Menu of Happiness

By: Hisashi Kashiwai, Jesse Kirkwood - translator

Narrated by: Hanako Footman

A beloved Japanese bestseller, Menu of Happiness is for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and asks the question: What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?

“As warm and nourishing as a good cup of tea…a series I can see myself returning to again and again.”—Mia P. Manansala, award-winning author of Arsenic and Adobo

Every memory has a flavor. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps find them . . .

Welcome to the Kamogawa Diner, where every meal is a mystery ready to be solved. This unique establishment is run by a father-daughter duo who offer more than just mouth-watering meals. They act as “food detectives,” delving into the past to produce nostalgia-infused dishes for their hungry clientele.

Among the patrons is a once-renowned pianist whose promising career was marred by a self-inflicted injury. She longs to taste the yakisoba shared with the only man she ever truly loved. The diner also welcomes a man haunted by shadows of regret. His mind is haunted by the memory of gyoza served by the parents of a lover he once jilted, as he seeks understanding and, perhaps, forgiveness.

The Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve food – it recreates forgotten recipes, helping its patrons to revisit memories lost to time. Each dish is a portal to the past, serving not just sustenance but solace and reconnection through the miracle of delicious food.

Critic reviews

“Thought-provoking and will leave you hungry for more.” —BookRiot

“Kashiwai indubitably satisfies delicious wishes.” —Booklist

“Great food, great cat. Need I say more?” —Hopewell’s Public Library of Life

“The series is well written and the format of the novels makes this series easy to devour, no pun intended.” —Books of Brilliance

“Classic deductive detective work meets Japanese comfort fare.” —Salon

“Nagare and Koishi, despite not being the ones telling most of each story, are really the heart of this series.” —The Lily Café

“You probably don't want to read this when hungry.” —Girl Who Reads

“[D]eliciously cozy.” —The Frumious Consortium

“[A] mouth-watering delight . . . The way that the tastes and flavors are so lovingly described make it impossible not to think about the food and wishing that the books contained enough magic to make it appear!” —Reading Reality

“It’s a novel about nostalgia, coziness and sharing of good food . . . Shoutout too to Jesse Kirkwood, who always captures the right tone and mood in the translation to English.” —Sam Still Reading

That last chapter

I was crying and angry through the first part of the last chapter. I normally feel very warm and fuzzy through these stories, but this one really got my dander up.

Charming Characters, Setting and Storyline

This third volume, like the first two in the series, uses a food-finding detective agency as a framework for a seies of short stories about a variety of people, their hopes and regrets. prepare to be hungry!