Title: Restaurant to Another World Vol. 2
Author: Junpei Inuzaka (Story), Takaaki Kugatsu (Art), Katsumi Enami (Characters)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Genre: Isekai, Food
Publication Date: October 27, 2020
The Story
We’re back once again with more stories from Nekoya, a restaurant that appears in random locations every seven days. There are seven more stories on tap in this volume; however, some of these stories are starting to intertwine with some of the ones from the first volume!
In the first volume, we met a dragon named Red who loved the restaurant’s beef stew. Here, we now meet Black, the dragon of death who lived on the moon. A door appeared there and she stumbled in to eat some chicken curry. She runs into Red at the restaurant who explains that she needs to use money in order to pay for the food, which is a foreign concept to her. Instead, Red explains the situation with Tenshu who agrees to hire her as a second waitress; however, he will not pay her with money but, instead, chicken curry at the end of her shift! Just like that, Aletta has some company on her shifts!
Speaking of Aletta, it is also shown that she is looking for another job in her homeland. She knows that the restaurant is paying her well enough to live but she still wants to make her mark in her homeworld. The problem is that not too many people are keen on demons so finding work is almost impossible. This is where a character from the first volume, known by the nickname of Minced Meat Cutlet, is looking for a live-in housekeeper. When Aletta shows up, she’s surprised to see the waitress from Nekoya knocking on her door. She’s instantly hired on the spot!
In addition, it looks as if the seeds have been planted with some of the regulars as to which dish goes best with rice… either minced meat cutlet, pork cutlet, or curry. I have a feeling this might lead to a bit of a competition in the future!
Characters
In addition to individual character stories presenting in each episodic chapter, we had a bit of development with Aletta and the introduction of Black.
Of course, Aletta getting a job in her homeworld is the extent of her development so the main focus here is on Black. She told the story of a dragon named Gold who wished to end a vicious cycle in the world so he created six pillars to aid him, Black being one. The cycle repeated 34,000+ times before finally coming to an end. Since Black was the dragon of death, she was sent to the moon which is void of all life so that she could not kill anything else. It was also for her own protection as well. That’s when the door to Nekoya opened up on the moon and she, suddenly, found herself with a job at Nekoya.
It worked out for her because being on the moon could be pretty lonely. She learned about interacting with humanity and seemed to catch on quite quickly with becoming a waitress. We’ll see if anything more comes from this in future volumes (which there are only two of).
Final Thoughts
One thing that you should not do with this series is to read it on an empty stomach. Even in black and white, Japan proves once again that they know how to make food look good in both anime and manga. Thankfully, I ate lunch before reviewing this volume!
The only fault I would say is that everyone loves every dish. It’s falling into a pattern of someone eating something, loving what they are eating, and then going into a descriptive monologue as if they were judging a dish on any given Food Network competition show. Just one, I would like to see a little conflict where someone absolutely hated the dish they ate. Perhaps they could say something along the lines of it not comparing to the dish they are used to from their own homeland. Maybe it could end up teaching Tenshu a new recipe (which he actually did get a new one in this volume!)
Just something to mix it up. Seeing people love the food over and over again can get a bit tiring but it’s still a nice and quaint read if you just need to sit back and relax with a book. Reading Restaurant to Another World is akin to walking into a tavern in a fantasy realm and just hearing tales told from all of the adventurers that visit there. It’s humbling with never a dull moment to be had!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
