Coffee, cuisine, and contraband
⚒️ La Bodeguita on Minikoi Station
by Joel Glover
You could not find their specialty on any menu. Those who ate it knew better than to confess to having done so anywhere, particularly in writing. Its availability was passed from lip to ear, in hushed tones, from thrill seekers to gourmands.
To call it a café would be generous; to call it a restaurant a cynical joke. Like all of its sister stations Minikoi had been built to a sparse plan, optimised and maximised around functional need. Then, over time, additional pods and spaces had been grafted on. The whole thing bloating and malforming, covered in carbuncles and blisters of metal until it was ultimately unrecognisable from its original form. And like a structure fallen to the floor of some unknown ocean, between the utilitarian structure colourful signs of life sealed gaps and filled crevices. Like La Bodeguita. When you got bored of eating vat grown protein in barely seasoned slabs, or fern leaves harvested and blanched so their vitamin content was not overly depleted, you sought out a place just like it, a place which tasted, if not of your home, of someone’s.
La Bodeguita started life as a Colombian place, rehydrating coffee, serving up fluffy arepas with synthetic fruit conserves, a handful of neon stools snuggling up to its curving counter. When its owner married a Jamaican woman called Rochelle they added patties to the menu, blending the Latin empañada with flavours from her own heritage.
If you knew how to ask, there were other patties to be had though. Not stuffed with spiced carrot or cassava.
“Three of the patties please. And a coffee, sweet.”
She emphasised the definite article, leaned on it. Her shirt was crisp. Corporate wear, colours of her sponsor abantu, the people who had paid the freight to bring her up into the amazulu—the heavens beyond. She had on a headscarf in the cerulean of the Cavendish Mining Company. It clashed violently with her shirt. She fit right in. Just rich enough to be able to afford what she was asking for, not too rich to have climbed through the web of pipes and ladders to get here.
“Say less.” It was the automated response from the AI driven pad on the counter as it took her order and sent it into the kitchen. It must be sending voice notes through, there was no way a place this small could afford the kind of algorithms that could parse tone.
The coffee arrived first. The rich, bitter smell of the brew clung to the paper of the walls, but with a cup in her hand the scent was stronger. Chocolate and hints of fruit rose up from within the mug, carrying with them the sweetness of the sugar and the tang of the roast beans. She sipped and sighed. Even the rehydro was better than no coffee at all, and they were clearly doing something right here.
The patties came through on the conveyor belt, a plastic cloche with a hole on top covering the food while letting the steam out. The plate was steel. One thing about living up in the stars, there was metal enough once you were out of the gravity wells. She took her fork and split the crisp shell in two, listening to the crisp pop of perfectly fried dough. Inside the daffodil yellow pastry was exactly what she had heard: studs of scotch bonnet pepper, adding a scalding heat and bite; rich spices bringing a warmth to the luxurious scent; and there, thick, glistening, shreds of white meat steamed to perfection within the enveloping crust. Crab.
She put her fork down on the plate, neatly. Her badge was a hologram, projected from the small pin broach in her collar.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please stay exactly where you are. The Gendarmerie have reason to believe that this establishment is non-Terran serving sentient beings as foodstuffs, in contravention of several laws and regulations.”
It was a shame, she thought. It smelled so tempting.
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