Cooking Competition (2)
“All right, let’s begin the judging.”
The judges moved toward the prepared platform.
The scoring system was simple.
Each judge would taste the dishes one by one and assign a score.
Low total: elimination. High total: advancement.
Boss Bang moved at a leisurely pace.
“Well now, Boss, long time no see.”
“Huh? Boss Jeong! You’re here too?”
Boss Jeong. The owner of a sushi place right near Boss Bang’s shop.
“Yeah. Hehe. Business has been a little slow lately, so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and get some publicity.”
“Aigoo. It’s been rough for everyone these days.”
So he was here because sales had dried up.
It was true that the restaurant street hadn’t been the same lately.
Maybe because Boss Bang was a judge.
Boss Jeong was a lot warmer than usual.
“Right. Looking at this, it’s Japanese cuisine?”
“Yes. I’m in Japanese food just like you, Boss. So of course it’s Japanese.”
“Haha. That’s right. Fellow Japanese cuisine!”
Normally he would have bellowed that a ramen place hardly counted as a proper Japanese restaurant.
“Please, go ahead and try it.”
“Of course. Let me have a taste.”
Right now every nerve was focused on Boss Bang’s mouth.
“Mmm…….”
“How is it? To your liking?”
Too damn salty.
Boss Bang scowled on the inside.
But he didn’t let it show.
“Aigoo. This is delicious. Really good!”
“Hahaha. I’m glad to hear it.”
Handing out real judgments was the sort of thing only amateurs did.
It’s just a local cooking competition, right? We’re all here to help each other out. Better just coast through it.
These were faces he had to see every day, after all.
No need to be stingy with the scores.
“So about the score…….”
“Ah, how am I supposed to say something like that?”
“Aigoo. You’re right. Saying it out loud is a bit much.”
“Exactly. But if someone asked me to score this, I’d have to say a hundred, wouldn’t I?”
“Hahaha. A hundred. Haha. That’s right. Yes, yes.”
The result was 100 points. A perfect score.
Similar scenes played out all over the place.
Let’s just take it easy.
Wave them through the prelims. The real fight is in the finals anyway. Why make enemies for no reason?
What they call collusion was in full swing.
Especially the shop owners who’d come as local-resident representatives. They were handing out scores like free gifts.
Hard for anyone to call them on it.
The scores weren’t even visible yet.
Most people had already gotten decent marks, and plenty were just happy to have participated at all.
And so the judging proceeded smoothly.
Until one booth.
Now for this one.
There was one place where Boss Bang intended to judge in complete seriousness.
The booth belonging to the Food Truck Zone contestants.
They applied together, so their numbers are consecutive. Let’s see just how good they really are.
Boss Bang wiped the smile from his face.
The other owners did the same.
They approached with serious expressions.
This one’s a fail. This one’s borderline? Nah, fail. Judging has to be fair. Come to think of it, I’ve been handing out too many high scores. Need to balance the average, right?
It was a method that could never be called fair.
Then they reached the booth they’d been waiting for.
“Hmm. No greeting here eith……er?”
“I thought the nod earlier counted, but sure. Hello.”
“Hmph. Always with the one-liners.”
“Just taste it first.”
“I was going to anyway…….”
Contestant Kim Sunwu.
Standing in front of the owner of the food truck with the strange name Ramenkase.
Still gets on my nerves.
You’re getting a zero. Zero!
His mood had already soured before the first bite. Boss Bang lifted a spoonful to his mouth.
Gulp—
The moment he swallowed, Boss Bang’s eyes flew wide open.
W-why is this so good?
He had been ready to find any excuse to tear it apart.
Instead it slid down his throat like silk.
Kimchi jjigae giving off a spicy, sharp fragrance.
Delicious. The seasoning felt mild, yet somehow it was strangely stimulating at the same time.
Just when that stimulation left him wanting more—
!!!
The crisp crunch of the seasoned bean sprouts washed it clean.
Texture. The pleasure of chewing was completely new.
And it wasn’t just the crunch.
Nutty. So nutty.
The oil tossed through the bean sprouts.
The sesame oil tasted different. Deep and fragrant.
Where did he even get this?
Proper sesame oil. Even Boss Bang knew how hard that was to come by.
At this point he didn’t need to taste the rest.
Crunch. Crunch.
The other namul dishes had seasoning so perfectly balanced it was almost eerie.
The moment one threatened to leave him wanting,
something else stepped in.
The egg roll he bit into was the real kicker.
The crisp little pieces of carrot inside made him wonder if it was undercooked—until the deep sweetness that had soaked all the way through told him otherwise.
He thought that might be the end of it. One more dish remained.
That’s… bossam……!
Bossam!
And not just any bossam—bright-red sauced bossam.
Some people might ask what bossam was doing in a home-style spread.
But anyone Boss Bang’s age knew better.
Bossam was a dish people made at home too.
Unlike a simple grilled samgyeopsal, this dish required real care. It was harder than it looked.
Just boil it plain and the gamey smell would be overwhelming.
Throw in random ingredients to kill the smell and you usually ruined the flavor instead of lifting it.
It was a dish that took real time.
He’s making this at a competition?
Done properly, it was tougher than it appeared.
He would already have been short on time with the other dishes. And yet bossam.
He might not even have gotten rid of the smell.
He’d probably piled on the sauce to hide it. Anyone with a sensitive nose would catch it immediately.
Wrong menu choice. He’s going to hang himself with his own rope. Heh heh.
This was a mistake.
Thinking that, Boss Bang picked up a piece of bossam with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth.
!!!!
In that instant—
a massive wave of flavor crashed through him, big enough to erase every taste that had come before.
……Th-this…… insane?
First the spicy sauce hit. It slapped his tongue.
Heat flooded his mouth with saliva and his face started to flush red—then the meat arrived a beat later and swept everything away.
It hadn’t been boiled forever, yet the meat shattered into pieces and spread, wiping out the heat.
The distinctive richness of the pork instantly harmonized with the sauce.
Flavor and aroma doubled!
Whoa……!
A taste so complete it dragged a sound out of Boss Bang before he even realized it.
This wasn’t a cooking mistake. This was the kicker.
A proper finishing blow!
How was anyone supposed to hold back?
Gulp—gulp—
Forgetting the situation entirely, Boss Bang started shoveling down every remaining sample dish without thinking.
“……”
He had no choice but to admit it. This was delicious.
So good he would have kept eating if there had been more!
If the tasting portions hadn’t been fairly generous already, he would have eaten until his stomach burst.
……For this, the score is……
As if possessed by the food, Boss Bang began writing the score.
First a 1.
Next a 0.
One more 0 and it would be 100 points.
He was bringing the pen down for that final zero when—
“!!!!”
Wait.
He shook his head hard. He couldn’t do that.
I have to keep my head straight!
He could not give 100 points.
Do you know what I went through to get this seat?
He had poured every effort into becoming a judge.
Bowed and scraped to the local big shots.
Worked his brain and marched down to city hall.
If you want regional coexistence, you have to take care of the local merchants first, don’t you?
He had forced the seat into existence with that half-baked justification.
And the plan he had built once he secured the judge’s seat was simple.
Just keep him out of the finals.
Unlike the prelims, which the judges controlled completely,
the finals gave ordinary people a lot of weight. Contestants put out food for tasting and the public voted.
So if he was going to stop someone, it had to be in the prelims.
He had come here with that plan from the start.
You’re getting a 10.
Boss Bang stopped mid-zero and set the pen down.
Apparently everyone else was thinking the same thing.
“…….”
“…….”
When his eyes met the other owners’, they nodded and looked back at him.
They wore the serious expressions of men carrying out the plan exactly as agreed.
Done……!
This would finish it.
With scores this low, what could the kid possibly do?
There was no way out.
Feels damn good.
Boss Bang felt like a ten-year-old indigestion had finally cleared.
Even as the scoring continued, the atmosphere moved exactly the way he wanted.
Results began to appear one by one.
“Of course!”
“Ahem…….”
Exactly according to plan.
The people Boss Bang and the other owners had lowballed
looked like they would have a hard time advancing.
No matter how many points Jang On-gyu and the other judges gave, the three of them dragged the average into the dirt. There was no recovering.
It’s over……!
From the finals on, he no longer cared what happened.
The ones who need to fall just need to fall.
As far as Boss Bang was concerned, everything was back in its proper place.
And yet the remaining judges seemed to be in a foul mood with one another.
“Hmm…….”
Especially Jang On-gyu at the center, who was openly frowning.
This was the man the mayor had gone to great lengths to invite.
When he looked like that, it was hard not to notice.
What’s his problem now?
Maybe it was anxiety.
Boss Bang forgot about the autograph he had just gotten and stared at Jang On-gyu as if trying to burn a hole through him.
Instinct told him something was about to happen.
“Host. Don’t you think there are too few finalists?”
“Well…… there are eighteen in total. For a local festival that’s not exactly a small number.”
What was wrong with eighteen? What was he unsatisfied with?
How hard would it be for ordinary people to try eighteen different dishes?
Whether he knew Boss Bang’s thoughts or not,
Jang On-gyu spoke firmly. It still looked insufficient no matter how he sliced it.
“No. I think we need a few more.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Looking at the results, there are some people it’s a real shame to lose.”
A shame, even.
So what? If there aren’t enough, you just work with what you have.
What more was he trying to pull here?
Show your face as the festival’s celebrity draw,
stack up one more feel-good story, and everyone walks away happy.
That meant stopping right here!
“So what I’m saying is…….”
“Yes. Please go ahead.”
Without a second of hesitation, Jang On-gyu casually dropped a bombshell.