"Excuse me!" Yutaka Matsushige gently lifted the door curtain and entered this inconspicuous street shop. If he hadn't smelled too good when passing by and he was too hungry, he would not have easily set foot in such an unknown shop. It would be a joke for his colleagues to see him eating in such a shop, which would be a serious problem. Others would think he was the person can't break away from the original class.
Haruka was still acting as a waitress. When she saw him come in, her crescent eyes suddenly lit up. She took a closer look at his clothes and found that he was wearing a high-end handmade suit with a gold-plated badge with the word "eight" on his left chest. She hurriedly rushed up to him, bowed and shouted: "Welcome, please sit here."
That smell really managed to trick someone so quickly. Judging from the badge, this guy was an employee of Nagoya United Bank. Although he can't be a cadre at this age, he was a standard fat sheep in terms of the income of this kind of person.
The situation in Japan is different from that in China. Large banks are the gathering places for real elites. Non-prestigious school students have no way to work there. The income of civil servants at the same level is only equal to the subsidies for these people. After all, large banks are the core of the trinity strategy of Japanese consortiums.
Yutaka was only twenty-six or seventeen years old, but he has a very calm personality and looked like an elite white-collar worker. He was not surprised when he saw a carrot head rushing towards him suddenly. Instead, he lowered his head slightly and followed her to sit down at the counter.
He turned around and looked at the entire izakaya, finding that the decoration here was very tasteless, with a remnant of the Showa era. It was probably a place where ordinary company employees would drink two glasses of bad wine and scold their bosses after getting off work.
He slightly regretted entering such a shop. He looked up at the chef and frowned slightly. The chef of this shop was too young, right? This could no longer be explained by the immature face.
Haruka was very polite. It has been more than two years since this store opened. But she had never seen a high-end customer like this. He was very attentive now. First she brought hot towels, then barley tea, and asked very politely: "What would you like to eat?"
Yutaka was an ordinary college student before he entered a big bank. He was no stranger to this kind of izakaya. He casually glanced at the food signs hanging on the wall and was shocked to find that this store looked ordinary, but it was really good at grabbing money. Just looking at the prices of the dishes, they were not much inferior to those in some famous restaurants.
But he didn't mind. No matter how much he eat here, it's not more expensive than opening a bottle of champagne in a high-end club. He just rubbed his nose (the strange aroma became stronger after entering here) and said casually: "Have a dish which showed at the door and a draft beer. Let the.. the chef decide the rest."
Kazuya was too young so he was a little embarrased to call him.
Haruka nodded and said: "Okay! A cup of House full of happiness, two side dishes and a glass of draft beer!" After placing the order, she walked to the door and stood on the small bench with a long-handled spoon and scooped one cup. Three thousand yen has been in the account. This thing can really be sold!
Kazuya smiled, took a small bottle of chilled shochu and put it in front of Kimura politely: "House full of happiness is more suitable with shochu. This is a dish gifted from our restaurant. Please try it."
The name "Buddha jumps over the wall" couldn't be directly translated because there are many Buddhists in Japan, which can easily cause religious disputes. The name "Monk who jumps over the wall" Kazuya randomly mentioned was even more nonsense. It would be embarrassing if a real monk came in.
Haruka just wanted to make money and support her younger brothers and sisters, but she didn't want to cause any trouble, so she asked him to take a alias and hung it on the wall.
Yutaka didn't expect that this young chef was quite particular. He was ready to pay a little tip to cover the price of the drinks later, so he sat on the single seat in front of the kitchen counter and said thank you politely, and then was attracted by the small soup cup brought by Haruka.
Kazuya asked: "Can I choose crab roe yaki and sauce tofu as side dishes?" It's not okay to serve all Chinese dishes. After all, the customers base are Japaneses, so he had to respect local customs.
Yutaka responded absently, focusing entirely on the small cup of steaming "stew" in front of him. He clasped his hands together, then picked up a spoon and scooped up a piece of scallops. The soup was brown, like the thick wine was flowing like a stream. It's not like cooking but some kind of precious art.
With his stirring, the aroma became even stronger. He couldn't help but swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and then ate it into his mouth. After just chewing, the soup in the scallops came out. What he chewed was the shredded shellfish, but the flavor of salty, fragrant, tender, smooth, and fresh all appear one after another. The layers were clear, mixed but not messy, and were combined by the aroma of wine together.
He couldn't help but pick up the cup and took another sip. He felt like an explosion of taste on his tongue and a deep sense of pleasure arose in his heart. It seemed that he understood that kind of "little happiness" which mentioned by Haruki Murakami in an instant.
There may be many kinds of happiness, and the cup of soup in front of represents the happiness that is fleeting but always in your heart.
As a new employee in the largest bank in the Chubu region, Yutaka's workplace was still very competitive. He was afraid that if something went wrong one day, he would be sent to another company as an expatriate or be kicked out to the countryside, and his future was cut off. Therefore, he usually frequented high-end clubs, talked to female publicists and drank. He even became addicted to cigarettes just to relieve stress. But now he suddenly felt a lot more relaxed after finished this sip.
He liked this feeling very much. He tasted it carefully and was reluctant to finish it for a while. Kazuya was rolling crab roe in glutinous rice wrappers and looked up at him. He felt that this man was quite calm. If Haruna ate this small cup, she could finished it in one sip. He can be considered a good diner.
He cook more carefully, trying to keep this well-dressed guy as a regular customer. At this time people began to enter the store in threes and threes. Haruka was pleasantly surprised. Many people planned to go to KEC, which was popular recentlt, but when they passed here and smelled the aroma, they turned into the Pure Flavor House.
Haruka even recognized the two regular customers who had "defected" to the opposite side. Her smile became sweeter and sweeter, and she sharpened the knife repeatedly in her mind, preparing to chop down these fat sheep one by one today.
Kazuya handed the rolled crab roe roll to Akiho to wrap in the dough. He put a piece of tofu into a basin of water, then took a knife and started carving. The tofu in the sauce tofu for the side dish with wine is just plain white tofu and cannot be replaced into other expensive ingredients. However, its price has been raised along with other dishes, so he could only work on the appearance, so that at least the diners would not feel being tricked when they ordered it.
While Akiho was helping him, she observed his movements in surprise. She saw that his hands were steady and skillful, and he was holding a small knife and turning it silently in the water. In less than a minute, the originally square tofu turned into two "white roses", one slowly blooming and the other in bud.
She was stunned for a moment. Kazuya glanced at her and asked: "What's the matter, Akiho?"
Akiho came back to her senses and returned her attention to the work at hand. She shook her head and said nothing. She couldn't understand what happened to Kazuya, but in this world, she could only understand that he was a genius she had never seen before, and a very humane genius who was willing to spend time helping their family.
How else to explain? Is Kazuya a monster?