Season 2 Episode 3’s first half introduces us to three boys: Jack (Takuto Yoshinaga), Kento (Ryūji Yamamoto), and Terry (Reiō Tsuchida). All three live in the countryside of the empire and they regularly visit Nekoya to order some hamburgers with French fries. I like how stunned the three are with the different patrons in the restaurant, especially the demi-humans. It makes sense given their ages and considering that they’ve lived in the country their whole lives and therefore have limited familiarity with the outside world.
There’s a fun conversation between Jack and Gaganpo that demonstrates this quality. Gaganpo is one of the more animal-like characters in the cast and he speaks a limited amount of human language so it’s fitting that he would pique Jack’s curiosity. Props to Jack uses gestures convey his questions to Gaganpo and figuring out exactly what Gaganpo means with his fragmented responses. It’s also nice to see Gaganpo interact with someone for a change. Most of the time, the lizardmen is sitting by himself, enjoying his omelette rice.
An apparent goal of Jack, Kento, and Terry’s is to become adventurers once they come of age. The only downside to their ambition is that they’ll have to ditch the door they use to get to Nekoya. Conversely however, the three also realize the existence of other doors and they decide to use their adventures to locate them. I doubt Restaurant to Another World will get that far but this development does have some serious potential. It could be very amusing to see these boys explore their world and find the other doors, maybe visit some familiar locations or run into familiar faces along the way. I wouldn’t mind seeing a whole half-episode dedicated to that.
In the second half, we see Alphonse (Fumihiko Tachiki) visits Nekoya for another order of curry rice. Alphonse’s timing is a bit awkward as he stops by towards the end of the day and right when Kuro and Aletta are about to have their dinner break. This setback is very short-lived however as the Master reveals that he has some new curry dishes he’d like for Alphonse to taste test. Seeing as Kuro and Aletta are hungry (and Kuro loves curry), they get to partake in the test as well, allowing the Master to kill two birds with one stone.
The three dishes are Green Curry, Beef Tendon Curry, and Soup Curry. For whatever reason, Beef Tendon Curry is the only dish in the episode’s title alongside the Hamburger from the first half of the episode. I find that a little strange but maybe it’s because the Beef Tendon Curry ends up being the one Aletta enjoys the most. Unsurprisingly, Kuro and Alphonse enjoy all three new dishes but at the end of the day, they still stick with their go-to curry dishes. To be fair, it would be counterproductive if a character changes the food they’re synonymous so one really shouldn’t expect anyone to overcome their addiction (or at least change it to something else).
If I had a nickel for every time Kuro and Alphonse try something curry-related, I’d end up with two nickels (or three if I’m only considering Kuro). It’s not a lot but who would’ve thought this scenario would happen again. Joking aside, I do enjoy these characters’ enthusiasm for curry. You put curry in anything and make it good and either of these characters will light up their eyes. Having Kuro and Alphonse share a scene again is pretty sweet. After all, it’s thanks to Alphonse that Kuro found her favorite food and became a part of Nekoya. This certainly deserved a revisiting, even if it doesn’t advance the plot all that much now. It is a little strange that Kuro thanks Alphonse for paying for her first order of chicken curry. I mean, that was all the way back in Season 1 Episode 7. Did Kuro just not do that whenever she served as Alphonse’s waitress? I suppose this is more for the viewer’s sake than the characters’. At some point, someone might ask if Kuro ever thanked Alphonse so better late than never to do it now.
Watch Restaurant to Another World 2 on Crunchyroll
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