The Golden Menma Inn

Restaurants serving ‘ramen’ could be found all throughout Fahrenheit. By now, it could practically be called a local specialty…

As I had already explained, when Taisho disappeared and the gourmets could no longer eat ramen, they went half mad and forced cooks to create imitations.

Among them, this restaurant, the ‘Golden Menma Inn,’ was known for serving the finest ramen in all of Fahrenheit.

Its lights had already gone out, but Ouri showed no restraint as he pounded violently on the door and shouted,

“Hey, Brad! Make some ramen for me and my friends, would ya!?”

After a short while, hurried footsteps sounded from inside the restaurant.

Then a young man of around thirty appeared, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

“Come on, Father… It’s the middle of the night. This is a bit much, even for you!”

Ouri replied without the slightest hint of remorse.

“Yeah, Brad. Make us some ramen. Then feed me and those two behind me.”

Brad looked back and forth between me and Ren.

“Um… I know Rinsir-san, but who exactly is the person behind her…?”

Ouri slapped Ren hard on the back and answered.

“Yeah! This guy’s Taisho’s son!”

At those words, Brad’s expression changed instantly.

“Wha!? T-Taisho-san’s…! I see. I’ll open the restaurant right away. Please, come inside and wait.”

Naturally, Ouri had also been one of the gourmets who had practically lost his mind when he could no longer eat ramen.

And Brad had originally been one of the twenty orphans who lived in that alley.

He and his younger sister had been starving and rummaging through garbage when Taisho’s ramen saved them, after which Ouri took them in and adopted them.

Ouri then selected those among his adopted children who seemed to have culinary talent and had them train as cooks.

Once you knew that background, you could understand why the ramen here at the ‘Golden Menma Inn’ was said to be the finest in Fahrenheit, could you not…?

A man who, as an orphan, had miserably rummaged through garbage beside his little sister, wandering through a freezing alley while so hungry he could barely remain standing, only to be saved by a steaming bowl of Taisho’s ramen.

And his adoptive father was known as the greatest gourmet among dwarves and had probably eaten more bowls of Taisho’s ramen than anyone else in total.

The two of them had spared neither money nor effort in researching how to recreate the ‘Taisho ramen’ they had once tasted, and what they had ultimately created was the ‘Golden Menma Inn’s ramen’!

Strictly speaking, Ren’s words had to be conveyed to Brad through either Ouri or me, and likewise Brad’s words had to be translated for Ren…

But writing that out every single time would be tedious, so I shall omit those parts. It would probably become burdensome for the reader as well.

Still, please do not forget that we were properly interpreting between them, and that whenever we were absent, Ren could not converse with anyone here!

Peering over Brad’s hands as he prepared the ramen in the kitchen, Ren said,

“…I’m impressed. Is this dried tuna?”

Brad nodded as he answered.

“It’s made by salting a large red-fleshed fish from the open sea and drying it in the sun. We use it to make the stock for our ‘blended sauce.’ Here, try tasting this.”

Brad handed Ren a small bottle.

Ren poured a little of its contents onto his palm, gave it a quick lick, and widened his eyes.

“Whoa!? This tastes almost exactly like soy sauce!”

“It’s a sauce made on an island in the south. Apparently, they ferment coconut palm sap with salt. We wanted to reproduce that flavor from Taisho-san’s soup, so Father and I ordered sauces from all over the world and tasted them until we found this one.”

Brad showed Ren the large pot steaming over the stove.

“This is our ‘Golden Broth.’ We take a chicken after removing the meat, boil the bones over high heat, then immediately take them back out. After that, we carefully scrape away the blood and organs left on the bones, then simmer them for about eight hours with apples, onions, the green parts of the garnish, ginger, garlic, long seaweed, and ogori mushrooms without letting the pot come to a boil, carefully skimming away any scum that rises. Finally, we strain it through a fine cloth, and it’s finished.”

“And how do you make these noodles?”

“We mix flour and eggs with the clear alkaline liquid from wood ash. Then we push the dough through a mold with holes and knead the strands by hand to make them curly. That gives the noodles a pleasantly firm, springy texture and turns them yellow. An alchemist who loves ramen helped us perfect them!”

“I see. The clear liquid from the ash contains alkaline potassium compounds… so you’re using it as a substitute for kansui.”

“When these noodles were finally perfected, Father Ouri said, ‘These are exactly Taisho’s noodles. We can’t keep them to ourselves. Teach the other restaurants how to make ’em too!’… So all the ramen shops in Fahrenheit now use noodles made the same way.”

Brad spooned some broth into a small dish and let Ren taste it… Normally, secrets like these were practically the lifeblood of a ‘ramen chef.’

But because Ren was Taisho’s son, Brad held nothing back and revealed everything to him.

Before long, Brad boiled the noodles, combined the Golden Broth with the blended sauce, added the toppings, and finished the ramen.

“All right, it’s ready! Please, dig in!”