It's definitely a bigger town. Not quite a city, but there are some two-story buildings, a few dozen shops (some fairly specialized like the dye shop, a livestock exchange, a glassmaker, and a furniture-maker), two different inns, at least three restaurants, and many streets with different quality and style of dwellings on them. Windmills and farms are visible in the slowly rolling and rising hills to the east, and at the peak of a long rise of terrain is a tall building that Link identifies as Purah's laboratory.

What a nice place. He's not even nervous about it after visiting Kakariko went so well.

"Will Purah be up for visitors now?"

"She does research all the time but she doesn't get many visitors. She'll warm up when it comes out that you come from a strange new world, I bet."

"Well I'm up for meeting her." He heads in the laboratory's general direction.

"Even before looking at some shops or resting up from days on the road? It's a bit of a hike going all the way up there! But if you say so."

"If you'd rather! Which shops are worth a look?"

"Well, restaurants are expensive but it'd be nice not to cook my own food for once. And the dye shop is neat. There's also a blacksmith you could probably sell indestructibility to, if you care to do that."

"Those all sound like good ideas. If I'm probably about to have paying work I can definitely treat you to dinner, want to go eat first?"

"Yum. Sure! Grilled meat and sauces place or fancy bread and sandwiches place?"

"First one! What kind of meat will they have?"

"All sorts, usually. Kinds of fish, kinds of bird - herons and such can get pretty big and there's these ostrichy things that live in the badlands - rabbit and boar and cow and pig and goat and deer and once they even had bear."

"You must hunt a lot more than we do at home."

"I just bet we do. Like, more than one percentage point of our population is wandering treasure hunters, monster-hunters, survivalists, adventurers, and the like. And there's not a lot of us compared to how much land there is these days, thanks to the Calamity." Sigh. 

"That's a lot! At home it's, uh, zero unless you count people who just like being hermits in the forest. But they don't kill any monsters or hunt any treasure."

"Hyrule's a realm of adventure now, for better or worse. There's the grill place! You can already smell it!"

He picks up the pace. It does smell good, he wonders if they designed the place to help the wind come through and carry all those enticing scents toward the road.

It seems that's exactly what they did. A duct from above a huge stone grill with a big fire under it goes straight out into the street, drawing the warm, scent-filled air with it.

They sit and get menus from a quiet waiter - the guy at the grill is loud and boisterous, though. "Honey-glazed venison, ooh. A classic. Grilled fish with palm fruit in Lurelin Village style? Salt-brushed fire-grilled stag. So many meats, so little room in my stomach..."

"What do you recommend?" he asks Link.

"Ooh. You haven't tried anything spicy yet. Not everyone likes spicy though... It makes your mouth feel like burning, but only a little and, like, in a good way. Doesn't actually hurt you. I'm gonna get honey venison and we can swap if you can't stand the heat."

"Sure, I'll try it." It sounds ominous but if Link likes it and she's willing to trade him if it's terrible then it doesn't seem all that risky.

Goron Spiced Meat Medley for Valanda, and Honey-Glazed Venison for Link. It's cooked up fresh, they can watch it done while they wait. The waiter brings them water and bread, meanwhile.

And then the food arrives. It smells pretty strong, that's for sure.

Careful small bites.

He doesn't hate it.

"I've never had anything like this before."

Between bites Link comments, "That's 'cause your empire is culinarily deprived."

"That's true! And yours doesn't have flights!"

"We should both learn from each other! The Rito can fly. The Divine Beast Vah Medoh can, too, and some of the Guardians. Hey, maybe you could take seeds home if there's anything really useful from Hyrule? I don't actually know how they make Goron Spice though."