too, Ciel."
I slumped down, drenched in sweat. As I wiped my face and sat there a while, my surroundings started to sink in. Burly men strolled past, laughing heartily.
There were the occasional skinny women among them, but the adventurers were overwhelmingly big, hulking men.
So pretty much everyone walking around here is a grown man with an appetite.
Even while checking out the surrounding restaurants and street food on the way over, hearty, meat-heavy dishes had dominated the menus. For adventurers who needed strength, that was the obvious answer. My target demographic had just become crystal clear.
All right then. Time to start getting ready.
Hoisting the ingredients back up, I headed inside — the restaurant was still utterly empty. I went straight to the storage room.
After setting down the sack of spices, I pulled out some of the Charging Boar meat, sliced off a modest portion, and headed up to the kitchen right away.
First things first — let's just grill a piece and see what we're dealing with.
I cranked the flame stone up high and let the pan heat to just the right temperature.
And the moment the meat hit the pan —
Ssssssssss!
A gorgeous sizzling filled the kitchen as the meat seared.
I listened to that crackle for a moment, watching the surface slowly turn a rich golden brown as the Maillard reaction bloomed across it, quite beautifully.
Since this was just a taste test, I skipped resting and every other fancy technique. I plucked the cooked piece from the pan, cut it in half, and popped it straight into my mouth.
"Mm. The gaminess is stronger than I expected."
A crease formed between my brows as the meat's smell punched straight up my nose. The more I chewed, the stronger it seemed to get.
"See? That's exactly what I told you — nobody eats Charging Boar because it reeks."
But this much was within my projections. I was confident I could handle it.
"Hey, Hans. What kind of trouble are you cooking up this time?"
Right on cue, Bran walked into the kitchen. Both of them wore worried faces, but having been fed my cooking a number of times by now, they seemed torn between anxiety and the faint hope that something good was coming — unable to actually stop me.
"What is this meat — don't tell me it's Charging Boar? What on earth were you thinking, buying this stuff!"
Bran tried a half of my grilled meat and promptly exploded.
"I'm going to get rid of the gaminess and sell it."
Bran blew a raspberry.
"Ha! Don't tell me you're planning to smother the stink with spices? That'll never tame this meat's smell — not in a thousand years!"
Masking meat with spices is a perfectly common technique, sure. But I had no intention of stopping there.
"Just watch and see. Tonight's going to be a busy one, so brace yourselves."
First up: butchery. I'd deliberately asked for leg cuts when buying the meat — the least gamey part, since the really foul stuff lives in the fat.
That said, trimming off all the fat would just leave the meat dry and boring. So I used the tip of my knife to peel the fat away, leaving only as much as I needed.
And to really kill the gaminess, there's one method that reigns supreme.
My solution: marinade. Using acid or alcohol to break down the odor compounds in meat was common practice back in my old world too.
The plan was to soak the meat in cheap fruit wine from the market along with spices.
I cut the meat into manageable pieces, then submerged them in the wine together with garlic, onion, and an assortment of herbs.
There we go. I'll let that sit for a while and get the next step ready.
Next, I needed somewhere to actually grill the meat. And that place... was outside.
What good did it do to make delicious food inside the restaurant if not a single customer ever walked in?
No — I had to grill the meat out front and draw people in with the smell. There's no weapon more powerful for snagging the feet of passing adventurers than the aroma of grilling meat.
I hauled over a few boxes and started laying stones across the top. As I grunted and strained through the work alone, Bran came over and asked,
"Hey, what the hell are you doing? I thought you were grilling meat?"
"I'm grilling it outside. I'm hoping the smell gets even a few people interested."
"..."
Bran listened, then picked up a whole pile of stones and added them to the stack himself.
"It's our restaurant, and here you are acting like you own the place. Leave the heavy lifting to me — you go take care of whatever else needs doing."
Gruff as ever, but something about the way he treated me felt a little softer than before. So this was what it felt like to finally earn the tsundere old man's trust.
"I'll take you up on that. Lay the stones down nice and even, then top them with the flame stones and charcoal, would you?"
Tonight was the make-or-break moment. With the street-food cheat code itself: Charcoal Grilled Skewers.