Kiyo in Kyoto: From the Maiko House - Vol. 10 Ch. 105 - As Sisters...

[arcsalvo]

Just as an FYI for those who are curious, you can air fry or bake chicken katsu. Potentially less of a mess and healthier. I once tried making it with whole wheat bread crumbs. Honestly didn't taste quite as good, but was healthier, especially when air fried. If you don't have Katsu sauce (some of them are too sweet for my tastes anyway, like Kikkoman) A-1 steak sauce works too. A lot of people can't tell the difference between Katsu sauce and A-1, or even prefer the steak sauce.

 

[miyako19]

@Kaarme I doubt someone as scatterbrain as Kiyo can do it. Opening a restaurant does need permit and paperwork along with a huge sum of money. Renting a small place alone cost a lot of money and there still the cost for renovation, ingredients, etc. And you can't just step into the restaurant business easily, you need connection. That is why chefs in Japan started as apprentices to other chefs first to build experience and connection then work in other restaurants until they found a sponsor who agrees to help them to open their own restaurant. Also keeping the restaurant running isn't easy. There are a lot of restaurants went under because they can't get enough customers to cover rent while having to compete with other restaurants.
There are a lot of manga about cooking and restaurant business like Bambino. You can read them and see.

Kiyo should apply for a cooking school or find a chef who will take her as an apprentice first if she wanted to open her own restaurant. And she needs to open it somewhere else, not here. Kyoto has their own distinct high class cuisine along with skilled chefs who trained hard for years. Majority of customers here are tourists who want to try authentic Kyoto cuisine. Kiyo's home-cooking won't be able to compete with them. While her food looks nice, it isn't something that can be sold at a restaurant.

 

[Kaarme]

@miyako19 I've been saying all along she should go to a cooking school, but it kind of feels like she won't do it, unless someone orders her to. Granted, I don't know much about the Japanese bureaucracy, but I live in a rather bureaucracy heavy country myself, yet lots of immigrants found restaurants just fine. Many of them fail, sure, but some grow larger and succeed. If they can do it, I don't know why Kiyo couldn't. I don't live in a restaurant heavy country, but even we have a wide spectrum of different options to choose from: fast foods of various sorts, home cooking like, fancier domestic/Western, ethnic styles of myriad sorts. Lots of people who eat out (or in their workplace cafeteria) during their lunch break are perfectly fine with something resembling home cooking. It's most of the time healthier than any other choice.

But yeah, some other place than Kyoto would most certainly be an easier option. And yes, actually working for someone else first might be almost mandatory to be able to pull it off.

It was just something I said because her present job is paying too little and the general future prospects are poor. The one and only thing going for it is that it allows her to be close to the maiko. That's it. Nothing else. And even that, in my opinion, is actually a bad side, not a good one. It's like self-torture because she couldn't be one herself. The only positive point of view I can imagine would be that she's still contributing, in some manner, to be viability of the geisha cultural heritage by supporting the maiko. However, I'm not sure a teenager should be shouldering such a role.

 

[ejecily]

That was some smooth chara development. I can totes see it happen irl too. Great job author-san