September 1, 2024
Kashiwai is among a certain coterie of Japanese writers to have perfected a globally successful literary formula: create a caf�-esque setting with beloved staff who deliver plenty of empathic kindness to customers whose visits inspire stand-alone narratives. Having a cat around also helps. Affable Kirkwood again enables Kashiwai's second volume, following The Kamogawa Food Detectives (2024). Nagare (former policeman-turned-inventive chef) and his daughter Koishi (who runs the detective agency) continue to satisfy the hungry under the late Kikuko's charming (pictorial) gaze. Nearby sushi restaurant owner Hiroshi reappears to see Koishi. Often mentioned but (as yet) unseen is Akane, Gourmet Monthly's editor in chief, who facilitates a recurring single-line ad for the no-sign, nondescript Kamogawa Diner. Here, soul-nourishing foods soothe family estrangements. An Olympic swimmer longs for his childhood lunch. A gourmand mother can't understand her young child's love of hamburger steak. A bakery-owning couple seeks their dead son's favorite cake. A model craves her mother's fried rice. A successful businessman yearns for the ramen of his university youth. And a one-hit-wonder wishes for a taste of home. Formulaic, yes, but deliciousness lingers.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
September 1, 2024
A former police detective and his grown daughter research and re-create strangers' half-remembered meals to help them overcome obstacles in their lives. Koishi is in her 30s and works at a restaurant in Kyoto--it's known as the Kamogawa Diner, though it doesn't have a sign--with her father, Nagare Kamogawa, the chef. Both miss Koishi's late mother, Kikuko. Their cat, Drowsy, spends its days trying to get into the restaurant, though he's banned to protect the customers from wayward strands of hair. The book is a series of six small vignettes about unrelated people who arrive at the diner through the seasons to ask for help re-creating dishes from their pasts. Kyosuke Kitano is an Olympic-hopeful swimmer who isn't sure if he should reach out to his sick father but yearns for a lunch dish his father made for him as a child. Kana Takeda is a single mother and food writer who is eager to prove her child wrong about the best dish he has ever eaten--a hamburger steak made by his grandfather. And Hatsuko Shirasaki, Koishi's childhood best friend, is a successful model who's unsure if she should accept a marriage proposal until her boyfriend understands her impoverished roots. Each of them, as well as the others, arrives, eats, speaks with Koishi about their lost meal, and then departs. Two weeks later they return to eat the meal that Nagare has meticulously researched and prepared. Readers looking for a throughline in the vignettes or a conclusion that ties them together or dives into why Nagare and Koishi have reached this point in their lives will find more questions than answers. This cozy book delights in Japanese cuisine.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
October 18, 2024
Chef Nagare and his daughter Koishi are back in the second book in the "Kamogawa Food Detectives" series, a bestseller in Japan. Nagare and Koishi are "food detectives" who, through their investigations, manage to recreate meals from their customers' favorite memories; people leave their diner in Kyoto forever changed. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2024 Library Journal
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.