Five-Thousand-Won Steak
Gyo-iku-sang seethed.
America? The country that dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan?!
That was his reverse scale. As a self-proclaimed gourmet, he despised American food even more than Korean food—meals that never once considered nutritional balance.
Sizzle…!
Chunks of meat were grilling on the hot plate. His aging eyes made it hard to see clearly, but he already knew.
Obvious. Completely obvious.
American chuck flap, or maybe top sirloin. If they were feeling extravagant, it might even be ribeye cap. Sold on a street stall like this? It was a foregone conclusion. The one he’d eaten at the previous stall had been chuck flap too.
“With steak, hitting the right unit price isn’t easy. Too cheap or too expensive, and people have no reason to eat it.”
“Why is that, Teacher?”
“If it’s too cheap it doesn’t feel like steak. If it’s too expensive, there’s no point eating it at a place like this.”
And even then, the flavor mostly came from the sauce. They dressed it up with tonkatsu sauce and ketchup, then soothed the dry, tough meat with stir-fried vegetables.
If you turn something like that into “steak”…
Without exceptional cooking skill, it left no real impact. Just a lump of meat.
Steak — 5,000 won
Makgeolli — 3,500 won
Chamisul — 3,500 won
Beer — 3,500 won
The menu board. Even Gyo-iku-sang, who had called himself a taste columnist for decades, couldn’t stop his eyes from going wide.
“F-five thousand won?!”
“Same price as the cube steak next door. The only difference is whether they cut it or not, I suppose?”
Even the female host’s ignorant remark didn’t faze him. Steak, by definition, was a dish for savoring the meat itself.
It has to taste like meat.
At five thousand won, even buying it yourself and grilling it at home would be cutting it close. Using chuck flap—or even top sirloin—the raw meat cost alone would push the cost ratio past fifty percent. Add facility fees and other ingredients, and you might barely break even.
“Our kitchen’s small, so it takes a little time. We appreciate your patience.”
“Ahem!”
“Since it’s hot out, please have a cup of makgeolli while you wait.”
“Makgeolli? With steak?”
“I heard you like makgeolli.”
It was that rude young man from earlier. At least he wasn’t a complete lost cause. He came over himself, kettle in hand, to serve them. He couldn’t ignore the cameras, after all. This was also a chance to show the world exactly who he was.
Gurgle-gurgle~
On the way over he’d checked discreetly.
Just in case.
He downed a cool bowl of makgeolli poured into a tin cup. After carefully savoring it in his mouth—
“This is…”
“What is it, Teacher?!”
“My palate is telling me it’s Slow Village.”
“That’s correct. As expected of you, Teacher!”
“Ahem! For me it’s as natural as breathing.”
It was indeed Slow Village. Not a particularly well-known brand; if he hadn’t spotted the box earlier it could have been disastrous.
Of course, it’s thanks to my near-divine sense of taste.
The staff and the rude young man both looked surprised. While he was enjoying the atmosphere, the steak arrived. He couldn’t help feeling tense. As a gourmet, the idea of eating something tasteless just for the broadcast was pure torture.
“Huh??”
“Teacher, the five-thousand-won steak is here. Could you give us a few words…?”
“Well… it’s better than I expected. Better than I expected.”
Surprisingly, it looked decent. Nicely browned well-done pieces, already sliced with a knife. An appetizing sight. He swallowed without realizing it and glanced around.
Did they put out better meat because they were watching me?
But the other tables looked the same. Plenty of reasons for suspicion, yet—
Chomp!
What mattered was the taste. It could still be garbage that only looked good. No—there was no food more honest about the relationship between price and flavor than meat.
“Oh? Wait?!”
“How is it, Teacher? The taste of a five-thousand-won steak!”
“This is actually quite edible—no, it’s delicious. It’s not my preferred blue rare, but…”
He had no choice but to admit it. The moment he bit down, juices burst out. The texture was tender; this was a properly made steak.
Mmm. Mmm~! Good, the taste is good. But how can it taste this good?
A street food stall. There was no way they went through a proper cooking process. Turnover was everything, so they would just slap it on the grill and send it out. Of course, not every steak required a complicated process. Take Japan’s finest wagyu, for example.
Just a rough sear and…
The juices would flow freely. Basting? Resting? Those were cheap tricks to force down inferior Australian or American beef. Japanese cattle were the best. By that standard, this meat could never be Japanese wagyu.
“You’re saying it’s delicious? Teacher Gyo-iku?”
“That’s right.”
“Then if we set the price aside and evaluate this steak alone, how much would you say it’s worth?”
“I don’t like putting prices on food, but if I evaluate it by my personal standards…”
“Yes?”
“Around twenty to thirty thousand won.”
“For a five-thousand-won steak?!”
But he was an expert. He knew a few ways to make even bad meat taste good.
Sous vide, for instance.
A method of cooking in low-temperature water. Finish the first stage that way, then do the second stage on the grill. The proof: Gyo-iku-sang glanced at the neighboring table, then brazenly stabbed a piece of their steak with his fork and stole it.
“Hey! That’s mine.”
“Pardon me.”
He chewed thoughtfully. Just as expected—similar taste. Same degree of doneness. Gyo-iku-sang smiled in triumph. With this much evidence, he could be certain.
“Ahem.”
“Teacher?”
“I understand everything now.”
“What do you mean?!”
“There was a little secret hidden here.”
This was a cooking show, after all. Saving face with just the makgeolli wouldn’t be enough.
1. Pyongyang cold noodles never use seasoning
→ They do
2. Health tonics are only eaten in Korea
→ Eaten across East and West, past and present
3. White eggs taste better than brown eggs
→ Just a color difference
4. Pollack roe is Japanese food
→ The story of pollack roe that crossed over from Busan was made into a drama in Japan
Gyo-iku-sang knew. Some ignorant mobs were using internet anonymity as a shield to trash him.
No matter how much trash like you yaps…
He had secured his place in the broadcasting world. As long as he kept proving his ability, he could milk it forever.
“You there, student…”
“Lee Chanuk.”
“I could feel Chanuk’s anguish in this steak. As a gourmet, I have no choice but to give it high marks.”
And the atmosphere. As an expert he needed to project trust. By praising the other party’s minor strengths, he drew attention to his own ability.
I hope they edit it so it looks like I figured it out from a single bite.
Rich meat aroma. Moist texture. All hallmarks of sous vide. The degree of doneness was decisive. Both his steak and the neighboring table’s had been the exact same well-done.
“Cooking thick meat this evenly all the way through isn’t easy.”
“Oh, you’re right. That would take a lot of time…”
“Ahem. But with sous vide, it’s simple.”
“What’s sous vide?”
He explained for the viewers who wouldn’t know the technical term.
Of course, it doesn’t end there.
Sous vide had a drawback. Because it cooked in water, the meat retained too much moisture and didn’t sear well.
Whoosh…!!
They overcame that with searing—using a torch or open flame to char the surface directly. The flames rising from the kitchen were probably for that. There was a reason he had gone so far as to praise them.
“An excellent cooking club. You’ve done a lot of research.”
“Uh, Teacher…”
“The meat has a deep aroma, so more likely American than Australian. And looking at the low marbling, it’s probably a cut near the shank.”
They had used their heads. Sous vide could make even tough meat tender. The first-stage cooking also specialized in mass production and shortened steak prep time.
And the price, too.
Even accounting for all of that, five thousand won was absurd. His absolute palate had rated it in the twenty-to-thirty-thousand range.
“Adorable. Truly adorable.”
“For students, you seem incredibly well-versed in cooking. You were using a method even I didn’t know!”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Pardon?”
“Hitting a unit cost of five thousand won means you’re basically serving it at cost. I could feel the desire for people to simply enjoy your cooking.”
He closed his eyes lightly and placed a hand over his chest. A quick glance confirmed the camera was on him. The emotional vibe would have come across.
This should capture the housewives watching at home.
No matter how much people ranted online, ratings were carried by the housewife demographic. Win their goodwill and the network couldn’t refuse him.
“This is a completely different mindset from certain restaurant experts who obsess over cost ratios all day. I, Gyo-iku-sang, am moved.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course, real business can’t be run this way, so I hope you keep it as a fond memory of your student days.”
A warm wrap-up. Far better footage than lecturing at some food truck. He would drag down that eyesore Baek Jong-won and solidify his position as the godfather of the gourmet world.
“Your evaluation is more than we deserve, Teacher.”
“It’s nothing. I simply spoke honestly.”
“In that spirit, may I say a few words on behalf of the club?”
If the kid even played along, it would be the cherry on top. Gyo-iku-sang had praised a mere student’s cooking—maybe the boy would even cry.
“Teacher, you said we used sous vide.”
“Ahem, that’s right. A cooking method ordinary people don’t know, but…”
“Yes, so it seems even you got confused. We didn’t use sous vide. We used confit.”
“……”
That picture shattered completely. Before the flustered Gyo-iku-sang could even gather his thoughts, the words poured out like machine-gun fire.
“American meat, you said?”
“N-no, that is…”
“What a shame. We served you the Japanese wagyu you love so much.”
“Wa-wagyu?!”
“It’s aged Gyeongsan-woo. The meat’s so cheap it probably never appeared on Teacher Gyo-iku’s gourmet travels.”
Gyeongsan-woo. He had heard of it. Cows that had given birth so many times they could no longer calve. Normally never used—the price was rock-bottom. Age and repeated births ruined the meat quality. At best it became ground meat for hamburger patties. Yet rumors said some chefs used it. Depending on the aging method, it held potential beyond premium cuts.
“Y-you did that?”
“Yes. And the cut is strip loin. The deep meat aroma was amplified during the aging process.”
That difficult. Not merely “high difficulty.” Aging and rotting were a hair’s breadth apart. Even a seasoned chef might spend a lifetime and still fail. It was a trade secret; no one ever shared it.
This brat pulled off something that hard??
Unbelievable. But there was no time to think. If the student in front of him was telling the truth, then every single thing Gyo-iku-sang had just spouted—
“We’re running a business that fully pursues profit. We’re not a cooking club—we’re a stock club. So we calculate operating margins with absolute precision.”
“……”
“Not a single thing you said was correct, so I had no choice but to correct you. Since you got everything wrong, just enjoy the food.”
It would never go down his throat.