With Magic Comes Mayhem
For the Nameless Restaurant, once a discreet hole-in-the-wall meant for a cast of supernatural regulars, the increasing levels of background magic has brought with it that most dreadful of locusts - new customers.
The staff of the Nameless Restaurant are finding the influx of new customers - both mortal and magical - to be a challenge. They're reaching a breaking point and something has to give.
The only question is, will it be Mo Meng's rules on magic or the restaurant itself?
Thaumaturgic Tapas is the third standalone novella in the cozy cooking fantasy series Hidden Dishes.
The Hidden Dishes series is a cozy cooking fantasy perfect for fans of Travis Baldree's Legends & Lattes and Junpei Inuzuka's Restaurant to Another World. Written by bestselling author Tao Wong, his other series include the System Apocalypse, A Thousand Li, Climbing the Ranks, Hidden Wishes and Adventures on Brad series.

My Review:

This third book in the mouthwateringly delicious Hidden Dishes series (after The Nameless Restaurant and Chaotic Aperitifs) was supposed to be titled Sorcerous Plates. Magical chef Mo Meng’s ‘plates’ absolutely are not sorcerous – no matter what each book might be called – but the dishes he serves on those mundane plates are definitely magically delicious. And all without the use of any charms, lucky or otherwise, in his cooking process.

Not that he isn’t using a bit more magic in his cooking than he promised himself he would in the early days of his Nameless Restaurant. When the series began, Mo Meng served a small and self-selecting clientele of mostly supernatural diners – or at least those in the know about the supernatural world.

Until a chaotic visit from a newly awakened jinn changed all that which is the story in The Nameless Restaurant, and now Mo Meng and his human jill-of-all-trades-except-cooking, Kelly, have way more diners than they can handle or the tiny restaurant can actually hold.

Bowing to the necessity that either Kelly or himself – and someday both – need help before they are run literally off their feet, he has placed magical ‘Help Wanted’ signs around Toronto’s magical district. Those signs bear strange fruit in the person of a young demon looking to get out from under his infamous sire’s very large and possibly downright sulfurous thumb.

As long as Damian doesn’t set either the restaurant or its patrons on fire – literally – his help is very much needed as part of this evening’s crew at the restaurant, as Mo Meng has chosen to challenge himself by creating a menu consisting entirely of ‘leftovers’.

Which leads to a lot of small plates attempting to fill some supernaturally large appetites, some upset mundanes who don’t like the lack of a fixed menu, a reservation system, a waiting list and especially the lack of electronic outlets for their ever-present gadgets.

But the real story at the Nameless Restaurant is all about the creation of this quirky community of ultimate insiders, along with the inside joke of a vampire lawyer negotiating a contract between a very young demon and a very old witch, while a pair of government agents look on trying to determine whether it is, or is not, their circus and whether they should or are even capable of doing anything about this particular bit of magical ‘monkey business’.

It’s all in a day’s, or an evening’s, work at the Nameless Restaurant, a truly magical place to spend an evening. If only there were a way to magically pull the meals Mo Meng prepares out of the book and onto one’s own table!

Escape Rating A-: First, this series needs a trigger warning – but not the usual kind. Because reading and/or listening to Mo Meng’s meditations on cooking as well as his descriptions of the ingredients he’s using and the meal he’s preparing are guaranteed to make anyone hungry. This warning particularly applies to listening in the car on the way to the grocery store!

Howsomever, Mo Meng’s thoughts and observations about his long life and experience as a chef, as well as his meditations about available ingredients and exactly how he plans to use them in that night’s recipes are very, well, meditative. In the voice of the narrator of the series, Emily Woo Zeller, I could have listened to Mo Meng for hours – which I did.

Having listened to the first book, The Nameless Restaurant, and this latest, Thaumaturgic Tapas, while having read the second, Chaotic Aperitifs, I would personally recommend that if you enjoy audiobooks at all you get this series in audio if you can. It’s still very good as a book, but the audio adds something special, at least IMHO.

The format of each entry in the series so far is that of a ‘day in the life’ of Mo Meng and his restaurant. He begins the day deciding what he’ll serve that night, shopping for ingredients, and often having a conversation with his front-of-house manager (and jill of all trades), Kelly, about how things are going.

This entry in the series begins with both of them admitting out loud, for each other if not for themselves, that they are being run off their feet and that something has got to give. In this case, what gives is his wish to not add another employee. Mo Meng is immortal and he can use magic to help himself in the kitchen – although he’d rather not. But Kelly is mortal and she can only run but so fast in a tiny restaurant filled with tables.

So change has come, and Damian the young demon sweeps in with it, lowering himself to starting at the bottom – as a mere busboy – even as he battles the pride that seems to be one of his besetting – or perhaps inherited – sins.

Most of the story, however, is taken up with the bustling hours of the evening, when the restaurant is open and filled with customers – as well as with customers’ impatience and egos. But the mundane customers who chafe at the restrictions are mostly there to add a bit of heat and spice to the recipe.

What makes the story are the regular customers, who are not so regular at all. They offer a glimpse into the supernatural community, as well as the continuity of their continuing stories. Also, in this particular case, a bit of ballast, as long-time frenemies, Jotun and Tobias, a frost giant and a dwarf, have an eating contest that leaves them both groaning from over-excess.

That the two ‘creatures’ manage to leave their bill in the hands of the government agents set to watch them adds just the right – and light – note to this charming third entry in this delicious cozy fantasy series.

If you are waiting for the next books in either the Legends & Lattes series or The Kamogawa Food Detectives series, these Hidden Dishes will fill the empty spot while you’re waiting.

Speaking of waiting, it turns out those Sorcerous Plates might be magical after all – or at least in possession of a time travel charm. The next book in the Hidden Dishes series is, once again, Sorcerous Plates.