Kaito had found the one good restaurant in a declining city the way Kaito always found things. A combination of asking the right questions of the right people and following his nose for approximately forty meters once the answers ran out.
It was three streets from the lodgings. Small, run by a family that had been cooking the same menu for thirty years. They had arrived at a specific perfection within that menu that made the limitation feel like a feature.
They took a table in the corner.
Denro looked at the menu with the expression he used when he was trying to understand a system from first principles.
"What's the dark one," he said.
"Braised mountain pork," Mara said. "The preparation is specific to the Seorak valley. The altitude affects the fat distribution."
Denro looked at her.
"I talked to the woman at the market stall when we passed it," Mara said.
"You talked to her for like thirty seconds."
"That was sufficient."
