An usual, fun and entertaining book!

Doesn't everyone have that one special food tied to a memory - that you'd just love to enjoy one more time! However, nostalgia and whatnot gets in the way, and no matter how many times you try - you just can't get it right. That's where the Kamogawa Food Detectives come in -- father and daughter chef/detectives will listen to your story and research the origins and prepare the meal for you. Each chapter is a new story, a new customer and a new flavor. It's just such an exciting book to read!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a digital, temporary ARC in return for my review.

It was really interesting at first but after few stories in it started to get a little boring. It reminds me of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, set in a place and has a pattern for each story. but at least BtCGC still made me emotional while this book wasn’t. The food description was detailed even though i still cant get the general idea of the dishes but thats probably because i’m not familiar with Japanese foods beside sushi & takoyaki🙃 not sure if i’ll read the next book if this going to be a series like BtCGC.

A super cute and short read! A father daughter duo run a detective agency that tracks down nostalgic recipes. I appreciated how organized the book was. Each chapter featured a different client, and there were 2 parts for each chapter - the initial interview and the final product. I'd recommend this to any foodie looking for a quick, warm and fuzzy read.

This was a charming book but ended up being just okay for me. Not sure if there was something lost in the translation of the book. The six short stories seemed repetitive except for the characters and the particular food from their past that they were asking to be recreated for them. It was a sweet and fast read, just not my cup of tea.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

ARC received through NetGalley.

Eh. That’s the only thing I can think of to describe this book. I was so excited about the concept, but it had a lot of issues.

The characters felt shallow and unlikeable, especially Koishi, who had no personality apart from being very judgemental. The six stories felt extremely repetitive due to the same exact structure (seriously, if I had to read the paragraph about just paying whatever it’s worth and sending it to the details on the card, I was gonna commit arson). My biggest issue, though, was the fact that this book was the anti “show, don’t tell’. There were so many cool opportunities to show them investigating the dishes, yet we were only given boring summaries that could have been portrayed as expansive adventures. The writing style also felt awkward and choppy, though I’m not sure if it may just be the translation.

Overall, it wasn’t terrible, but I quite literally couldn’t help myself from falling asleep reading it.

The Kamagawa Food Detectives felt like a bunch of short stories put together. I loved the food descriptions and the detective work of figuring out the mystery food. But I felt lost sometimes, maybe because I don’t know much about Japan? Still a pleasant read.

"What's the one dish you'd do anything to taste just one more time?" This cozy mystery was an absolute delight. Its structure is similar to Before the Coffee Gets Cold, making it an easy read to escape into (perfect given the chilly weather lately). Every description of the delicious Japanese delicacies got my mouth watering (I know my fellow bookish bats are aware I adore experiencing other cultures through food, in and out of books).

While this was a comforting read, I do wish we learned more about the main cast of characters. Instead of focusing on small short stories/mysteries, I wish a singular mystery was the novel's through line, allowing us to focus more on the three main characters. Regardless, this story was a delicious, cozy treat!

3.75 stars

Thank you to G.P. Putnam’s Sons and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It was a cute, cozy, and quick read. It’s about a father and daughter (Nagare and Koishi) who own Kamogawa Diner and have advertised their expertise as ‘food detectives.’ There are 6 short stories of 6 different customers coming to ask for their help in creating a dish that they would like to eat again but can’t seem to get it quite right. I loved how Nagare always going off to find out more about the meal all over Japan and find the ingredients to make the perfect meal for the customer. All of descriptions of the meals were so good, and it made me so hungry to read the book! I enjoyed the sweetness of it and how it reminded me of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, but it was very repetitive in nature. I still had a good time reading it though! It releases February 13th for anyone wanting to read it! ☺️

When I saw the publisher blurb of The Kamogawa Food Detectives ask the question “What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?” I knew it was a book that I needed to get my hands on. A little mystery (and perhaps a little magical realism) mixed into delectable descriptions of Japanese food for pages and pages? Yes, please! It delivered as promised, and I enjoyed the light, cozy atmosphere it created.

I’ve read a few translated Japanese novels recently with a similar structure (What You Are Looking For Is In the Library, Before the Coffee Gets Cold), and it’s a trend that’s working for me when I’m looking for an easy read to rest my mind and balm my soul. In The Kamogawa Food Detectives, we get a few short stories that each follow a different character that wanders into The Kamogawa Diner in search of a re-creation of a very specific dish from their past. The father-daughter duo that owns the diner not only run the restaurant for the lucky friends and patrons that are in the know about their little nook, but also manage a food detective agency out of the back of the restaurant to help select customers on their quests to taste that one dish just one more time. With daughter Koishi in charge of information-gathering and father Nagare using that information to do the detective work, they track down both recipes and stories for those in search of their special dish. Each short story features a different character at a different point in their lives searching for a recipe for a different reason, and each time, they are presented with exactly what they’re looking for, whether they realize it or not. Re-creating these dishes also teaches the customers about themselves in many ways, and each short story has its own happy ending.

All in all, this was a delightfully heartwarming and comforting read with lovely lessons and characters that doesn’t make the reader try too hard to enjoy. That being said, it did feel much more surface-level than the other Japanese fiction titles mentioned above, and I do wish we could’ve gotten to know Koishi, Nagare and the other characters on a bit of a deeper level. But all of the discussion about Japanese food was more than enough to keep me distracted from that minor criticism - it’s definitely not one to pick up with an empty stomach!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is wonderful if you enjoy dialogue between characters, as that is mostly what this one is.
It isn't bad by any means, just sadly not my cup of tea when it comes to reading.
I wonder if maybe the audiobook would be a better experience, you can just sit back and listen to the conversations and enjoy the mood more that way.

The food all sounded delicious though and had me running to my local Japanese restaurant after :)

And I absolutely loved the concept of trying to discover the recipes people enjoyed via detective skills. So fun! :)

This was less a novel than it was a collection of short stories, and I think my biggest problem with it is that it would've worked better AS a single short story. Each one was effectively the same story with a few different characters, and nothing ever really happened. It was 95% dialogue. I usually really like cozy reads, so this was disappointing to me.

This is going to be a shorter review, because I don’t like to share spoilers, so some straightforward sentences…

Comfort food in literary form.

I adored this cozy novel. I loved the way the chapters were written and set up, and am very glad that this is book one and there will be more to come 😍



Thank you to G.P. Putnam’s Sons and NetGalley for the DRC

Set in an unmarked restaurant in a Kyoto alleyway, the father and daughter detective duo draw people from all over Japan who are looking to find a taste of the past. This absolutely charming, feel-good book has an element of serendipity in how people come to find the Kamogawas and each chapter is a self-contained story. Initially, I was turned off by the repetitive nature of the structure of each story, but came to appreciate it (and really enjoy it) as a device to expose more of each customer's personality and motives. I believe I saw that this was the first book of a series and I certainly hope that is the case as I will be eager to read more of these stories and by this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Books for allowing me access to the E-arc.

3.5 stars*

This is a beautiful and cozy tale about a father-daughter partnership to help people rediscover their favorite foods. I think this book is a great example of how much food is woven into our memories. A certain dish can bring us back to the time that we ate them.

If you love Before the Coffee Gets Cold then you will enjoy this novel. I highly recommend it!

It is so true that food and scents can unlock memories. This reads more like a collection of short stories rather than 1 novel as some of the information about the restaurant and the owners is repeated. I liked that the customers came in and tried to recall this one dish that impacted their lives and the chef and his daughter did what they could to help them. Some of the stories brought a tear to my eyes. This was a quick read at 200 pages and is a good palate cleanser in between longer books.

This book was incredible. It look about the length of the first story/chapter to get into the cadence but it was absolute joy to read. I liked that each chapter was another food case and the continuing story line was Nagare, Koishi, Kikuko, and the locals who became regulars at the diner. I would absolutely come back for a second volumes of more stories. Did Nagare come to accept Drowsy the cat? Did Koishi end up with Hiroshi? Did Koishi become a detective herself? Its formula at its best. I will absolutely be reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold and be buying copies of The Kamogawa Food Detectives for my personal library and as gifts for friends/family. Truly magical. And made me very hungry!

3.75

This was a sweet little story in the same vein as [book:Before the Coffee Gets Cold|44421460]. Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, run the Kamogawa Diner, where they can make any food you request. Each chapter follows a different customer, each of whom want a dish from their past but with varying memories of what the dish actually was.

While I personally would have preferred something that tied everything together more in the end, I did enjoy learning about each of these characters and each of these meals. The food descriptions here were fantastic! Every time I read the book I was disappointed I don’t have easy access to authentic Asian cuisine.

During the pandemic I started watching the Japanese import, Midnight Diner series on Netflix and became entranced by the culinary skills and philosophic reserve of the owner/chef, Master and the parade of lost souls who searched for gastronomic and spiritual nourishment in the very late hours of the evening. Often they weren’t even sure what they were looking for until they took the first bite or sip and then other parts of their lives: memories of unresolved traumas, of childhood, love, and death played out at their seat at the counter. Much of the same magic happens in The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai though it is on a more focused and yet, on a larger scale.

The setting is in Kyoto at a restaurant so well disguised that most long-term residents of the city have never heard of it. A small notice in a gourmet magazine mentions the services of these food detectives in finding that crucial and elusive taste or dish from your past. The book is divided up into “case studies,” or deftly written vignettes of those seeking the services of Nagare and his daughter Koishi. Koishi does the interview/interrogation and then often dolefully presents the near impossible assignment to her chef father. The hopeful clients often have the barest shreds of memory to share as clues, a childhood train ride to a diner or the color of a sauce in a dish a deceased relative made or a meal in a nameless restaurant in a half-remembered place, just before a traumatic parting. Two weeks later, on their return, Nagare has performed a culinary miracle; the recreated meal is presented and the case is solved. He then details his considerable investigative work on the original cook as well as extensive research into the local terrior and the geographical/cultural factors for the ingredients sourced in the original dish. It’s all fascinating and as finely delineated as any Arthur Conan Doyle story: the smallest items such as the thickness of breadcrumb as a batter or an obscure local fruit used as one of the flavors in a dipping sauce can make a crucial difference in taste. Nagare’s findings usually go well beyond just the reproduction of a memory; the discoveries he shares with his diners prompt revelations and introspection, often intensely bittersweet. There is a beautiful delicacy throughout this small gem-like collection, both in the descriptions of food, but also in the rendering of individuals haunted by the meal that got away. It is a deceptively easy read that casts a long shadow. Recommended

A real gem of a book, filled with food and love. Nagware and his daughter, Koishi have a restaurant in Kyoto, with no sign or name in the outside. When people come to the restaurant, they are looking to recreate dishes from their past, and enter the back room which is the Kamogawa Detective Agency. Koishi takes down all the details, while Nagare does the detecting. What they are really doing is recreating the events and emotions surrounding the memory of the food. Each chapter features a new character with their own unique story, I really enjoyed this one. Recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

What a sweet, heartwarming book.

In this story, there is a food detective who can find (abs recreate!) any recipe you’re looking for.
He can make the exact recipe your grandmother made and make it the exact way she did.

Each person who comes to him has a reason they want the recipe they’re looking for. The first character is a widower planning to remarry and move away but before he does, he wants to have his wife’s udon recipe again exactly the way she made it.
Another customer wants his mother’s recipe for a dish he loved as a little boy.

Each recipe has its own challenge to recreate but the food detective can raise to every challenge.

I loved the foodie talk too. But I really enjoyed the lengths the food detective went to in order to research each recipe. I also loved the touching reactions each customer had to trying the dish they chose.

Beautiful story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Goodreads that both gave me copies of this book (a ebook edition and a physical arc respectively).
I loved it!