Chapter 4 — Tomorrow's Kitchen

Khoi placed twelve coupons on each table before opening the door, on the back there was a vertical line divided in two: "eat all" and "leave".

He wanted to know which dish was selected, but Ha made him add three other boxes: satiety level, ability to pay next time and what the customer wanted to change. Khoi Bao's ticket is too long. Ha replied that the diner had taken the time to come to the restaurant, the restaurant could spend another ten seconds to ask them.

The first tasting is not much of an event. No banners, no people taking photos. Kitchen House only set up two more tables, reduced each portion by half and invited twelve regular guests. Mr. Sau arrived first, followed by Mrs. Huong, two construction workers, a night nurse, three renting students, Binh and his wife, and Lan's mother.

Khoi sat at the corner of the counter, with a cup of warm water and a stopwatch in front of him. You don't get to taste anything before the guest speaks. Ha said that's the rule. Khoi agreed, then after five minutes he wanted to break the rules.

The first dish is braised chicken with ginger. The pot of chicken comes out beautifully brown, the meat is tender, and the stock is thick. Khoi knew that through his eyes and hands. He knew there was enough time for the warehouse, he knew Ha put down the fire at the right time. But when Mr. Sau took the first piece, Khoi watched his eyebrows furrow, a response that the recipe did not record.

“What's missing?” Ha asked.

Mr. Sau chewed slowly. "It's not lacking. I just don't want to eat it all."

Khoi looked up. “Why?”

"Sweet at first, salty later. I can eat just one bite. After three bites, I feel tired."

The nurse named Nhung nodded. "I feel the same way. If I eat after work, the taste of sugar makes me thirsty."

The two workers shook their heads again. A man named Quan said that night shift meals must have stronger stock, because they work outside in the wind and don't have time to buy more water.

Khoi wrote three ideas on the board. Ha doesn't say who is right. She asked them when they usually eat this dish.

Mr. Sau eats lunch. Nhung eats at four in the morning. Quan eats after sunset. One dish, three times, three different bodies. Khoi looked at the slip and suddenly saw that the word "taste" was too small to contain those differences.

Lan's mother brought soup. It was cabbage soup with dried shrimp, a dish she had been cooking for fifteen years. Khoi watched her scoop each bowl, always fuller than what was written on the board. When Ha asked why, she said night shift workers needed more water.

Vy immediately said: “If everyone adds, the cost of one day will be—”

Lan's mother put down the patch. “Including the fee for returning guests.”

Vy did not argue, but wrote a line next to "standard amount of soup": "depending on group of guests".

At the third dish, a student named Tin pushed out a plate of tofu. He ate half a portion and then said it was bland. Ha thought he wanted more soy sauce, but Tin shook his head.

"It's not that it's boring. It's that there's no point to remember."

Khoi asked: "Do you want spicy or salty?"

"I don't know. I just finished eating it and it felt like a dish to fill the void."

Ha scooped some of her spice mixture into a small bowl, mixed it with onion oil, and gave it to Tin to try with the tofu. He ate, paused, then said: "This smell is okay. But if you put it in the pot from the beginning, the tofu will overpower the vegetables."

Khoi looked at Ha. She was not surprised. She asked Tin if he could pay an extra thousand for the seasoning. Tin laughed and said if a thousand would make dinner different then that would be fine.

Mr. Sau heard that and immediately said he did not want to pay more for what the shop had previously given for free. Binh said spices also have a price, but customers don't have to pay if the restaurant uses it as a way to keep them.

The conversation turned to money. One person said that shop We have to keep the price because this area still has many people in difficulty. Another person said that if the price is not enough, the chef will also be in trouble. Vy opened the spreadsheet and explained how much food was needed for ingredients, gas, wages, electricity and water. The numbers silence some people.

Khoi sat and listened. Previously, he only looked at costs after the item was sold. Today he saw the cost lying right in the middle of the dining table, on calloused hands, in his pocket many times over.

The last dish is the "enough portion". Ha lets customers choose rice, potatoes or add vegetables. A worker only took half a cup of rice but asked for more soup. A student took the potatoes, not the meat, but asked if he could bring home the vegetables. Mrs. Huong ate slowly, leaving a portion of fish for dinner.

Khoi wants to say that the restaurant does not allow take-out because cold food will not taste good. Ha gently touched his wrist.

“Ask first.”

Khoi asked Mrs. Huong if she had a thermos box. She said no, but her grandson had a plastic box. Ha took the paper bag and instructed her to keep it separately.

When everyone left, three portions of rice were left over. Some vegetables were discarded because the vegetables were old. Part of the stock is still intact. Part of it only has fish bones left.

Khoi stood in front of the table, looking at the remaining traces. He didn't need his taste buds to know that a dish was a complete failure; The disc can answer. But he also doesn't want to turn every leftover into a number that makes the worker ashamed.

Ha collected the votes and divided them into groups. “Look at this.”

A column has twelve marks. Eight people wanted to keep the braised chicken dish, four people wanted to reduce the sweetness. Ten people agreed with the vegetable soup, but six people wanted the option without onions. Tofu was accepted by nine people after adding seasoning, three people said it was not needed.

“There is no such thing as everything,” Khoi said.

“So you're going to give it all up?”

"Are not."

"Because?"

Khoi looked at the ballots. "Because the goal is not to make everyone happy. The goal is to know who is eating and what you are making them sacrifice."

Ha raised his eyebrows. “Write this down in your notebook.”

Khoi wrote the truth.

Then he opened the chicken pot and took a spoonful. Still no smell. Ha stood next to him, waiting for him to ask. Khoi did not ask "is this dish delicious?" He asked: "If we reduce sugar by ten percent and add separate spices for the night shift, can we do it without increasing the price?"

Ha calculated in his head. “If Binh keeps the price of ginger, maybe.”

Binh said from the door: "Ginger can't be kept. It's been raining for three days at the market, so few goods have come in."

Vy looked up. “So increase the price?”

Mr. Sau replied: "If people can't eat any food they can't eat, they will give up."

Lan's mother rearranged the ballot. "Tomorrow, ask Binh what kind of ginger you can replace it with. Don't decide until you know the product."

That night, Khoi did something he had never done at a restaurant: he called each person who had attended the audition and asked one more question that was not on the ticket. “If the Kitchen could only keep one thing from today's dish, what would you like to keep?”

Quan said to keep the food portion large enough after shift.

Nhung said she kept the possibility of changing the ingredients because she was allergic to onions.

Mr. Sau said to make sure the staff knows his name.

Tin said to keep the feeling that someone thought about the dish before cooking it.

Binh said he kept his promise to pay on time.

Khoi wrote everything down, including the last sentence which is not directly related to taste. When he hung up, he looked at the financial sheet. There are things that are not in the dish but decide whether the dish will be cooked tomorrow or not.

Lan's mother went into the storage room, carrying two bowls of porridge. One bowl for Khoi, one for her. She sat down next to you.

“What do you think?”

"Tired."

“About the food?”

“About everyone has a point.”

Lan's mother smiled softly. "When I first opened the restaurant, I thought the most difficult thing was to cook it well. Later, I realized that the most difficult thing is to cook a dish that diners don't feel like they've been forgotten."

Khoi looked at the bowl of porridge. “Mom, do you ever not know what the food you cook tastes like?”

"Yes. When your father passed away, I had a sore throat for many months. Everything I ate was like flour. I still had to cook."

“Mom how do you do it?”

“Ask someone else.”

“Are you afraid they will say the wrong thing?”

"Yes. But I'm afraid I think I'm more right."

Khoi bent down. The answer reminded him of his first day at Lat Cut. He once fixed a kitchen assistant's sauce pot without asking. The guests then praised the depth of the dish, while the kitchen assistant himself added roasted bones. Khoi accepted the compliment, wrote the recipe in her notebook and never asked her name.

“I used Ha's spice set in the city,” Khoi said.

“I know.”

“I didn't know it was hers.”

“What if you know?”

“I have to fix it.”

“Fix the book or change the method?”

Khoi put down his spoon. "Both."

Lan's mother nodded. "Starting from tomorrow. The person who prepares the dish must be present in the story of the dish."

At the counter, Vy is still calculating the price. She called Khoi out and pointed to a red box.

"If we keep the current price and the amount of soup depends on the customer group, we will lose money this week."

"How much?"

"Not to mention the money owed to Binh. About twelve million."

“What if the price increases?”

“Losing a group of guests who have enough to eat.”

“What if the portion is reduced?”

“Lost why they came back.”

Khoi looked at Tin's slip, the words "full first". He suddenly thought of opening a small pot of rice so customers could buy half portions, instead of squeezing everything into one portion size. Vy looked at the spreadsheet and said that model made the cashier more complicated.

“But we can sell the right amount,” Khoi said.

“And it takes more boxes, more time.”

“Measuring time.”

“Don't turn every problem into a table.”

“I'm trying not to turn everyone into a number.”

Vy im. After a while, she created another “flexible rice” column.

When Kitchen House turns off the lights, the sign "Seven days of listening to customers" is still on the wall. Under the first date line, Ha wrote in white chalk:

DON'T ASK IF THE DISH IS GOOD. ASK IF THE eater can come back.

Khoi read that sentence, then heard his phone vibrate. An unknown number sent a message:

"If you want to keep the restaurant, don't let outsiders know about the debt. Customers don't like to eat at places that are about to close."

Khoi looked towards Lan's mother. She locked the counter, not knowing the message had just arrived.

The first day of testing ended with answers that weren't on the menu.

Day two will begin with another question: if the restaurant has no money, can it continue to listen to diners without making the ingredient suppliers pay instead?