Between World Restaurant - Dxhaseoxd

Looking around, he saw that no one had said a thing in response to this and they were all happily drinking the water provided to them. It seemed like the culture in this other world really was different from the culture in his world.

After that, the researcher looked back at the pitcher of water that was in front of him and couldn't help looking at the yellow fruit wedges that were floating in the water.

He wasn't unfamiliar with these yellow fruit wedges that floated in the water because they existed in his world, however, he was unfamiliar with the concept of putting these yellow fruit wedges in water.

In his world, the yellow fruit wedges were known as lumos and they were famous for how sour they were. But even with how sour they were, they had discovered that these lumos were a good source of vitamin C, which was a very important vitamin in human metabolism.

Back in the age before food pills and pastes were made, there were many times where sailors would mysteriously contract a disease named Sailor Rot. It was a strange disease which almost seemed like the sailors were rotting from the inside out.

It had puzzled doctors for many years before they finally discovered the existence of vitamins.

They learned that vitamins were an important part of human nutrition and severe lack of one vitamin was enough to cause serious problems with the body, namely the lack of vitamin C.

To counter this problem, they took the lumoses that were high in vitamin C and created an extract pill from the essence of these fruits. This pill contained high amounts of vitamin C from the extract, but it also concentrated the sourness of the lumos fruit, so it was too sour for most people to eat.

If it wasn't for the fact that they would die if they didn't eat them, most sailors would have preferred not to eat these lumos pills.

Now they were using these lumos fruits to make water

Still, as a scientist, he couldn't hold back his curiosity for the cuisine of this world, so he poured a cup of the lumos water and hesitantly took a sip.

When the water passed through his lips and down his throat, the scientist couldn't believe the taste that was in his mouth.

He had had lumos pills before, so he knew just how sour they were, but this water was completely different from the taste that those lumos pills had. He had been prepared to spit out the water the moment the sour taste filled his mouth, but he found that he couldn't help taking a second sip.

It was the exact same taste as the first sip, but for some reason, this second sip seemed even more refreshing compared to the first sip.

This lumos water didn't have the intense sour taste that he had been expecting, but rather it was nothing more than a hint of sour that was dispersed among the water, which actually made it even more refreshing. The more he drank of this water, the more it felt like his throat and tongue was waking up.

After just a few glasses, his stomach couldn't help gurgling as it demanded food.

The scientist's face instantly turned red when this happened and he quickly looked around, but he saw that no one had noticed to which he let out a sigh of relief.

It wasn't that no one had noticed, but this was something that everyone was used to after coming to this Between World Restaurant. There was no one that hadn't been subdued by the food here before.

After he finished off the entire jug of water, the scientist couldn't help looking back at the kitchen to see if his food was done yet.

When he turned his head, coincidentally, there was Yami who was coming out of the kitchen with several plates in a server tray. She moved through the restaurant and placed the other dishes on the other tables before coming over to the table of the researcher to put his dish down.

This was the dish that the researcher had been staring at the entire time while she had been moving through the restaurant. It was a potato that had a fork sticking out of it that was releasing steam the entire time.

When it had been placed right in front of him, he couldn't help giving a gulp when he smelled the scent that came from it.

With his appetite being stirred by the lemon water that he had just drank, he really couldn't hold back any longer.

Without any hesitation at all, he pulled the fork out of the potato and poked at it a few times to break off a piece of the golden brown baked potato. Looking at the perfect sheen on it, he couldn't help giving another gulp before putting that one bite into his mouth.

The moment that one bite of potato touched his tongue, he immediately swallowed it without even chewing even though there was a burning sensation that came from his throat.

As soon as he had that first bite, he couldn't help looking down at the baked potato in front of him in a daze as he muttered, "What is this?..."

First Meal — Baked Potato (3)

Looking down at the baked potato in front of him, he could see some things with it that he recognized.

There was a golden sheen over it that he recognized as melted butter which was one of the reasons why he had ordered this dish in the first place.

When he had been younger, his family wasn't rich since they were a family of farmers, but his mother had always made sure that they would have enough extra crops to allow them to raise a cow. This cow was the secret to her baked potatoes that had been the favourite of this researcher for the first eighteen years of his life.

That secret was that she always used the milk to make cream which she turned into butter.

When the butter was spread over the potato while it baked, it gave the potato a rich and creamy texture along with a hint of saltiness after it was finished baking.

Butter wasn't a rare thing, but for poor farmers like them, it was not something that they could have regularly.

His mother had always made sure that there would be butter for his baked potatoes and he knew just how hard she had worked to make sure that there would be butter available, so it had always created a warm feeling in his heart whenever he had her baked potatoes.

Even the neighbours all praised her baked potatoes when they shared them on special occasions which always created a sense of pride in his heart. After all, as his mother's son, naturally he would be happy when his mother was praised.

These were the parts of the baked potato that he could understand, but there were also parts of the baked potato that he couldn't.

The part that he had taken from the potato was a piece from the side which only had butter infused into it, but there was a part right in the center of the potato that had things that he couldn't make up.

There was a pile of white creamy substance right in the center and atop that pile of creamy substance were some pieces of pink meat.

He could naturally tell that the white creamy substance was cream, but that confused him even more.

The cream that he knew of was a sweet tasting dessert that was made by whipping the higher fat layer of milk after it was skimmed off from the rest of the milk. It was very sweet and had no place being baked with a potato at all. Rather, just thinking about the mix of the savoury taste of the potato and the sweet cream almost made him want to vomit.

However, when he took a sniff of the cream, there was no sweet smell at all which surprised him. All he could smell was the savoury smell that came from the baked potato itself.

The more he looked at the cream that was placed on the baked potato, the more he became curious as to what it really was.

Finally, the researcher couldn't hold back his curiosity anymore as he took a big piece of the baked potato with the cream and a few specks of the meat on it.

Speaking of the meat, that was another thing that had confused the researcher.

Meat was something that he was familiar with since it was the one thing that still hadn't been replaced by pills and pastes yet. So it was the one thing that he was still studying in his lab.

However, since he worked with meat, he was very familiar with how raw meat looked like.

The pieces of meat that were on the potato were just as pink as raw meat, but the texture didn't seem like that of raw meat which made him doubtful.

As a scientist, he naturally had the curiosity of one and he couldn't endure that curiosity in the end as he decided to take a bit of these strange ingredients. He scooped some of the potato underneath, making sure that there was also some cream and meat that was placed atop it before bringing it up to take a bite.

He tried taking a sniff of the contents in his spoon, but the only thing that he could smell from it was the scent of the meat. It was a strong meat scent along with the smell of salt.

This was something that he had smelled before, it was the scent of jerky, which was dried and salted meat. However, as far as he knew, jerky didn't have this kind of texture or smell.

Even if most food had been replaced with pills or pastes, meat was one of the few things that hadn't been replaced. However, to make it more accessible for most people, the only meat that was usually available was meat that had been processed into jerky since it was easier to store.

However, when the meat had been turned into jerky, it turned into something that was brown and hard without much taste to it, which was why most people didn't enjoy it. Still, it was better than the alternative of eating pills and paste made of beans that tasted like sand, which was why people still ate jerky.

But this meat was completely different from anything he had ever seen before.

That smell, he couldn't help giving a gulp before putting it in his mouth.

The moment that he did, he found that there wasn't the sweet taste that he had expected from the cream, but rather there was a slight sour taste that complimented the rich taste of the potato with melted butter atop it.

The more he chewed, the more the flavours spread across his mouth.

However, with the third chew, he noticed that there was something else that was added to the mix. It wasn't a bad taste, but rather it elevated the overall taste to another level.

It was the taste of the meat that had been present. The moment that he chewed into the meat, it released its juices.

Yes, the meat was juicy!

It wasn't like the jerky that he had tried before, rather it was a meat that was filled with umami and saltiness that complimented the full taste of the potato. It was like an explosion of flavour had just appeared in his mouth.

He couldn't understand it at all.

After all, normally when you make jerky, it was made by letting the meat dry in the sun. Sometimes they would rub salt over it to make it dry faster, but the jerky would turn out dry and hard in the end no matter what.

He had never seen meat that had been preserved like this before

However, his confusion wasn't enough to stop him from continuing to eat.

After that first bite, he couldn't stop himself as he took a second bite with the same amount of cream and meat atop it. It was the same as before, but somehow it was different as well.

As he continued to chew, he realized that it was because of the first bite. The lingering tastes in his mouth helped enhance the taste of the second bite, making it even more delicious.

He continued like this, stuffing more and more bites of the baked potato into his mouth, but as he ate, he started stuffing the bites into his mouth faster and faster. He went so fast that he accidentally burnt his tongue and he couldn't help taking a sip of the water beside him.

When he did, he realized something.

The water, the lumos water, wasn't just to help clear the palate before the meal and increase one's appetite, it was also to help rinse the mouth of any residue taste to allow the diner to enjoy the full taste of the dish.

He never thought that the juice of the lumos fruit would have this kind of effect, but the moment that he took a sip of water, he felt the residue taste in his mouth disappear. The next bite that he took after that sip of water gave him the same taste as his first bite, allowing him to fully enjoy the taste of the baked potato again.

It didn't take long before he finished off the entire potato.

The way he ate created quite a bit of noise, but no one around him minded at all because they could all remember their first time eating at this restaurant.

When he finished, he couldn't help looking down at the plate in front of him before raising his hand to call the waiter.

When Yami came over, he said, "Can I get one more, no two more baked potatoes?"

Seeing the excited look on the face of the researcher, Yami couldn't help revealing a smile before saying, "Alright, please wait a minute. I'll put your order in now."

The researcher gave a nod before turning his head back to the menu.

The dishes listed on the menu had ingredients listed under them, so he wanted to see just what the cream and meat used in the baked potato were.

Sour cream?

Parma ham?

What were these things that he had never heard of before?

The main reason why the researcher had never heard of these terms was because of the difference in food research in these worlds.

For example, take the jerky in the researcher's world versus the ham in this world.

In the researcher's world, they had only developed dry curing the meat instead of continuing to develop their techniques until they came up with wet curing. Dry curing would be enough to store the meat, but it also made the meat lose all of its juices unless there was a marinade added that would help give it flavour. It wasn't like wet curing where the moisture was kept in the meat to a certain extent.

It didn't take long before another two baked potatoes were brought out to the researcher at the same time.

He didn't mind this at all since he wanted both of them at the same time because in the end, there really wasn't much to each baked potato since it was just a single potato each time.

He quickly finished off the two baked potatoes and then leaned back in his chair since he had stuffed himself.

As he sat there leaning back in the chair, there was a sparkle in his eyes as if he had just discovered a whole new world. It didn't take him long before jumping out of the seat and heading towards the door, but he was stopped by Yami before he could leave.

Yami glared at him as she said, "Are you trying to dine and dash?"

The researcher was surprised at first, but then he realized his mistake and quickly shook his head as he said, "No, no, no, I just forgot. How much is my bill?"

Yami looked at him with a bit of doubt before saying, "It's eight silvers in total."