"What is this?" (A man)
One of the five men who were the restaurant's first customers took a bite of the food that was brought to him... then another, and gobbled it down before exclaiming.
There were many dishes on the menu that they had never heard of, so they just ordered random dishes. Therefore, it was their first time eating the food...
Hearing this, the customers at the other tables who were waiting for their orders frowned a little.
They came here because a trusted party of women recommended it, but they wondered if it was a mistake, and if it was just amateurish cooking made by a group of orphans.
But…….
"It's delicious, so delicious! This is the first time I've ever eaten anything like it!! Alcohol! How can you live without alcohol?! Hey, you boy, buy me some ale! Fishing is tipping!" (A man)
After the man continued, some people got up from their seats to go buy drinks themselves, while others called out to the children nearby, and a line began to form at the bar's branch—a small hut with a counter that Mile had built.
The tavern branch was built in a similar way to the fried food shop, but it only had one stove for preparing hot ale and mulled wine.
There was only one male employee, and the role of waitresses and washing the wooden cups were all done by the children of the orphanage.
A large amount of labor at low labor costs was a truly wonderful thing.
Fried food shop.
At first, Mile was thinking of just setting up a food stall.
She thought it was reasonable considering the labor savings (reducing the burden), customer turnover rate, and other factors...
However, after hearing the opinions of Reina and the other two, and the results of the prototype tasting session...
"You can't gather information just by selling it over the counter, can you?"
"Labor costs are free anyway, and there are more than 30 children, right? Wouldn't it be easier to make money if they opened a restaurant with regular tables? If they worked in shifts or limited our opening hours, wouldn't that be less of a burden on the children? On the contrary, wouldn't they feel happy knowing that they're helping the orphanage? They could leave the late-night hours to the bars in town and limit our opening hours to between lunch and dinner..."
"This is really delicious, but it loses its flavor when it cools down, huh..."
"It would be better to let them eat it while it's hot and have them buy more..."
"This guy is definitely going to want some alcohol, huh..."
As a result of various opinions such as these, the food stalls and sales stands format was abandoned and a food court was established.
...There were only two shops: a fried food store and a branch of a bar.
And it appeared that her aim was a success, as the average customer spend was far higher than if they were just buying a few fried foods from a food stall, and once all the tables were filled, customers would just sit down wherever they like and eat and drink, creating a strange situation where the capacity for customers was infinite.
...Plus, the bar paid rent, and of course, the wages of the kids who worked as waiters and waitresses and cup washers...
Of course. It's not a charity.
Well, the orphanage itself might be a "charitable project," but that's that and this is this.
Mile racked her brains thinking about how to cook fried foods.
She was particular about such things.
First, the oil selection.
At first, she was thinking of vegetable oils: those made from rapeseed, palm kernel, corn germ, sesame, olive, safflower, and many others.
With Mile, she could use her incredible strength to squeeze to the limit, making it very efficient.
But to extract the oil, they needed the plant.
...Of course.
However, there were no large-scale oil-producing plants grown in the area.
Therefore, it was quite expensive to buy it, and even if they collected it in the wild, they could only get a small amount.
Then Mile remembered some information she had found online that said, "Top quality tonkatsu restaurants use lard."
If you used lard to fry tempura, the oil would solidify when it cools and taste bad.
But lard went well with fries!
And best of all, lard was made from pork fat... and orcs were similar to pigs.
And so, the oil was decided, at the same time that tempura disappeared from the menu.
As for deep frying, when Mile made a small amount of fried food, she only put about 2cm of oil in the pan. In reality, it's better to put about 3cm, but Mile had a strong spirit of thriftiness when it came to this.
If you put too many ingredients into a small amount of oil at once, the oil temperature would drop and the ingredients would not fry properly, but you could use your skill to cover that up.
Originally, deep frying did not require the extravagant use of large amounts of oil as in Japanese tempura pans. Oil was expensive and a valuable commodity.
To begin with, a frying pan, which was a pan used for frying, was shallow and wide.
...That's how it was.
However, if you were letting children who didn't have the skills to make it, you wanted to avoid the oil temperature changing depending on the amount and type of ingredients you put in. So, what you should do... put plenty of oil in a large pot or kettle.
Foods that were suitable for frying in lard were pork cutlets, croquettes, chicken cutlets, skewers, small potatoes, and many others.
She would pass on chicken cutlet (chicken katsu) because it's too much trouble to make.
She would pass on beef cutlet because the ingredients were too expensive.
It would be weird to have just one item that was by far the most expensive, and if they were left unsold and became waste items, the damage would be great.
It seemed she planned to do the operation for a while and tried out some "Today's special", and if it was able to sell as a more expensive item, then she would reconsider the idea.
The advantage of a chain store was that the results of trials at one store could be fed back to all stores.
And Mile had been holed up in the kitchen all day today.
She asked other adults to watch the guests while she supervised the cooking.
Cooking and customer service were thoroughly taught over the past few days. The only thing left to do was to see if the training would bear fruit in the real battle.
Just like dojo swordsmanship, it was common in any industry for someone to be strong in practice but terrible in actual combat.
However, Mile trusted the orphans' resilience and willingness to adapt.
So, unless something extraordinary happened, she didn't intend to interfere.
…Of course, if any dangerous behavior occurred, she would stop it immediately.
(Yes, it's working without any problems. This way, it should be fine even if I'm not watching. Just give them a few orcs and they'll be fine if I leave the town, right? Well, I'll wait and see for a while...) (Mile's mind)
A few days later, after making arrangements for the orphanage to purchase orc meat directly from the Hunter's Guild and making sure that they had earned enough money to purchase ingredients, Mile set out on a "training journey" with her companions. Shaking off Lenny-chan who clung to her...
Before leaving, just to be on the safe side, she asked the guild master to "Keep a close watch on the Hunters so they don't cause any trouble at the orphanage," but he laughed at her and said, "There's no fool who would dare interfere when you guys are involved!"
Well, she knew he would do it properly though.
They had been friends for a long time now...