The fourth floor's tavern was meant to be inspired by the Aztecs. The funny part about that was just how much time Veronica's school system actually spent teaching about ancient civilizations like that. She had even been forced to take part in a group project by her middle school teacher, which included bringing in a relevant dish that represented her assigned civilization at the time: the Aztecs. Coincidence? Perhaps, or perhaps she had chosen to make this floor based on the Aztecs rather than the Incas or the Maya exactly because she had the most information about them.
The Aztecs were an ancient civilization, just like the rest, but their food was also more related to the modern-day country of Mexico than it was to the United States. That made their food just as foreign as any of the others she had added to her collection, thus far. However, that also meant that there was a limit to just how creative she could get with the menu. Anything that required plants native to Mexico was unlikely to be among her [Base Resources], so she'd have to substitute them for something else or avoid the dish entirely. It was unfortunate since she wanted to have an authentic menu, but it wasn't something that was avoidable. In fact, Veronica was confident that the problem would only get worse in the future.
Nevertheless, she did her best to make a proper menu. The light fare ended up with corn tamales for 30 DP, sopes for 35 DP, pozole for 40 DP, and hibiscus salad for 35 DP. Most tamales were made with cornmeal dough and wrapped in corn husks before being cooked. The main difference was the filling and flavoring agents. In this case, the corn tamales were a bit sweet, but not overly so, more like a sweet cornbread rather than a cake.
Meanwhile, sopes were just an assortment of toppings on top of a fried flatbread. Things like watercress, tomatoes, and refried edamame beans would be the main flavors. Normally, it would be refried beans, but she only had anko red beans, which were too sweet to be suitable for such a purpose, which left edamame beans to make a strange green, but savory paste.
The pozole was the soup option for this menu. It was a traditional soup of Mexico made with hominy, meat, and toppings like radish and lime. The hominy was actually pretty simple to source as it was just dried corn treated with lime juice. Similarly to how she could just research corn to get corn husks, hominy was easy to get her hands on.
Then there was the salad, which would normally have had a much different name. Hibiscus tended to be called jamaica in Mexico, but hibiscus was easier for her to recognize without having to jog her memory on what it was. While her memory meant she could recall even the most minor of details and would never forget anything, that didn't make it any easier to do the processing aspect of it. Really, it was like how you could easily do math in your head and come up with the correct answer, so long as it was a simple problem, but it would take some time to think it through and come up with the answer. Since a kitchen was high stress as it was, she wanted to make things as easy to remember for herself as possible.
She'd have said the renaming of some things while others were left as it was for her guests as well, but she wasn't sure how that worked. Did they have a universal language here that was the same as hers somehow? Was the dungeon translating things for her or did the adventurers have a system that translated things for them? That wouldn't explain how the unawakened locals could communicate with her, though... Really, it was all too complicated to try and figure out and she just didn't really want to bother with it.
Anyhow, the light fare menu ended up costing 364 DP to research everything. Some ingredients she already had access to while others required research. The new things included: large jars of instant yeast, crates of corn husks, bottle of vanilla extract, bottles of corn oil, jars of refried edamame, large jars of queso fresco crumbles, jars of salsa, large jars of hominy, large jars of pickled jalapenos, shakers of oregano, and burlap bags of hibiscus flowers.
The hearty menu included mushroom tacos for 35 DP, carnitas tacos for 45 DP, papadzules for 40 DP, and huitlacoche enchiladas for 45 DP. The total research costs were only 300 DP, but there were only a few additional ingredients needed. These included: boxes of corn tortillas, large jars of corn smut, large jars of chicken bouillon cubes, and large jars of seasoned shredded pork.
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The tortillas could, technically, be made from scratch, but the process of cooking them was a bit complicated and not one Veronica had mastered. Her tortillas tended to come out with big air bubbles and were rather oily and overcooked. It was a mess, to put it lightly.
Corn smut was a rather weird ingredient, but was needed for the huitlacoche enchiladas, which served as one of two vegetarian options. In Mexico, corn smut is considered a delicacy. However, it is actually a fungal disease that turns the corn kernels gray and causes them to swell up. It wasn't particularly appetizing to Veronica and she most certainly had no plans to consume it herself, but there weren't really a lot of vegetarian options that would seem distinct and unique enough from the other options to be worthwhile. What was the point of having both tofu and mushroom tacos when you only have four entrees on the entire menu?
Dessert was rather simple with pears in syrup for 25 DP, pumpkin tamales for 30 DP, corn flan for 35 DP, and corn churros for 35 DP. However, that was hardly surprising since the Aztecs would hardly have had the time and resources for fancy desserts like pastries or gelato. Since the desserts were all so simple, Veronica even decided they should all be made from scratch. Thankfully, this only required her to research three ingredients: crates of pears, large jars of raisins, and jars of cream cheese. That ran her 140 DP, but that was partially because the cream cheese was so expensive.
The pumpkin tamales were rather similar to the corn tamales in preparation, which is why she'd likely prepare them at the same time, but the pumpkin variety was much sweeter. It had a bit of a pumpkin pie taste to it with warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg mixed with the cornmeal dough and pumpkin.
The corn flan and corn churros were much heavier on the corn usage than most versions Veronica had eaten in her old world. The corn flan even involved pieces of corn kernels used as a garnish and throughout the dish. Otherwise, it was just a thick pudding pie style dessert made from various types of milk, cream cheese, and eggs. Meanwhile, the churros were made with cornmeal dough and fried before being dusted in cinnamon sugar, just like the flour-based churros she was used to. As for the pears, those likely existed even in this world as it was just fruit and a sugar syrup made from water and sugar. It was the simplest of simple desserts, but it was a classic.
Finally, there was the libations menu. The non-alcoholic options included water for 1 DP, olla coffee for 15 DP, atole de pinole for 15 DP, and xocolatl hot cocoa for 25 DP. Meanwhile, the alcoholic options were pineapple tepache for 40 DP, pina colada for 50 DP, cacao rum for 55 DP, and horchata rum for 55 DP. More than half of the options would require some preparation to make them, but they were also simple and could be done in mere minutes.
Olla coffee was just coffee with spices served in a special drinking pot. Atole de pinole was similar to the coffee, but was a milk-based drink with cornmeal and spices. Then, the xocolatl hot cocoa was just atole de pinole made with cocoa powder. Pretty much, just make hot water and steep coffee in the french press she had previously researched or toss a few ingredients in a pot, bring it to a boil, and stir vigorously before pouring it into a tea cup. Of course, her tea cups were more for afternoon tea than they were for an Aztec restaurant, but she hardly felt like wasting her dungeon points when she had something she could use already.
The research for the drinks menu was rather cheap at 114 DP to unlock large jars of cocoa powder, jars of honey, bottles of pineapple tepache, bottles of cacao rum, and bottles of horchata. It felt a bit wrong not to make the fermented pineapple drink that was pineapple tepache from scratch, but she also wasn't sure how she was supposed to run four taverns by herself either. Well, she had brownies to act as the servers, but she was the only one who could cook the recipes.
There were now 310,334 dungeon points remaining. Yet, she couldn't complain since she had yet another floor complete and still had plenty left to complete another floor. The more of them she could complete before she was released, the better her chances would be of protecting the dungeon core in the long term. While she still had lingering feelings of resentment about being locked up in the dungeon by herself for so long, it wasn't the only change in her mental well-being. Veronica was no longer afraid of those like Bo as she was confident that she'd soon be strong enough that she could easily put up a fight against those who wished to harm her. Besides, she had plenty of time to process her mental grievances and to move on, even if she was slowly losing herself in the process.