It is inclusive meals, which chefs make for themselves, using ingredients that they have. Recently, some restaurants even offer those elaborate meals as ‘Makanai dish’ in the menu.

It’s a Japanese everyday-cooking manga series, written and illustrated by Koyama Aiko-Sensei, serialized in Shougakukan’s Weekly Shōnen Sunday magazine since 2017. 15 volumes have been released as of Dec 2020. It’s also well-known by winning the Shogakukan Manga Award, which is very famous in Japan.

An anime television series adaptation is scheduled to premiere in February 2021 and many fans have been waiting to see how all the delicious-looking dishes in manga will be described in anime.

The story is set in the modern world Kyoto, the ancient city in Japan.

Kyoto is a worldly famous sightseeing spot and 50 million people from overseas visit here annually. There, we see the women called “Maiko” (apprentice geisha), who have carried on the Japanese good and old traditional culture.

Maiko-san entertains visitors by dancing or playing traditional Japanese instruments. They practice performing those at daytime and welcome visitors wholeheartedly at night……

At 1:00 am.

It’s when they see all the visitors off and come back to their lodge. And at the same time……

It’s also time for them to go back to just the normal girls.

They enjoy their time with trendy magazines, a little expensive skin-care goods…… They chat away about now-hot sweets or even complain about other maiko-san too. Unlike how they look in the daytime, they are just the normal teeager girls in there.

The episode focues on a maiko-san, whose pudding was eaten by someone. She has got over her long day with such a strict training and shift just for the pudding that she had put in the refregerator…… It’s so unfortunate that somebody has eaten it……

They have a little argument over that puddding, however, there is a rule ‘Anybody can eat anything that have no names on them,’ the maiko-san tries to understand, blaming on herself who didn’t write her name on it…… But…… she just can’t get over it.

But she seems to have fallen asleep anyhow and wakes up at around 7:00 in the morning.

She heads for the kitchen while everybody is still sleeping.

There, she sees a girl called Kiyo, who’s cooking breakfast for everybody. She doesn’t work as a maiko-san but as a cook for all the maiko-san.

That day too, she’s making breakfast for them. The maiko asks her what she’s making, and she said she’s making a Japanese-style breakfast with the grilled salmon.

The maiko-san says to Kiyo that she wants to eat some bread because she doesn’t really have an appetite.

However, Kiyo says there is only one piece of bread. She ends up turning her request down, saying if she eats it, then everybody else might want to eat it too. The maiko-san looks sulky now. She has missed the pudding and top of that, she cannot eat bread that she really wants to eat! How can I be satisfied? She still seems sulky……

Looking at her disappointed, Kiyo smiles a little. And she tells the maiko-san that she will make her breakfast, using that bread.

However! There’s only one piece of bread so she asks her to eat everything right there and keep it secret to everybody. Looking surprised, the maiko-san nods and helps her make breakfast.

She mixed the ingredients for the pudding such as egg, milk, sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl well. Then she simmers the granulated suger in the pan and colors it. She cuts the bread in pieces and put them in the heatproof dish. She pours the pudding sauce she has made into the dish……

Then she bakes it for about 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Aaaand……

Tadaaa~ here comes the pan (bread) pudding!

The maiko-san tries a bite. It’s crispy in texture but tastes just like the pudding……!

The maiko-san looks so excited, enjoying the pudding dish, and says “I couldn’t sleep much this morning but I’m sure today’s gonna be a good day!!”

Yes, the main protagonist of this story, Kiyo, is not the maiko-san.

Her job is to give maiko-san smiles and happiness through “eating.”

It’s a story about Kiyo and various people in Kyoto.