Cloudberry

I uh, woof. Heh. Here we go then?

I’m Oscar Yasui, formerly a professional food critic for the website “Palladium,” itself a subsidiary of Neptune Informations. Some of my listeners might be familiar with my body of work: online if you’re local, or through the wormways of the buffer if you’re out past the Rails. If you’ve never heard of me, then know that I wrote the articles “The Lion of Kalou Bay” back in ‘22 and “The Void Table” in ‘25, both of which were winners of the Quartz Rail Award for Culinary Journalistic Excellence. I’ve also written a few books of ah… apparently middling quality, I won’t mention their titles here. Now I’m doing a podcast which I’ll… have a name for before I post this to the buffer. Least I hope I will.

I’m not really a food critic, not anymore. I don’t consider myself one. I think, uh, very soon it won’t be a position I will be able to reliably find work at. Even if I rode the Rails out of the Sol System, I can’t really outrun a reputation.

Why am I doing this? I’m doing this because…

When you’re a food critic, not necessarily a good one, just one with a face or a voice people can relate to, people assume that you know where the best food is, even if they invite you off planet for your opinion.

I once attended a party aboard a high speed aircraft--that served a new dish made special for every nation it passed over. What- what was that party even about? Physically outrunning the new year? A race between yachts of the sky? Was it a drug smuggling operation?

Another party was hosted in orbit of Europa, an experimental sushi feast that took advantage of microgravity. Not fifteen minutes into the event, the critic panel, myself included, stampeded for the infirmary. Mentaiko, a kind of spiced fish roe, and open eyes don’t mix.

With the exception of that particular party, we food critics, especially ones with a weekly click quota, have a troubling tendency to close our eyes as we eat. We open our senses to the flavor (or mediocrity) of a dish instead of… taking a look around us. I quit my last job ah… for a few reasons. The hours and constant travel, for example, were pretty shit. And also, while I was eating, I made the mistake of opening my eyes.

I probably should have opened my eyes six years ago, when I experienced the third worst food poisoning of my life. I had won the Quartzy for the Lion of Kalou Bay, and was returning from uh… the city I still call Fremont, when the runway was snowed out. I did what any self respecting adult does when plans change and destroyed myself with two dollar shots the airport sold for 8 fifty a thimbleful. In comes this baritone rumble at my left, “Yasui? Oscar Yasui?” Duke of New Caldonia Mars, stuffed into a silk shirt and weighed down with so much precious metal, if he found a pawnshop he could have bought the airport under our feet. That night he insisted I accompany him to his vacation estate, claiming he had concocted a carpaccio that would impress even my “satin sheet of a palette.” That isn’t an embellishment, he really did say that. The carpaccio we ate that night was sliced to near translucency, topped with pungent sweet white truffles that contrasted beautifully with the delicate, savory flavor of the meat. It was, by all accounts, a very impressive effort, only undermined by the Duke’s choice to store his fantastically expensive ingredients at room temperature. The following day I missed my flight again, my “satin sheet palette” exposed to my meal a second time, with a new twist of acid sourness. My entire intestinal tract ravaged by a salmonella infection.

That evening, and of course the following few days of abject suffering, did more than ruin carpaccio for me entirely. I mean it did ruin carpaccio. I recognize that it is an excellent dish when prepared correctly but… an intestine betrayed is a lesson engraved.

But that evening planted a seed in my mind about where ingredients come from. What paths they take. An ingredient being improperly refrigerated was one thing, but I did wonder where the Duke managed to acquire Italian white truffles from. There had to be a story there.That cultivar had been extinct for almost a decade.

Where does food come from? This question isn’t unique within the broad sphere of food writing. A few hundred years ago, Mark Arax’s Kingdom From Dust traced the pistachio and the almond from tree to weathered hand, to cheerful bag. Before that, before mankind had even touched the edge of space, Upton Sinclair wrote of the quick butchering of pigs, and the slow exsanguination of the immigrant worker. Today, any vlogger can grab a camera and a Rail ticket and chase the origin of a dish out to the stars. Or let’s say Jupiter, if you’re a college student. Tens of millions of viewers tune in monthly or weekly to learn that cookies are indeed still produced by the billion in factory complexes. Factory complexes that invest great effort in expanding profit margins wherever possible. What I’m doing here isn’t new, but I still had to learn it.

The Duke of New Caledonia ruined Carpaccio for me. I’d eaten it before, but it didn’t matter anymore. For years I spoke and wrote and joked about the experience with colleagues, but it wasn’t more than a piece of goofy ah… “humanizing” trivia. My readers loved anecdotes about waiters rushing to pull carpaccio off the menu when I arrived.

Our tastes they… change as we grow older. For some, it comes quietly and suddenly. The meal they’ve ordered every Friday for thirty years just doesn’t taste right. For others, it can be an unexpected second coming of age. The first tender bite of sashimi during a road trip or the cold squid ink pasta served the bleary night after a difficult wedding.

Which brings us back to parties.

When I turned 31, I was sent to review a tapas place called “Glass” in the bay city of Pobre Cuchillo. The food was good if pugnaciously trendy. Flaky, amaranth flour empanadas wrapped around a filling of Martian olives, spiced with sundried cantor seed and wavebud. The peppery flavor of the dough counterbalanced the salt of the olives beautifully, while the cantor seeds and wavebud lent a floral, tropical finish. The club’s atmosphere however, was oppressive: A retina blasting bouquet of laser light prismed through a sea of mirrors. The place was overcrowded, the AC failing to fight the heat and humidity of a hundred gyrating bodies. As I sat, hunched over my tablet, my back assaulted by shoulders and elbows surging from the overflowing dance floor, my name came howling through that awful, smoky air. A visitor followed shortly afterwards, face consumed by a practiced smile.

I remember so clearly… clear as day, clear as my hands in front of my face this very moment. His name was Mr. Ungerson, he wore a suit in a very pleasant shade of blue, and he was loudly and instantly a psychopath. We got to talking about our jobs (he was a media consultant on holiday) our taste in food (he did not care for the ammonium chloride licorice salmiak) and he declared that he would “save our asses from this laser hell and get some “authentic” local cuisine.” He asked me if I would wait for his chauffeur to return from the bathroom. The word chauffeur struck me as terribly antiquated. I’ve seen some models for sale these days that don’t even include steering wheels, opting instead to replace control surfaces with touch screens or entertainment systems. I was so absorbed by this train of thought that I just… agreed to go with him, ignoring years of education about the danger of moving to a secondary location.

Mr. Ogata was the name of the chauffeur in question, a tall and well built man with almond eyes and an alloy jaw. It flowed into a neck of armored cables and silver scales, which disappeared down his collar. I think the best way to describe Mr. Ogata is…hm… Weeks after this encounter, I eventually managed to look up Mr. Ungerson’s first name in the buffer. My searches for Mr. Ogata did not yield a first name, or for that matter, any person at all. He was, or is, a man of cultivated impermanence in an age of total information continuity.

The laser light of Glass shone off Ogata’s features like technicolor constellations. Already three drinks into my evening, I asked Mr. Ogata if he had cut himself shaving. I was drunk and curious about his extensive body augmentation. Ogata, assuredly practiced with navigating conversations with idiots, regarded me like a primordial thing in amber.

The air outside the club was warm, scented with rubber, plastic, and salt blown in from the bay. Ogata sat beside us as Ungerson’s sports coupe carried us to our destination, the cityscape lurching as we rose into the air, then melting into a smear of stone and light as we accelerated away. And so we set out to right Glass’s wrongs. Mr. Ungerson knew of a spot I had never heard of through Palladium or my own research. He claimed I’d never eat at a place quite like it again. I flatly told him that such a thing was not possible, and besides, if a recipe could be created once, why couldn’t it be replicated by another talented chef? He humored my illustrative defenses with a smile that cost more than my major.

Mr. Ungerson confided in me a disappointment with the culinary scene of the city of Pobre Cuchillo. He explained a fatigue he was experiencing with the dishes, and for some time I kept pace with his disappointment. His wealth and connections kept him free of any meal beneath four stars, even in spite of his disdain for search algorithm driven meal planning and mass generated review aggregates. I mentioned some of the city’s greats and he agreed with an affable limpness. Maria’s Cathedral was good, of course, Talcum Row had the best fish, yes he heard about their proximity to the dockyards, yes he knew that their secret recipe was a sour twist on the classic cream sauce. Mr. Ogata did not participate in our discussion. His focus freed by the airshuttle’s autopilot, he merely observed our surroundings as we traveled, with special attention directed towards windows, alleyways, and rooftops. I recognized then, the purpose of his augmentations, of his trained disinterest in conversation, the tungsten contacts on his knuckles. The cabin of the aeroshuttle grew quite cramped just then. No space is large enough when among a man educated in the art of killing.

With a gentle weightlessness afforded by top of the line aeroshuttle stabilizers, our small dinner party descended, landing in an alleyway that seemed ill suited to the luxury of our transport. The doors slid back then scissored upwards, dappling Mr. Ungerson’s jaw with the brash light of small commerce. I moved to my companion to speak, to pry for information, but my answer came on the wind. Street food, a congregation of dozens of vendors, warred for the attention of passerby. The smoky savor of grilling meat grappled with the salty tones of a roiling pot of tofu and broth. My glasses blinded me, steamed opaque by a hundred spiced cookpots. The lights above us shone down into the puddles of yesterday's storms, and the world was an encompassing barrage of neon. Conversation was exchanged almost as quickly as food, what sports teams to bet on, when the police might scatter the stalls, which babysitter could be trusted for a three day weekend. Always, always, always there was food. Not on plates delivered by waiters, but sizzling on flattops, pouring from ladles, turned by chopsticks on griddles, sent airborne by a six foot four woman with an eye patch and an iron wok. I filled my lungs with the place, but could not ignore the eyes that Mr. Ungerson’s aeroshuttle had drawn, regardless of the shelter the cramped alley afforded. I realized then, with such perfect certainty, that Mr. Ungerson was giving me the Dip and Dazzle.

Let me, let me explain this. Street food is cuisine. Great food does not achieve greatness because of its stars, the stars are a celebration of its greatness. I had done this song and dance many times before, the mock revelation, the well-trodden path presented as virgin territory. Food Writer Felicia Quale referred to this trick as the “Dip and Dazzle.” Basically, taking meals that are maligned for being accessible, working class food and strategically rediscovering them. It’s a way to pretend at worldliness for a day: the assertion that a billionaire comfortable with 300 dollar a plate meals can also find joy in a three dollar corn dog. The Dip and Dazzle, Felicia noted, was most effective within the circles of the wealthy where there was little risk that a mark would note that a host’s “hidden gem” was, in fact, the place they already ate at five days a week for lunch.

I wasn’t a local, true, but the Dip and Dazzle has achieved such a memetic status within food writing that I found my perspective on Mr. Ungerson changed. As we wound our way towards the market, past drunken businessmen arguing over condiments and disaffected construction workers smoking wordlessly, I found my previous interest waning. Mr. Ungerson’s serpentlike qualities grew flimsy. It was easy to be apprehensive of a viper, but a snakeskin boot with an attitude was laughable. We passed a hamburger stall and I struggled to contain myself. Would he show me the “hidden” culinary powerhouse that was shoestring french fries? Would he lament that no seared steak could ever match that first juicy bite of a charbroiled hamburger? We approached a curtained doorway adorned with a hunting white stork, great legs towering over powder blue surf, and I hardened my heart for good food with a souring side of condescension.

The inside of the stall was warmly lit, smelling of tobacco smoke and hoisin sauce, rich and encompassing. The countertop ahead of us was as crowded as the stall’s interior was, packed with great iron pots that stood like giants among crenellations of used cookware. Three staff held court over a whirling dance of customers, a young woman with dark hair took orders, an older man with a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his neck scrubbed dishes at a prodigious rate. Leading them all was a wiry older woman, a dimpled birthmark on her cheek, grey hair swaddled in a durag. It swam with little prints of koi fish, blazing the same hot orange as the stove fires.

Mr. Ogata secured us seating through the use of almost… imperceptible social violence. The rest of us sat, Mr. Ungerson exhaling and patting his belly as we did so. “It’s all good, Oscar, all good, you can’t go wrong with the entire menu. I’d never order for you but, if you had to try one dish first…” Mr. Ogata removed a sinuous codd-neck bottle from the counter cooler, its cherry red contents contrasting the silvered grooves of his hand.

The menu was small, a front with no back. No need for a beverage menu, all the prices were scrawled on paper signage near the cooler. I exhaled, feeling my spine uncoil a little. To borrow the macabre bombast of the once food critic Daniel Aurora, “A great menu is a small menu. A hammer leaves you breathless, but a scalpel sticks with you as you walk out.” Aurora was an… alarming… individual, but his observations were rarely incorrect. My finger traced a brief journey down the laminated page, detouring around a sticky patch of sauce, before I settled on a hearty bowl of beef pho, potstickers, and a glass of frozen honeydew pearl tea. Mr. Ogata never touched the menu, preferring to nurse his soft drink, half present, half lost within the digital sphere that scattered lightning across the interior of his skull. Mr. Ungerson scanned his eyes up and down the page, occasionally glancing at the other patrons to see what they had ordered. His final selection was a fish pho bowl, a side of herb greens, and a water.

I asked Mr. Ungerson why he was looking at other patrons if he already had been here. Trying to phrase my question as a joke. He laughed lightly and leaned towards me with conspiratorial glee, a hand cupped to his mouth as if to hide his words from onlookers.

“Oscar, I totally know what I want, everyone here knows their exact order. I’m not doing anything weird, I’m just trying to suss out what people aren’t ordering. Call it… taking the path less traveled, trailblazing.”

I asked how you could trailblaze a menu so many other people had held in their hands, ordered from. He told me he’d break the word down some other time, then made some small talk about the news. We talked about finance, we talked about Le Straud. I made a joke about the market price of seeds and Mr. Ungerson shrugged his shoulders, mouth twisted into a humoring smile.

The death toll at Le Straud had reached forty thousand that evening. I don’t feel… any pride in that joke. That joke that I made.

The dark haired young woman used her sharp elbows and narrow hips to push back the crowd in the tent, battling it like a Far Reaches colonial surveyor might battle undergrowth. She took our order candidly, without the genuflection of service, all the while working two sticks of blue gum furiously between her jaws. Then she turned, her ponytail whirling behind her like a flail, and vanished into the crowd.

The food arrived in great bowls adorned with a line of marching yellow ducklings, the kind one might pass in a corner store besides boxes of candy and racks of hair scrunchies. Steam, fragrant with sharp herbs and tendercooked beef roiled from the bowl’s mouth like a great exhalation on a winter’s night. The young, dark haired woman set the tray before Mr. Ungerson and I, shouting over her shoulder at the older woman behind the counter. They were out of napkins, apparently.

Glass felt a lifetime’s distance from this place, but its food sat with presence within my gut. The bowl was more expansive than the menu appeared to claim, a great heap of pink hearted beef rested amidst a golden broth, swimming with oil and spice. Spring greens and bean sprouts peeked shyly among fat noodles. I tasted the broth with some apprehension, lifting the bowl to my lips, letting the flavor wash over me.

Citrus, sweetness, savory notes, dancing in and out of focus on the tongue, before a rising capsaicin heat scattered them. Another forkful gave me a tender cut of beef, its succulent texture paired perfectly with the tender-crispness of bean sprouts. Hearty, warming, filling, the flavors only bolstered by my disappointment with my previous meal. Across from me, Ungerson appeared to be in the throes of culinary ecstasy. His susurrations and gratitude bursting through his manicured personality.

“This is… spectacular.” I remember telling him.

“Singular.” Ungerson corrected, twirling a bean sprout around his chopsticks. “Masterful.”

I couldn’t disagree. As the meal progressed, the angle of our bowls became increasingly acute, the pho thinning from a banquet to a broth, our appetites melting away with warmth of temperature, warmth of spice. Mr. Ogata, to my surprise, ordered a small plate of soft, white dumplings about halfway through the meal. When I tried to make conversation with him, the coldness of his expression stilled me.

*sigh* Hi, this is a few days after recording, I was going through the editing here, and I really found myself hung up on this little throwaway sentence. I was going to cut the part about calling Ogata’s expression “cold” because of the obvious uh, issues it has with depicting a member of the cybernetic community. I chose to leave it in, not because I feel vindicated in describing him that way, but instead to draw attention to just how easy it is to… do this to someone. To dehumanize them by inches, purely through diction. As you listen to the rest of this podcast, you’ll find that Mr. Ogata and I did not have a good relationship, even in passing. But you can’t just… call an augmented individual “cold” or “calculating.” That’s it! Aside over.

The three of us were left with the sound of clinking bowls, polite slurping, that fundamental satisfaction that follows good goddamn food. I found myself looking behind the stall’s counter, searching for the chef, mind in full critic mode. My article about Glass struck me as childish, irrelevant. A sarcastic literary two-step bemoaning how “poor lighting ruined good food.” I didn’t care that my deadline to Palladium was fast approaching, I’d work myself into a migraine if it meant that I could put this alley establishment on the wider culinary map.

I stood, peering into the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of the older woman as she stirred a great iron pot. I carried a Chorus 12S, light blue paneling with ebony trim, bought for me as a celebration gift when I published The Lion of Kalou Bay. It emerged from the pocket of my slacks, held loosely in my grip, its directional microphones already paring away the audio of the surrounding crowd. I stopped when I realized I had caught my hand on something, or that someone had caught me.

Mr. Ogata towered besides me, his cybernetic hand fully enclosing mine, pinning my digits against my gifted Chorus 12S. I took another step, but my body went no further. Mr. Ogata slowly shook his head, the orange flames of the kitchen mirrored in his eyes. In one motion he stepped forward, clapped his opposite hand on my shoulder, and turned me away from the counter, carrying me out, through the cloth with a drawing of a hunting white stork. Out into the street. He was not rough with me, but I protested all the same. He stated, simply, “Be calm, Mr. Yasui. Mr. Ungerson will have an explanation for you, if he feels an explanation is necessary.”

And indeed, Mr. Ungerson soon followed us out. He smiled, his face snapping perfectly into the shape required to communicate sheepishness, helplessness. I was not being manhandled by his personal bodyguard, his face seemed to say. And if I was, what could he possibly do about it? He tilted his head, just barely, in the direction of a nearby alleyway. And we were off, the wet trash beneath our feet sounding of reeds and muck.

Mr. Ungerson lifted his feet high, putting his best effort towards keeping the soles of his Silas Komodos clear of the debris. Even so, I heard him softly curse, pausing to grind the peel of a mango off his shoe and leaving a greasy streak against the concrete. I wondered bleakly, what I would leave behind in this alley if I was to be crushed. My Chorus 12S, recording the sounds of passersby? A bent frame of my glasses? Mr. Ungerson gestured to Mr. Ogata, and I was released, though he kept an eye on my person and any passersby.

Mr. Ungerson approached and dusted off my somewhat indented shoulder.

“You’re okay, buddy, you’ll be fine.” he said. “Mister Hydraulic Hands didn’t rough you up any, just bruised the fabric of your jacket.” he smiled at my outfit, perhaps crunching thread counts in his head.

I asked why they had pulled me out of the stall.

“Because,” he answered, “I mean come on, you’re a dangerous guy, Oscar.”

I couldn’t fathom how he could consider me dangerous. I just… stammered at him. He rolled his eyes.

“Look, Oscar, they have great pho. Saint on a Rail, their entire menu is fantastic, see, when a place has an itty-bitty menu like that, it’s always good.”

I couldn’t stop myself from giving him a look of just… raw, fatigued exasperation. Even then I knew it was a poor choice, standing in a blind alley among a sociopath and a trained killer. I think he mistook my look for further confusion, to my fortune.

“Oscar, it isn’t about how good the food tastes. It’s great, sublime, even, but it isn’t everything. I bet you didn’t even catch the name of that little stall.”

He wasn’t wrong. No, at the time he was completely correct. The truth was that, despite my mental defense of street food as a culinary institution, I would have never entered that stall on my own. I would have never come to this part of the city. Even after having eaten there, I still didn’t know the name of the restaurant that I ordered that pho at. The troubling thing was, I believed then, as I believe now, that the average person would have remembered. Someone less jaded. Just… someone less arrogant than me.

I didn’t bring any of these thoughts to Mr. Ungerson’s attention. You have to remember, I was a very prideful person then. I mean, I am now as well but… Regardless, I asked Mr. Ungerson what the point of all of this was.

“Trailblazing!” he replied with a cheerfulness that seized at my lungs. “This is about beating the crowds. And yes, Oscar, we’ve both got eyes in our head, we know that Cloudberry, that's the restaurant you just ate at by the way, is absolutely packed. It’s adored! It’s probably been a cultural institution for this miserable little block of apartments for almost a decade. Like, cmon man, that lady who crafted our meals tonight was old and battered. She looks like airport luggage! Nobody wakes up one morning and cooks meals like that!”

It hit me, then, icy clarity spreading through my brain like fresh mint on the tongue. I understood his meaning just as he put it out into the garbage reeking air.

“It’s about eating at Cloudberry before WE do, Oscar! Critics, foodies, bloggers, tourists that walk on their fucking tongues! Jackasses in cheap suits chiming in at every water cooler and network break. Oh shit bro, you know Watkin’s Parlor too? My wife and I have our anniversary there every year! I’m SOOOO glad you finally found it bro!”

Mr. Ungerson ruminated over his own words for a few moments, his face flushed, his hands clasped at his waist. With one hand stroking through his own hair, he continued, his voice calmer.

“Oscar, Cloudberry is great. It’s a great place. I’m going to have fond memories of that hole for years after tonight. I’m going to tell people stories about this charming little pop-up place on the corner of fuck and who-gives-a-shit. People are going to ask about where they can go to get some Cloudberry pho for themselves, for their families.”

I asked him, hesitantly, if he would be satisfied to be the hypothetical “scooper” at the watering cooler. The reek of garbage was high in my nostrils, and I nervously eyed the only exit to the alleyway, still blocked by Mr. Ogata.

Mr. Ungerson stopped, the expression on his face collapsing into this blank…nothing. His eyes glanced, for a moment, to where Mr. Ogata stood, before a tension left his shoulders. Then a smile crept across his face, the kind a teacher might give their favorite student.

“Oscar, ugh, guy it isn’t about that social capital shit. And hey, I give even odds Cloudberry won’t even be around much longer. These places come and go, y'know? Even if they’ve been in the neighborhood for years, the city always can revoke licenses, or run health inspections… And there’s safety issues too. Like chemicals, oh, ha! Fire’s a big one. Overflowing grease traps, loose propane tubing. Fucking tinderbox, man. *Fwoosh* “ he mimed fire, blowing his lips out like a child might.

My mouth moved, trembled, my hands shook. I could, on some level, process what he might be implying, but not with any certainty to commit. What I could feel distinctly, however, was this overwhelming sense of horror.

And something else beneath it, burning, my intestines winding tight round it.

I found my courage. I managed to tell Mr. Ungerson that he couldn’t do any of this. That it was laughable to even imagine that he had the ability to shut a restaurant down. In reply, he looked at me as if I had accused him of trapping the sun in a box.

“Oscar, what are you talking about?” he said, wrinkling his nose. “I’m not doing anything. I just ate at a restaurant, in fact, I just treated you to a fantastic dinner. Relax, guy, it’ll be okay. Odds are good that Cloudberry will be here tomorrow. And if you had any issues with me… man I don’t know what, eating at a place before my coworkers did? If you had an issue with that, then just write one of your blog posts about Cloudberry. Boom, you foiled my dastardly plan.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. I told him that I absolutely would write an article about Cloudberry. That it was the best pho I’d ever had. That the manager deserved a chance at the spotlight. Mr. Ungerson scratched at his nose, and did not smile.

“Okay buddy. You do that. Are you going to want a lift back home?”

I told him that I did not need a lift, though perhaps with significantly more words and candor. He shrugged and walked off, hand raised in farewell above his head.

“Later, Oscar. Been an evening, I guess. You stay safe getting home.”

As I knelt into the trash to find something to hurl at Mr. Ungerson’s gradually diminishing silhouette, a great shadow smothered the lights of the city’s commerce. Mr. Ogata loomed above me, his hand disappearing into his jacket pocket.

He withdrew a cigarette and offered it to me. I declined, and he slid it back into a pristine pack. I don’t believe Ogata smoked.

“Oscar.” his silvered hand smoothed the seam of the meta-aramid fiber jacket he wore. I recognized the jacket’s emblem, the serene face of a woman; Faultless Dynamics. I had a rather embarrassing obsession with milspec consumer equipment in my mid twenties.

“You should not write an article about Cloudberry. You should go home, get in the shower, and let this evening run off your shoulders.”

I did not meet his gaze. Instead, I swallowed and nodded, staring at a graffiti tag of a dead skunk.

“I am offering you a courtesy, Oscar,” Mr. Ogata said, “your work is good enough that you’ve been given awards, yes? Then go do that. Keep writing award winning journalism, and ignore the events of tonight. Please have a good evening.”

And he was gone. Once I was certain of his departure, I left as well, racing for the entrance of Cloudberry. I’m not sure what I was expecting. It still stood, just as packed as when we had left, local clubbers replaced with night shift workers, elbow to elbow with one another. The air smelled of star anise and propane stoves. Without Ogata stiff arming his way through the crowds, approaching the counter was nearly impossible. Having my voice heard by the server, likewise, was a challenge.

But I secured an interview with Ms. Quach-Theodore, Cloudberry’s head chef. She would see me at closing time, once the customers and money stopped. I accepted what would become a four hour and fifty two minute wait just for a chance to speak to her. For a chance at instant satisfaction, to tear down Mr. Ungerson’s facade of smug, apathetic gaslighting.

So… listener. Weird thing to consider, all these ears of people I don’t know tuning in. If you’re still with me, you probably want to know how the interview went. What kind of a person was this Ms. Quach-Theodore? What deep and brilliant wisdom could she extract from a hot bowl of pho?

*dry laugh* Dirty little secret about creative work under a larger publisher is that you don’t always own the work you create. You very rarely own anything you write. It isn’t really a secret, most people know about this even when they sign the contracts. They tell themselves it’ll be all worth the hassle once they build enough of a personal brand to set their own terms. Friend uh, a lot of us don’t even get to that point. The setting terms point. Oscar Yasui, food critic extraordinaire, didn’t get to that point.

Legally speaking, I can’t share my interview with Ms. Quach-Theodore with any of you, or the article I wrote about Cloudberry afterwards. Full disclosure, it um. It wasn’t my best work. I was sleep deprived when I wrote it. And angry. And in this… raging storm of narcissistic egotism. I over seasoned the soup, and all the little flavors disappeared into this salty, snarky, piece of shit. Ms. Quach-Theodore didn’t deserve that kind of quality, and besides, it never made it past Palladium’s editors. I received a… very stern lecture on the importance of deadlines from my boss at the time. As for Cloudberry the city changed its fire codes um… maybe a week after I ate there. I heard a restaurant could escape the fines if they hired a good lawyer, but… dozens of places couldn’t. Cloudberry couldn’t. Today, there’s an electronics store where Cloudberry once stood. You can buy keychains of anthropomorphic ramen there. I didn’t. But you can if you want.

I’ve spent a few months thinking about what happened. I’ve thought about it in the shower, stargazing on the Rail or when I should be sleeping. This’ll have happened about a year ago by the time I post this up onto the Buffer. Cloudberry was overcrowded, and maybe the fire codes needed to be changed. But then again, I can’t shake the feeling that Mr. Ungerson might have made good on his plans. I don’t think he was speaking purely in the hypothetical. I know very little of the man; wealth can make some aspects of an individual quite public, but others are easily obscured with the right purchases and connections. Did he have that kind of reach? That kind of pull? Was he the reason the story never got published? Or was this a case study on pivoting the topic of your article two days before deadline?

When I started my writing career, before I began the blog that got Palladium to notice me, I sent out a lot of applications. When you send an application, most of the time it gets filtered into an algorithm, or even a restricted interior intelligence if the company is fancy. But on some rare occasions, it might make its way into the hands of a real person. In any case, if you are rejected, the outcome is the same. Total, overwhelming silence. Silence from all directions. Just… shouting into a bottle. What went wrong? What went right? If you did something different, would the result change? Would anything change?

I never knew if there was a conspiracy against Cloudberry, or against me. Instead I just had the shadow of its possibility. And it… burned a hole in my brain Through all the parts of my life I ever cared about, the reputation, the leeway afforded by fame, the easy access to fantastical parties. Until one day…

Remember what I said earlier? About how tastes change over the course of our lives? Pho is still…. Well it’s just an all around great dish. It’s… c’mon it’s pho. Who doesn’t like pho?

But our tastes, our associations, our experiences, it all does change. Not always for the better. One day you have to… order something else on the menu. In some cases, you look at the restaurant around you and…

I made this podcast, originally, because I had a fear that I wouldn’t be able to write as a food critic anymore. But as I worked on it, edited the episodes together… I don’t think I can be a food critic anymore. I suppose what I’d like to be now is a food journalist. I certainly can’t turn my back on food after all. I haven’t entirely lost my appetite.

Cloudberry is gone, you can’t eat a bowl of their exquisite pho. But… whoever is listening to this podcast carries a piece of Cloudberry in their head now. And that has to be worth something.