So delightful!

The Kamogawa Food Detectives (Kamogawa Food Detectives #1) by Hisashi Kashiwai      

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Talk about food for the soul! An out of the way, humble diner in Kyoto that serves up the most wonderful traditional Japanese meals. The place is not easy to locate. There’s no signs or directions. You really have to want to find it. Nagare Kamogawa and his daughter Koishi run the small eating house. Nagare is the chef, Koishi waits tables. On the detecting side of the business, Koishi takes down the information for people who are searching for how a particular dish from their memory is cooked. Nagare is the detective. All the client has to go on is a one line advertisement in the Gourmet Monthly magazine. At the end of each case Koishi and Nagare ask their client to pay into an account how much their solving of the case was worth to them.  Nagare cooks the dish the client has sought.

People come to find the dish their mother might have cooked, the meal they remember as a child with their grandfather, a myriad of unusual requests.

The dishes are sublime. I’m spending an inordinate amount of time looking them up (in my own cookbooks and online) The dishes are served on designated plates and types of pottery ware from all around Japan. I’ve also been looking some of those up in my fav. Japanese tableware shop.

This is just such a wonderfully encouraging read. You can feel the texture of the dishes arrayed, almost taste them. The color and movement, the descriptions of places I’ve visited are so evocative. Swoon worthy! The people find understanding, warmth and friendship. Some return.

A startling, yet humbly sumptuous read that made me long for such a place.

A Putnam ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.