Published by Pan Macmillan India
Genre- Mystery, Food
Book Blurb
What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?
Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner treats its customers to wonderfully extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason to stop by . . .
The father-daughter duo have started advertising their services as ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are capable of recreating a dish from their customers’ pasts – dishes that may well hold the keys to forgotten memories and future happiness.
From the widower looking for a specific noodle dish that his wife used to cook, to a first love’s beef stew, the restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to the past – and a way to a more contented future.
My Review
I first heard of The Kamogawa Food Detectives from Dilip (@badphoto_goodbook), when we met in Mumbai, and have since then been curious about the book!
Seeing the cat on the book cover, I expected that it would be similar to The Full Moon Coffee Shop. But the cat on the cover is where the similarities end between the two books.
The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a bunch of stories where people come across the advert from the diner and come to this unassuming place that doesn’t look like a restaurant at all. Some of these people know the owner Nagare and his daughter Koishi, others complete strangers. But they all come with a specific dish from their past that they would like the detectives to recreate. Through these stories, we also get to know more about the detectives themselves.
“I reckon we always meet the people we’re supposed to meet, which is why you ended up walking through that door.”
Although I am a vegetarian, I really want to try out Japanese food, and out of all the dishes written about in the book, the one I am most curious about would be the Nabeyaki Udon. My favorite story on the other hand would be the Beef Stew One.
This is a very short and sweet read, seemingly about food and not very deep, but I feel every story came with a different outlook on life. The way the customers dealt with their past, by tasting the dish that stuck with them and finally moving on after getting closure. The stories had become formulaic by the third chapter, and by the fifth, it felt like Nagare didn’t even have to put any effort into getting the dish right.
There will always be the characters getting surprised that the customer found the diner despite only the one word advert in Gourmet Monthly and the frontier of the eatery without any board. Then the customer stops to look at the photos of the food made by Nagare. Along with Koishi telling Drowsy the cat not to come inside as ‘dad doesn’t like it’ and also telling Nagare, ‘it’s another tough one’.
And in the ending, I’d thought that the stories would tie up together to give some sort of closure. I guess for that I’d have to read the next book in the series.
As someone who thinks of food as a love language, I admire the book’s depiction of the power food has to evoke a wide range of emotions and memories in people. But at the same time, I wish there was more depth to the characters – especially the owners, which I feel got lost in all the repetitive elements of the stories.
One piece of trivia I did learn thanks to the book was “There’s no such thing as “dessert” in Japanese cuisine. The fruit served at the end of the meal is called mizugashi.” An interesting tidbit I will keep in mind should I ever visit Japan!
If the next book in the series is more of the same formula stories, I am not sure if I will pick it up but I did somewhat enjoy this one so I would give it two and a half stars, rounding up to three.
Cheers,
knittedpages.com 
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