Corn Potage

S4 E16: Burning Low

Restaurant to Another World, 2017.

There are few things in life so singularly breathtaking as a demon devouring an entire pot of corn potage.

One minute, you’re minding your own business in the Western Restaurant Nekoya, swirling a spoon inside a piping-hot bowl of the house’s proudest achievement, Beef Stew; the next, a pot of potage is disappearing into a hopeful demon’s maw. In “Breakfast Special,” the second half of Nekoya’s inaugural episode, that’s exactly how Aletta, a wandering, wide-eyed demon, makes her grand entrance—by slurping down a kettle’s worth of soup as though it were her birthright, then promptly dozing off with a belly full of warmth and a head full of worry.

When the Master chef arrives to find his pot of corn potage absolutely decimated, we brace for wrath and immediate banishment—perhaps a lecture on demon etiquette, or the pronouncement of a stern and unyielding code of soup-based justice. But no. The chef, quite unruffled, does the one thing no demon expects: he offers kindness and the chance to shower. We are left marveling at this radical hospitality, which might be the single most gallant display of breakfast-time mercy since the invention of the humble croissant.

Refreshed and contrite, Aletta emerges from her existential haze to find that not only has she been forgiven for her hearty misdeed—she’s also been offered a way to earn her keep. She dons a uniform as a waitress, ready to serve the restaurant’s outlandish clientele every Saturday when the dining room becomes a cosmic crossroads. The demon’s circumstances, once as tattered as her patchwork cloak, are transformed by the power of a hot meal and an unexpected second chance. Together, they are reminders that sometimes, where others see an empty pot, a good-hearted chef sees a new beginning. And that’s what the Western Restaurant Nekoya is all about—filling bowls, feeding souls, and giving us all a seat at the table in a place that’s somehow right here, and also entirely out of this world.

Make it! Corn potage from Okonomi Kitchen.