I asked my grandmother for one recipe that I remember. It was for her sweet tea. “Oh, that’s easy,” she said. “A bag of Lipton tea and a cup of sugar.” This produces, in case you’re curious, something that is technically called “syrup” and has more calories than three Snickers bars. It was delicious, so I didn’t care, although maybe I should have.

So I am not haunted by food. Or not overly so. (I am only haunted by food to the extent that there are certain things I would like to prepare that are only readily available in restaurants a thousand miles away and are more trouble to make than I would want to put myself through.) But other people are, and they’re the very exclusive clientele of THE RESTAURANT OF LOST RECIPES, the second book featuring the kitchen detectives of the Kamogawa Diner in Kyoto.

Like THE KAMOGAWA FOOD DETECTIVES, the opening installment of the series, this new entry is made up of six short stories, all following a set formula. People wander the streets of Kyoto, make their way into the diner, and are served a dizzying array of freshly prepared seasonal Japanese cuisine.

"The book is sold as a mystery, but keep in mind that we’re generally not talking about Japanese Agatha Christie... Kashiwai is telling simple, meaningful human stories about people whose voyage through life has been interrupted."

(It is the descriptions of the dishes served at the Kamogawa Diner --- which its proprietor calls a humble sort of place --- that make these books more than a run-of-the-mill cozy mystery. I don’t know Thing One about Japanese cooking, or if author Hisashi Kashiwai can make so much as a plate of tempura shrimp, but the descriptions are baroque in the best way that something can be baroque. I don’t think I have the culinary refinement to actually appreciate the dishes if I were to make it to Kyoto to try them, but reading about them evokes a sense of wonder that is hard to put into words.)

After their extraordinary meal, the customers are then escorted to the back to relate their sad story, which can be alleviated only by finding out the recipe to a dish (usually some sort of humble comfort food) that they don't know how to make. They return two weeks later to determine just how well the detective has been able to recreate the dish for which they have an emotional attachment and to learn its secrets. They get a sense of closure (and usually a recipe, but Kashiwai doesn’t choose to provide one to the reader).

The book is sold as a mystery, but keep in mind that we’re generally not talking about Japanese Agatha Christie or anything like that. Kashiwai is telling simple, meaningful human stories about people whose voyage through life has been interrupted. Whether they are right or wrong about having a taste of some long-missed comfort food is mostly beside the point. If you are not a foodie who has watched too many episodes of “Iron Chef,” the chief attraction of these books is not the gradual unfolding of the reveal, but the glimpses that the Western reader gets into Japanese culture. Part of this is “wait, they’re eating what again?” but the bigger part is the realization that you do not have the least bit of understanding of what the characters are thinking and why they are acting that way.

THE RESTAURANT OF LOST RECIPES will have no surprises for anyone who has read THE KAMOGAWA FOOD DETECTIVES. Both books are about on par with each other (either can be read as a stand-alone), although the new one is superior since the long-suffering daughter (who doubles as the café’s waitress and the detective agency’s intake specialist) finally gets the first glimmering of a romantic interest. As for me, I am learning to like sugar-free green tea and determining if I ought to start trying the occasional Japanese dish.