Car-kun Goes to a Tasting Event
(1) Umbra: *Bark*
C: Huh? Another message...?!
(2) To Car-kun,
We'll be holding a tasting event for the seventh Square Enix Cafe FFXV collaboration. You can stop by if you'd like!
(East Shinjuku/Luminous Productions)
C: An actual request this time!
(3) A Certain Place within the City
Tasting Event Venue
C: So long story short, I'm here to sample some tasty food!
Furuhata (Brand & Marketing Team): Hello there, Car-kun.
(4) C: So what do people do at a tasting event anyway?
Hasegawa (Art director): Well, we check and adjust portion sizes, plating arrangements, and the taste of our menu items. We tend to see more female customers with FFXV collabs, so while we are, of course, mindful of presentation and taste, achieving a reasonable portion size is also crucial.
C: Especially when everyone's ordering a bunch of drinks, too!
"Looking for Noct"
Gotta get those coasters...
(5) H: Today's special menu item is Longwythe's Peak.*
This one's been giving us some trouble, so needless to say, we've been putting it off for a while.
C: Putting it off, huh.
(6) C: Woohoo, time to dig in!
(8) C: I don't mind how big it is, but I have to say, I'm breaking a sweat trying to slice it.
H: That can't be...!
*JP name: 謹製ランガウィータ
(1) ?: The process of slicing the meat with your own two hands would make for a more engaging dining experience, wouldn't you agree? It'd be nice to leave a portion for them to slice themselves.
?: What about leaving about 3/5 of the meat untouched and slicing the rest?
Even Ignis cuts a few slices before serving the dish.
C: So this is how they go about fine tuning menu items.
(2) The Special Drink on the Menu is the 2nd Anniversary Commemorative Drink!
With a rose floating inside!
C: This calls for celebration!
(3) C: Can I eat the rose?
H: Doesn't taste like anything, but yes, it's edible!
(4) H: Not that I recommend it, the petals can be tough to chew.
(5) I can't help but watch the sugar pearls bob up and down.
C: I wonder if this is the kind of drink they'd serve at Noct's wedding.
(9) Watching them tweak the taste of Prompto's drink over and over again was quite an experience.
?: The carbonation is a bit much, I think...
?: It might be too sweet.
H: Let's give it another go.
C: ???
(Thinks all of them taste great.)
After much trial and error, they were finally able to create a drink that perfectly harmonizes flavor with aesthetics. Prepare to have your mind blown!!
(10) Bonus
C: This ice cream just doesn't melt!
Color me impressed!
H: That's actually butter; we're using it for the photo shoot.
SHOCKED
Umbra and Pryna's Snack Time
Episode 9: The Inside Scoop, Square Enix Cafe Collaboration Edition
Pryna: This time we have Art Director and Game Food Consultant Hasegawa—or as some like to call him, "IRL Ignis"—present here today. Let's see if we can have a brief chat with him (pressure)
Umbra: Hasegawa, what dish would you say gave you the hardest time?
Hasegawa: It took us a while to settle on a spice level for the green soup curry. We had our Square Enix Cafe chefs bring over some in pots and asked our female staff—specifically those less keen on spices—to give it a taste. In general, dishes that appear in FFXV have models within the game itself, but with items on our original menu, we had to rush to get them photographed after finalizing plating to have models for our placemats. Basically, we were all over the place. For our original gentian jellied dessert* inspired by Gentiana, we focused our attention on the plate's color, overall presentation, selection of sweet bean jelly, etc.
Pryna: I heard you decided on the final dish by lining up all kinds of jelly as if they were bricks and experimenting with different colors.
Umbra: I had no idea there were so many variations of sweet bean jelly! What about any dishes that really stand out in your mind?
SE Cafe Chef: I would have to say the galette from the sixth collaboration. We were flooded with orders from day one, and I remember rushing to send in additional orders of my own to keep our supplies stocked.
Umbra: A Square Enix Cafe chef!! ...So much thought and effort goes into each collaboration. I wonder what's gonna be popular this upcoming seventh collab? ♪
*竜胆羊羹 ("Rindou Yōkan"): the flower "Rindou" is also called autumn bellflower, Gentiana scabra, Japanese Gentian; yōkan is a "thick, jellied Japanese dessert made of red bean paste, agar, and sugar" (from Wikipedia)
Mentioned FFXV Cafe Collab Menu Items
From left to right: Green Soup Curry, Gentian Jellied Dessert, Galette (photos from here)
Note: The Gentiana-inspired dish is made of 4 types of yōkan (peach, gold dust, mango, matcha) garnished with specially-made amazake sauce.
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