"What do you MEAN you don't have any reservations available for today?! Do you have any idea who I am?!" a den den mushi with a pompous and very punchable face shouted in the face of a large upper bodied man with a goatee.
"My sincere apologies, dear customer!" the man by the name of Patty replied, wearing a servile smile on his face. "We have dinner reservations available tomorrow at our best table and we'll have our best wine waiting for you, if that would appease your sensibilities?"
"Fine, but I had better get a discount!" *clack* the angry customer on the other side hung up.
Patty's eye twitched. That bastard wanted a discount when he was getting the best service from the world's most professional chef?
Well, that was an easy enough problem to solve. He just had to give the valued customer the Baratie's 'special' menu with adjusted (increased) pricing, then give a small discount from there. The key to customer satisfaction was blissful ignorance!
Patty went back to his work and completely missed the ghostly white flame trickling out of the den den mushi and disappearing into the walls.
Cherry's form took shape on the small built-in dock of the Baratie, spooking a well-dressed and handsome man with a beautiful woman on each arm to the point of squealing. "G-g-g-g-g-ghost?!?!?!"
The pretty boy fell backwards onto his butt and scrambled along the dock to his yacht with tears and snot spilling down his face. The two women who were with him were so dumbfounded by the pretty boy's overreaction that they forgot to have a reaction for themselves.
Cherry ignored the fool and walked into the restaurant.
"Hmm, this is a pretty nice place. I had a completely different image of it in my head, considering that it's run by a former pirate," Cherry muttered as she took in the place properly.
"We don't really advertise that fact. It's something of an open secret," an older goldfish fishman in a fancy restaurant host's uniform smiled politely at her from behind a lectern with a reservation book on it. By the looks of him, Cherry would guess he was half human, probably. "May I ask if you have a reservation?"
"No reservation. That isn't a problem, is it?" Cherry asked. She reckoned she could try the food since she was here; see what kind of place Sanji grew up in with her own eyes.
"No problem at all, but it does mean we will have to sit you at a regular table," the host said.
"Sure. I don't want to sit near a bunch of stuffy pricks anyways," Cherry frowned as she spotted the personification of those words from across the room.
"Very good," the host said, leading Cherry to a small table relatively close to the kitchen door.
"I'll give you some time to-" the host said as he laid a menu on the table. Cherry interrupted him, "No need. Bring me one of everything."
"Yes," the host said without missing a beat. "Would you like your meal all at once or served in courses?"
"In courses is fine," Cherry said, waving the man away.
The host scurried into the kitchen, probably to inform the chefs about the atypical order rather than blindside them with a regular order ticket. He came back out shortly, bow lightly towards Cherry, before returning to his duties. Not that he had all that much to do. The restaurant was busy, but customers tended to come in batches aboard ships for a floating establishment like this.
Cherry was mildly surprised that she hadn't been recognised yet. Then again, she supposed that not everyone scoured the bounty posters that came with every issue of the World Economy News.
The first course came quickly. Plenty of dishes like soups, salads, and appetizers were just waiting to be served really, so that made sense. It was the sycophant she saw talking to a customer on the den den mushi as she slipped through.
"My dear scallywag, I do hope you have the money to pay for the food you've ordered… Hm?" Patty's face shifted from his impression of a professional smile into what was almost a scowl. "Aren't you one of Sanji's little friends?"
"I sure am! Do I get a friend's discount or something?" Cherry asked with a sweet smile.
"Sanji doesn't work here anymore, so no discount. Can you pay or not?" Patty sat down the salad and bowl of soup in his hands, then crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at her.
Cherry placed a small gold bar on the table. Patty snatched it up, bit it to check if it was real, slid it into his apron pocket, and returned to his wide toothy smile in record time. Cherry wasn't sure that even Nami could whisk away money that quickly.
"Sanji's pals are always welcome at the Baratie! Er…" Patty scratched the back of his head as his eyes roamed as if in search of something in his brain. "What was your name again?"
"Harpin D. Cherry," Cherry found it pretty amusing to watch this man's roller coaster of expressions.
"Yeah, that rings a bell. Have at it, then," Patty disappeared back into the kitchen without another word.
Cherry spent the next hour or so tearing through dishes like it was a competition, and somehow managing to maintain her table manners at the same time. Patty was given quite the workout, rushing back and forth to bring new meals and return with emptied dishes. He cursed their menu for having far too many options.
The final dessert, a delectable banana pudding, wasn't brought out by Patty, but rather by the head chef; Zeff himself.
"You have quite the appetite for a woman your size," Zeff commented casually.
He hadn't really believed she could finish all the food. He thought that she planned to sample them all whilst leaving most of it uneaten, something he knew that Sanji wouldn't be agreeable to, even if she was pretty. He was surprised to find that every plate brought back to the kitchen to be cleaned was devoid of even the tiniest morsel.
"You learn how to pack it away when you get to eat Sanji's cooking everyday. You learn how to do it quickly when you have Luffy trying to sneak it away from you," Cherry said.
She consumed the banana pudding with such haste, you might think it was the first thing she had eaten in a month rather than the tail end of an eighty course meal. Zeff watched as a mysterious power gathered the last remnants of the pudding into her spoon before she popped it into her smiling mouth with a hum of pleasure. He felt a bit silly for imagining that she licked the plates clean, before.
"Is that so?" Zeff smiled. "Why are you all the way in East Blue, though? It's a long way to come from the second half of the Grand Line."
"It isn't that long a way for me. I just came to make sure there weren't any Big Mom pirates skulking about after a recent tussle we had with them," Cherry said, patting her stomach with a sigh.
Zeff looked around quickly, making sure nobody else heard that. "You lot are already poking around the lairs of those old monsters?"
"Hehehe, sure that's one way to put it~" Cherry chuckled, knowing what was likely to be in the newspaper in a few days.
Zeff wasn't sure if he wanted to know.