Chapter 2 — Tomorrow's Kitchen

The range hood made a dry sound and then turned off completely when the bank employee entered the kitchen.

Khoi is holding the inventory sheet. He watched as the smoke from the pan of braised fish curled up to the ceiling, past the fluorescent bulbs and stopped as a gray streak on the peeling paint. Lan's mother wanted to close for a day to receive the inventory group, but this morning there was a death anniversary party with eighteen reservations. The shop cannot stop just because one machine is tired.

“Who is in charge of the kitchen?” asked the woman in the blue shirt.

“Me,” Khoi replied.

“Are you the owner of a business?”

“No. My mother.”

“So you call her to sign the minutes.”

Lan's mother walked in from the counter, wiping her hands on her apron. She took her medicine but hadn't had breakfast yet. Vy walked behind, holding a stack of bills. Ha turned off the gas stove and carefully covered the fish pan.

A bank employee named Thu was accompanied by an older man named Phuc. Phuc held a camera, took pictures of the oven, freezer, spice rack, and signs seen through the window. Every time the flash turned on, Khoi felt like they were taking pictures of parts of the shop's body to be disassembled.

“According to the contract, the secured assets include kitchen equipment and the right to use the Bep Nha brand,” Thu said. "Today we only recorded the current status, not confiscated."

“What does it mean not confiscated?” Vy asked.

Open folder letter. "This means that if the debt is paid or there is a plan approved by the bank, the property will still operate normally. If it is overdue, the bank has the right to handle it according to regulations."

Lan's mother signed each page. She did not ask what Khoi saw on the record. Khoi stood close to the wash table, listening to the sound of pen running on paper. He used to think that the things that made a restaurant survive were the smell of fried onions, the sound of customers calling for more rice, and the chef knowing how to turn down the fire at the right time. Today he learned another kind of sound: the sound of paper turning a kitchen into a portfolio of assets.

“What year was this steamer purchased?” Phuc asked.

“In 2018,” Vy replied.

“Still active?”

“Works, but the valve is a bit stuck.”

“Recording is active.”

Khoi stepped forward. “If it says so, will the repair cost be included in the valuation?”

Phuc looked at him, a bit surprised. “What do you think?”

"I want the status to be recorded accurately. If the valve is slightly stuck, then it should record if the valve is slightly stuck. If the hood is not running, if it's not running."

Lan's mother gently pulled his sleeve. “Khoi.”

But Thu looked up. "You're right. The minutes should reflect the current situation."

Phuc was silent, editing a line. Khoi did not feel relieved. He just realized that the name Bep Nha could be lost in very small words.

After the inventory group left, Lan's mother took off her apron and hung it on the hook. She stood in the kitchen for a long time without turning on the fire.

“Mom borrowed to fix the machine after the flood, right?” Khoi asked.

“Did you say that?”

“I read the contract.”

“How much do you know if you read?”

“It is enough to know that the right to use the brand is also used as collateral.”

Lan's mother looked at the sign outside the door. The word Kitchen House has faded in the lower corner. "The brand is the name. The shop is the house."

“Min can buy the name.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“It sent a proposal.”

“You want to sell?”

“I want to know what else we can do.”

Lan's mother pulled out a chair to sit. She rubbed her knees, which hurt every time it was wet. "I didn't open the restaurant to keep the name alive. I opened it because that day my father lost his job and our family needed money. After that, people came to eat, some paid, some didn't. Some customers paid for a meal and then came back to pay three months later. The restaurant grew like that."

“So why borrow one, Mom? big amount without talking about it?

“Because if I tell you, I will quit my job in the city.”

“I quit.”

“I came back because I thought I was the only one who could save the shop.”

Khoi shut up. Lan's mother did not speak loudly, but every sentence hit the right spot.

Vy pulled up a chair opposite. “We have thirty days, not three days. You can still ask for structure.”

“Banks want to see revenue,” Khoi said.

“Increased revenue does not mean there is still cash.”

“So we have to reduce costs.”

“How to reduce it? Give Ha a break? Leave Binh? Stop giving debt to customers?

Khoi did not reply. Four names appeared at the same time, each name was a person present in the shop before he left. Ha knows the kitchen. Vegetable serving bottle. Mr. Sau repairs the table fan for free every hot season. Lan's mother gave Mrs. Huong half a portion during the six months she had leg pain.

“It's impossible to keep things the same,” Khoi said.

Vy nodded. “But change what first?”

Ha called out from the kitchen: "A customer asked if there is still enough food left today."

Khoi walked in. That dish is a small portion of rice, fish or eggs, boiled vegetables and a bowl of soup. It was born when a group of workers asked the restaurant not to force them to buy full meals at the end of the month. Khoi used to hate the name, because it sounded like an apology. Ha said people who eat don't need a pretty name, they need to finish eating without having to borrow more money.

“Four parts left,” Ha said.

“Hold it.”

“The chef just said we have to reduce the dishes.”

“This dish will not be missed.”

Ha looked at him, then wrote on the board. “Then ten dishes will be eleven.”

Khoi pulled the board down. “Ten groups of dishes. The portion is enough to eat in the rice group.”

“If you want to use nice words, I can continue.”

Khoi looked at her. “You don't need to talk around.”

“I want to know if you are saving the shop or saving your image.”

During lunch, Khoi records the delivery time, the amount of leftovers, the returned dishes and what the guests say. He doesn't stand in one place. He ran between the kitchen and the counter, punched the clock, asked the person bringing the food which plate had vegetables left out, and checked whether the bowl of fish sauce was intact or used. Previously, he used to think that a chef must have a good enough memory to see everything. Today I started a tracking board because my memory is having a hole.

A boy sitting with his grandmother pushed the bowl of soup away. She told me not to eat onions. Ha walked by, took out the onions, and added vegetables. Khoi wrote "no onion" on the ticket, then asked her if she wanted the restaurant to mark it on the menu.

“Mark it so you don't have to say it next time,” she replied.

A bricklayer asked to change fish to eggs because he had a stomach ache. Vy reported that the exchange cost increased two thousand dong. Khoi asked him if he accepted, he said yes today, not sure tomorrow.

By the end of the shift, the board was full of words. Not the words of the recipe, but the things the diner has to say because the menu doesn't know how to ask.

In the afternoon, Vy took Khoi to the bank. The letter received them in a small room with too cold air conditioning. On the table is the loan calculation sheet, with columns for amount, penalty interest, and due date.

“If the shop proves stable revenue for three months, we can consider the structure,” Thu said.

“Three months is longer than our deadline,” Vy replied.

“I understand.”

“If you sell the brand to a unit that can pay immediately?”

Thu looked at Khoi. “It's a commercial option. The bank does not require you to sell, only that the obligation be fulfilled.”

Khoi asked: "If the brand is transferred, the shop has the right to use the name old for how long?

“Depending on the transfer contract.”

“What if the buyer uses that name for another product and the customer gets confused?”

Thu tilted her head slightly. “You have to negotiate those things with the buyer.”

On the way home, Vy did not speak. Khoi stopped by the wholesale market to buy onions. A seller recognized him and asked if Kitchen House was about to close. Khoi asked again why he knew.

"The bank took pictures since morning, the whole market said it."

Bad news travels faster than a delivery truck. Khoi looked at the motorbikes carrying vegetables between the stalls. Everyone lives by keeping something from getting somewhere else before it breaks. His restaurant is the same, only the thing has to go through their hands before it becomes a meal.

That evening, Man called.

“I heard the bank is down,” Man said.

“Really fast news.”

“I can give you a better price if you decide early. I don't want to wait until the assets are disposed of.”

“Do you want to buy a shop or a name?”

“I want to buy something that can grow.”

“House Kitchen is more than a name.”

"I know. That's why I offered to buy the process, the menu and the key team.”

Khoi looked through the storeroom window. Ha is checking the vegetables with Binh. Vy closed the book. Lan's mother poured water for Mr. Sau who had just stopped by to fix the fan.

“Who is the key team?” Khoi asked.

“You, your mother, kitchen assistant Ha if she still wants to go away. The rest can train.”

Khoi immediately understood what Man did not say: Binh, Mr. Sau, those who paid on credit, and conversations not recorded in the book will not be counted in the brand value.

“I need seven days,” Khoi said.

“Okay. But I don't promise to keep the price after seven days.”

The call ended. Khoi opened the page with "THIRTY DAYS" written on it. Below, he divided it into four columns: money, items, people, and decision-making power.

He underlined the last column.

Lan's mother stood behind him. “Are you thinking about selling?”

“I'm thinking about what I'll lose if I sell it.”

“Whatever is lost is not mine.”

Khoi is back. “You talk as if brands don't matter.”

"Are not. Mom said a name only matters if people believe it.”

She took a small key from her pocket and placed it on the table. “In the cabinet under the counter there is a recording box. Mom has kept it since the shop opened for five years. I've never seen it.”

“What's in it?”

“What do people say after eating?”

“Why don't you use it to fix the dish?”

“Mom used it. But sometimes people talk about other things.”

Khoi holds the key. It's colder and heavier than it looks.

Lan's mother stood up and walked towards the kitchen. “Open the cupboard tomorrow. Then decide whether you want to save the food, save the restaurant, or save the idea that one person can do it all.”

Khoi looked at the key in his palm. On the street, the night market begins to clear its goods. A vegetable delivery vehicle passed by, leaving behind the sound of straps hitting plastic containers.

In the cabinet under the counter, there is a recording box containing the guest's voice.

And perhaps, in those voices, is a debt that the bank has never recorded in the contract.