Izakaya
Izakaya.
Festival.
Two words that get the blood pumping.
"When people come to a festival, they want food they don't usually eat."
"I… suppose they would."
"And they don't show up on an empty stomach the way they would for a regular restaurant."
"Ah!"
You couldn't apply the same playbook. Festival food was its own specialized branch of the restaurant business.
Roughly two kinds.
Food you never ate in ordinary life. And a clear preference for bold, aggressive flavor.
"So that's why you made yukgaejang?"
"Mm."
"With seasoning packets."
She still hadn't accepted defeat. Sora sat there with her cheeks puffed out in a sulk.
Big chest, big cheeks too.
She had a real gift for being round in all the right places.
Apparently she needed a demonstration before she'd concede.
Thwack.
The seasonings I'd added. I pulled out Momoya rayu, Momoya seabura, and balsamic vinegar.
"I don't even know what the first two are."
"Think of them as the Japanese Ottogi, more or less."
A company that made every kind of condiment imaginable. Only the quality lived in a completely different dimension.
Just dump them in and magic happens — it actually tastes good.
Chili oil and fried garlic. Seabura was the floating pork fat you found in tonkotsu ramen. The balsamic vinegar was the same bottle I'd used for risotto — well-aged, with outstanding umami.
"Isn't that cheating? I researched my recipe to death."
"Finding the right seasoning is a skill too. That's the point."
"You bastard."
Which was exactly why knowing a lot mattered. South Korea. On a globe, a country smaller than a thumbnail.
And everything inside it, even more so.
Buried under regulations. Most of the population had no idea what existed overseas. How wide the world really was. For an investor, that was one of the things you absolutely had to know.
"Can we…"
"Hm?"
"Can we try some too?"
"Make us ramen, senpaiii~!"
For a food-service operator, even more so. You combined countless techniques into something simple and delicious.
The labor-intensive stuff is what you cook at home.
Thin margins, high volume. Whether you poured your heart into it or not, customers were happy as long as the food was cheap and good.
Bubble, bubble.
I boiled up a batch with the seasonings mixed in. Since all you had to do was add condiments, mass production was easy.
"This is so good!"
"The noodles are insane!"
"P-please, just one more bowl…"
The club members tore into it like animals. Like the abalone soup episode of Cooking Master Boy — kids climbing the walls because they couldn't get enough.
Because it tastes good.
Ramen had one job. Seduce them with the smell, then make them eat it with pleasure. That was the whole game.
"Scallion oil and that whole aesthetic — that's just SNS vibes."
"Ugh…"
"Whatever the food is, if the customer buys it and eats it, you're done."
I took the ramen showdown in a clean sweep. Only a sulking Sora kept sniping, still refusing to concede.
Honestly, just opening a ramen shop would be enough.
A mere university festival. Dominating it was easier than twisting a kid's wrist.
But there was no way I'd settle for that. For all appearances, I was a man who took food service seriously.
"Are we selling this at the festival?"
"I'm in favor of selling this!"
"No."
"???"
This was the baseline. I was not a vessel that could be satisfied with a slightly special bowl of ramen.
You think I'm at the level of doing 'baseline'?
I could go further whenever I felt like it. Right now, if I wanted.
"We don't have much time."
"We already ordered everything for a snack-shop vibe, though?"
"It's already delicious enough!"
"Tteokbokki…"
The members' opinions. It wasn't that I didn't understand. The festival started tomorrow. Time was tight for any major pivot. That much was true.
"We just change the nationality."
"Excuse me?"
"So you've finally decided to become a traitor to the nation?"
"…"
A Japanese snack shop.
An izakaya, in other words.
The largest club in the Department of Economics.
Haa…
That used to mean ETSD. No — it still did, technically. Department clubs were mandatory to join, and Economics took in hundreds of freshmen every year.
"Hey, you guys moving any faster or what?"
"We are working."
"The work isn't progressing. Progress!"
"What are we supposed to do when we're short on people?"
"Because there aren't enough freshmen."
"…"
They signed up and never showed. Ghost members were multiplying. Last year's grand festival. The fallout from what happened then still left deep internal damage.
Fuck.
Club president Cha Yu-jun. He could not forget that day. For the first time, they'd been knocked off the top sales ranking. A black mark of pure humiliation. Internal fractures had opened, and a wave of members had quit.
"There's nobody left to put to work. They don't even come when you call."
"Haa…"
"The same bastards who used to trail after us for every trip."
Club activity funds had been slashed hard. Down to roughly half of what they used to be, and the effects were inevitable. ETSD's main activity was traveling all over the place under the pretext of "economic research."
These assholes treat the club like a vacation club.
They could no longer run the finances so loosely. The share covered by members' dues had climbed, and that led straight to more quits. A vicious cycle. There was only one way to break the chain.
"Oppa!"
Make real sales at this year's grand festival. And crush that eyesore of a Stock Club while they were at it. Yu-jun wasn't the only one sworn to revenge. His girlfriend Juha was sharpening her own knife.
"What, you dig something else up again?"
"They're not doing a snack shop!"
"What? Weren't they running a snack shop?"
"Looks like they flipped the plan at the last second. That bastard's driving it."
"That psycho piece of shit…"
They'd planted a spy in the Stock Club. A friend of Juha's fed them internal intel.
What the hell are they trying this time.
The news that they were running a snack shop had let Yu-jun breathe easy. The ceiling was obvious. No matter how high the quality, a snack shop was still a snack shop.
Seafood Pajeon — 5,000 won
Cheese Kimchi Jeon — 5,000 won
Beef Yukjeon — 5,000 won
Seasoned Golbaengi — 10,000 won
Spicy Oden Stew — 3,000 won
They were running a pajeon house. Unlike last year, they'd decided not to copy anyone. Instead, they'd play to their own strengths. They still had a large membership. The know-how forged through years of topping the sales charts hadn't died. ETSD's signature seafood pajeon would hold their regulars. The overlapping oden stew would go out free as a service.
The plan was to steal their customers.
Every last piece of that plan had twisted sideways. All because of Chan-wook, whom he still wanted to tear apart.
"They're doing an izakaya. I can't even believe it."
"An izakaya?"
"They're doing an izakaya?!"
"This is a university festival… does that even make sense?"
The schedule had flipped overnight. Everything they'd poured effort into might turn to foam.
…
That was how much of a cultural shock it had been. The cube steak the Stock Club had made. Restaurant-grade quality. And the price had been a mere five thousand won.
Gulp.
He could still taste it. Wanting to tear the guy apart was one thing; the flavor, he had to admit. The sales ranking had proven it wasn't a gimmick either. Even now, he had no idea how they'd pulled it off.
"What do we do? If they actually pull off a real izakaya…"
"We can't win."
"GG!"
"There is no GG line."
An unknown opponent. Skill you couldn't imitate. No wonder the members were already rattled.
Slap!
Even club president Yu-jun was losing the thread when Juha clapped her hands and pulled every eye in the room.
You think I don't want to tear those bastards apart even more?
She carried the same grudge. After last year's grand festival, everything around her had shifted. ETSD's influence had shrunk. Inside the department, more and more people were following Hye-ri and Sora.
"You think that's all I found out?"
"Huh?"
"Is there… something?"
"Even if there is, how do we beat that monster!"
Myeong-hun, who oversaw the cooking, was shaking. He held a Korean Cuisine Cooking Technician certificate, so he knew.
That guy is on a completely different level from students like us!
The more you knew, the more you saw. The cooking skill, the operator's polish — both were in another league. He would definitely pull it off. Some outrageous stunt they couldn't even begin to copy.
No matter how good that bastard is in the kitchen.
Juha knew that too. She fully granted that he had a real gift for cooking. But this other field — the thing she was about to say — couldn't even exist without the ingredients.
"Highballs?!"
"Ah… right."
"Izakayas sell highballs."
"Exactly! That's half the reason you go!"
No — they wouldn't even be able to get them. ETSD would make sure of that.
You need Suntory to make a highball, don't you?
That was common knowledge. Juha had asked at an izakaya once.
There was a liquor you absolutely needed. And it wasn't sold just anywhere.
"I checked myself. It's scarce enough that liquor distributors barely stock it."
"Really?"
"Then we can't make it either, right?"
"No. I've seen it at the supermarket!"
Buying through a liquor distributor was impossible. That left only supermarket shelves.
So we just buy every bottle.
Hit every big-box store in range. Then those bastards wouldn't be able to get any. Alcohol couldn't be sold by mail order. And they had only one day left.
"Oh, that's right!"
"No booze, no highballs."
"These idiots changed their concept for nothing…"
"They'll fall for their own clever idea. Hoho!"
Every large supermarket within reach. Comb them clean so the Stock Club wasted their trip. Leftover Suntory could be returned after the festival, at their leisure.
Holy hell. That kind of method…
She was his girlfriend, but the idea was pure devilry. Yu-jun's face lit with pure joy. That was how much this mattered. Beating those bastards. Putting ETSD back on top as the Economics Department's greatest club.
He would not let the club die on his watch. By any means necessary, he would take revenge on the Stock Club.