Chapter 151: Global & Local (1)
Chapter 151: Global & Local (1)
Martin did not confirm Jo Minjoon’s guess. By that point, however, denying it was pointless. Jo Minjoon and the others were already more than half convinced, and Martin’s dejected attitude only reinforced their suspicions. Anderson spoke as though the answer were obvious.
“Tokyo Harmony… Just hearing the name makes it sound like a fusion restaurant. Has anyone been there?”
“I have.” Emily was the only one who answered. Seeing Anderson and Jeremy glance towards Sera, she smirked. “You probably haven’t. As far as I know, it hasn’t been that long since Michelin started awarding restaurants here. Tokyo Harmony didn’t have a single star, then suddenly received all three at once. That’s why I went.”
“…Mm. I’ve heard of it before, but I only looked at pictures because I never had the chance to visit.”
“Pictures…” Anderson muttered the word strangely.
Jo Minjoon looked at him. “Want me to show you one?”
“No. I’m not looking. You shouldn’t see pictures of a place before going there for the first time.” Anderson refused bluntly.
Jo Minjoon looked puzzled. “Why?”
“I think I know the answer. Can I answer for him?” Emily raised her hand like a student in class. Anderson gestured for her to go ahead. Putting on an exaggeratedly serious expression, as though she were answering a quiz, Emily said, “Because you want to preserve the first taste, right?”
“…The first taste?”
Jo Minjoon gave Emily an odd look, then turned towards Anderson.
Anderson nodded, confirming that she was right.
Emily looked triumphant. “You know it too. Appearance plays a part in determining how food tastes. Of course, with ordinary places—I mean somewhere selling hamburgers or ramen—you already have a general idea of what the food will look like, so it’s a little different. But restaurants like this are another matter.”
“Well, even the appearance is different. Ordinary restaurants obviously put effort into plating and presentation too, but generally speaking, the more expensive a restaurant is, the more likely they are to employ food artists specifically to work on presentation. But…” Jo Minjoon tilted his head, unconvinced. “Isn’t there also something enjoyable about looking at a picture of a dish long beforehand? You know what it looks like, but not how it tastes. You keep wondering what it’ll be like, and then when it finally appears in front of you… I think the feeling you get at that moment can be good too.”
“Well, that differs from person to person. For some people, that anticipation lasts a long time. For others, it fades quickly. Anderson seems to be the latter.”
“Hmm… Anyway, I heard Japanese people like to speak indirectly, but apparently that doesn’t apply to restaurant names. If anything, they seem to make the theme as obvious as possible.”
Harmony. Combination. The meaning behind the name was obvious. It suggested contact, or perhaps a meeting point, between Japanese cuisine and food from all around the world. In a way, that might have been one of Japan’s greatest strengths: localising foreign dishes while globalising Japanese cuisine.
Korea has its own distinctive style of localisation too.
Pizza and pasta were probably the most commonly cited examples. Pizza could be piled with all sorts of toppings, then loaded with cheese, sweet potato, cream, and more. Sometimes even the dough itself was shaped like a pie crust or a coffee bun.
Pasta was similar. Unlike in the West, where the sauce tended to cling closely to the noodles, Korean cream pasta often had so much sauce that it dripped back down when the noodles were lifted.
The more he thought about it, the more remarkable it seemed. It was technically the same dish, yet one person might find a particular variation delicious while another did not. And the standard for deciding what tasted ‘right’ could change depending on the environment in which a person had grown up.
If a person’s standard of taste changes depending on their upbringing… then where was mine established?
Truthfully, Jo Minjoon thought his own palate had simply developed however it pleased. His mother’s cooking had no real consistency. Sometimes it was so bland he could barely taste anything, while other times it was so overpowering that bringing it near his mouth was difficult.
Perhaps those difficult meals had actually helped Jo Minjoon develop his own sense of taste. The thought made him laugh without realising it.
Rachel widened her eyes and looked at him. “Why are you laughing like that?”
“I just had a sudden thought. Maybe my mum being bad at cooking actually helped cultivate my talent.”
“…How?”
“Most people grow accustomed to the flavours their mothers make from a young age. But in my case, getting used to my mum’s cooking was… mm… a little difficult.”
“…I think your mother would be hurt if she heard you say that.”
Rachel looked awkward. It might have been different in the past, but now she was the mother of her disciple. She could hardly join Jo Minjoon in criticising her.
Jo Minjoon merely smirked, as though there were no reason for concern. “If something like that were enough to hurt her feelings, she would’ve learned to cook properly by now. Anyway, it’s fine. Thanks to that, I developed my own tastes.”
“That sort of thing does happen. Ordinary people usually become interested in cooking for one of two reasons: either their parents cook exceptionally well, or exceptionally badly. But why did you suddenly start thinking about that?”
“When I thought about it, it felt kind of amazing. Your tastes change depending on your country and where you grew up. So I started wondering how my own tastes were formed, and what they were based on… Why are you looking at me like that?”
Jo Minjoon stopped and looked at Rachel. She was staring at him with trembling eyes, visibly shaken.
Rachel quickly shook her head. “N-No. It’s nothing. You just reminded me of someone… That thought is a good one. Keep thinking that way. You’ll definitely gain something from it.”
“Yes. I will.”
Jo Minjoon smiled. Rachel returned the smile, but hers looked unnatural. She could not help it. Her heart was in turmoil.
He says the same things… as Daniel.
Perhaps she was merely forcing a connection. It was something anyone could think of, and there were probably more people who had said similar things to her than she realised. Yet perhaps because those words had come from Jo Minjoon, they seemed to carry far greater meaning.
“Me too…” Anderson hesitated, then finally spoke. He glanced at Rachel and Jo Minjoon before lowering his eyes to his fingers, pretending indifference. “I had a similar thought. Just as something distinctly Japanese appears even in the restaurant’s name… cooking carries more ideals behind it than people realise. Depending on what you’re thinking while you cook, the entire restaurant can change.”
“That’s a good thought.” Rachel smiled softly at Anderson.
Perhaps he had not wanted to lose to Jo Minjoon. The way he expressed his thoughts immediately after hearing someone else praised seemed both childish and mature at the same time, because he had spoken despite knowing exactly how it might look.
Watching the three of them, Sera turned vague eyes towards Emily. “Isn’t this rivalry between them kind of funny and cool?”
“Yeah. It’s always like that. It’s a shame food critics can’t really have rivals.”
“…You think so?”
“That’s just how it is. We eat and write down our opinions. How are we supposed to get rivals from that?”
Sera’s lips pressed into a stiff line. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Just as Emily began to wonder, Sera turned her head away and spoke in a subdued voice.
“Right. There’s no way something like that could happen.”
Three Michelin stars. The meaning was simple: a restaurant worth making a special journey for. Simple words, yet an extraordinarily generous distinction.
There were claims that Michelin inspectors were relatively lenient towards Japan, but that did not diminish what three stars represented.
Tokyo Harmony stood along the waterfront of Tokyo Bay. It was technically a two-storey building, but its sheer height made it look closer to five. Its rounded, dome-like walls were made entirely of glass, allowing diners inside to look directly out over the sea.
“Wow… Now that we’re actually here in Tokyo and at this restaurant, I feel like this scenery alone might be what I remember most.” Jo Minjoon spoke in admiration as he breathed in the fresh air. The sea reflected in his eyes as his gaze passed over the Western-style tables, the pristine marble floor, and the exposed rafters above.
Martin then spoke. “We’ll be starting the live broadcast soon. We have quite a lot of viewers waiting today. One hundred and forty thousand. That’s ten thousand more than last time. You all remember the opening line, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then before we start broadcasting, get all the difficult or cheesy things you want to say out of your systems now. Things like ‘I love you, my friend.’ I’ll cut them from the footage.”
“I know you won’t.”
At Anderson’s blunt reply, Martin scratched his head awkwardly. Then he raised one hand.
Three fingers.
Two.
One.
All six of them smiled towards the camera at the same time.
“Hello. This is Hunger Trip.”
Their voices were clear without being loud. Comments immediately began flooding the screen.
[Oh, the camera’s on. But where are they?]
[I heard they were in Japan, but that place looks really luxurious. Is it a Michelin restaurant?]
[Ah, I think I know where that is. It’s a three-star restaurant in Tokyo. Tokyo Harmony, right? It was seriously delicious.]
The six of them simply stared as the chat raced upwards. Only when Martin leaned his face into their field of view did they collect themselves and look back towards the camera.
Jo Minjoon spoke. “This is a restaurant in Japan called Tokyo Harmony. Michelin awarded it three stars, so all of us are really looking forward to it.”
“We are, but why do you seem even more excited than the rest of us?”
“It’s my first time eating Asian food from a three-star restaurant.”
Strictly speaking, Higashino’s restaurant was not far behind in terms of cooking level. There had been no ten-point dishes, but its average score was comparable to that of a three-star restaurant.
Still, cooking was not something that could be judged by flavour alone. With surroundings this open and beautiful, how could they possibly have no influence on the meal? Tokyo Harmony was also likely to use far more expensive ingredients than Higashino did, so there was a genuine possibility that its food would taste even better. At least, that was how Jo Minjoon saw it. No matter how outstanding a chef was, there was only so much they could do against the naturally rich flavours of superior ingredients.
Soon, one of the chefs approached their table. Jo Minjoon looked him over. His chef’s uniform was unusual, appearing to combine a Japanese yukata with a Western chef’s uniform. It was predominantly black, with several white bands running across it.
But there was something even more striking than the uniform.
[The chef’s here. But he’s white?]
The comment was accurate. The chef approaching them appeared to be in his forties, a white man with sandy-blond hair.
“Welcome to our restaurant. I’m Samuel King, the head chef of Tokyo Harmony.”
His English carried a strong British accent.
Emily smiled brightly. “It’s been a while, Samuel. You’re still looking handsome.”
“Thank you. You’re as beautiful as ever, Emily.”
“Uh… I’m a little confused. Since this is a Japanese restaurant—and a fusion restaurant at that—I naturally assumed the head chef would be Japanese.”
“Well, I may as well be half Japanese by now. I’ve been studying cuisine in this country for more than ten years.” Samuel smiled gently as he answered.
Jo Minjoon lowered his gaze to the menu. It was written in both English and Japanese. After scanning it, he asked, “There’s no distinction between appetisers and main courses?”
As he had said, the menu was divided into categories such as salads, noodles, rice, meat, sushi, seafood, and so on, but there was no prescribed sequence. Samuel replied calmly.
“That was the kind of restaurant I wanted to create. One that doesn’t conform to the usual dining system. You order whatever you want, whenever you want it. Does that make you uncomfortable?”
“No, actually… I find it really comfortable. There’s none of that anxiety over what I’m supposed to choose.” Jo Minjoon laughed pleasantly.
Samuel looked around the table. “I won’t recommend any dishes to you. I’ve researched and refined each one so extensively that I’m confident every dish is complete in itself. I also don’t care what order you eat them in. There is only one thing.” Samuel paused. At the same moment, servers appeared behind him and placed three dishes in the centre of the table. Each contained pickled ginger. “Every time you finish a dish, cleanse your palate with this pickled ginger. That way, whatever you taste next will remain clear regardless of what you ate beforehand.”
“It really does sound like a sushi restaurant.”
“I won’t deny that I took inspiration from one.” Samuel smirked.
Jo Minjoon looked back at the menu. Before long, his eyes stopped on one item: steamed beef dumplings. Beside it, the beef was listed as being from Kobe. Jo Minjoon looked around the table.
“How about ordering the dumplings?”
“Uh… ah! The steamed ones? If they’re steamed instead of fried, they shouldn’t be too heavy as a first dish. Fine. I agree.”
“I agree too.”
And so their first dish was decided: steamed dumplings.
After a while, a bamboo steamer containing the dumplings was placed in the middle of the table.
Jo Minjoon swallowed as he stared at them.
[Steamed Beef Dumplings]
Freshness: 98%
Origins: (Hidden, too many ingredients)
Quality: High
Cooking Score: 8/10
“We make the wrappers ourselves and ferment the dough. I did my best to ensure they wouldn’t fall short of what you’d get at a specialised dumpling restaurant. Here. Eat them with this soy sauce.”
Samuel personally mixed an appropriate amount of wasabi into the soy sauce.
Jo Minjoon slowly picked up a dumpling and dipped it in, then gazed at it almost lovingly.
The finger-sized dumpling was delicate and charming. Its pale wrapper quivered like jelly, yet did not tear easily, and the filling inside was faintly visible through it. A drop of soy sauce slid slowly down its surface, looking strangely lascivious and sensual, like water running down a woman’s body.
Perhaps that was why Jo Minjoon felt an odd sense of guilt as he ate it. At first, the dumpling brushed against his lips almost like a kiss. Then the stock trapped inside the wrapper flowed down his throat, leaving his chest tingling as though he were a vampire sucking blood from a child’s neck.
The soy sauce was no ordinary accompaniment either. Perhaps because lemon juice had been mixed into it, its bright, sour fragrance seemed to cleanse his throat. The juices released from the mung bean sprouts and beef were so abundant that he could barely tell whether he was eating a dumpling or drinking soup.
[Jo Minjoon really is the best when he eats. He makes everything look insanely delicious. Is it because he’s more sensitive to flavour?]
[I didn’t see. I was too busy admiring Emily’s face. How did he eat it?]
[Like he was kissing a woman. That’s the best way I can describe it.]
To the point that even the chat was commenting on it, happiness, guilt, and unease were all plainly visible on Jo Minjoon’s face.
Then, after a moment, the eyelids he had closed to savour the flavour trembled faintly.
Something in the information window before him caught his attention.
The beef’s origin… It isn’t Kobe. It’s Matsusaka?
The menu definitely said Kobe. Of course, Matsusaka beef was by no means inferior to Kobe beef; many people even considered it superior. So it was not as though the restaurant were substituting cheaper ingredients.
Jo Minjoon looked at Samuel.
Samuel met his gaze with a gentle smile. “Is something wrong?”
“No. It’s not that… This…” Jo Minjoon smacked his lips.
He wondered whether he should even ask. If the quality was comparable, there seemed little reason to point it out. But if the dish was specifically supposed to use Kobe beef rather than Matsusaka beef, and the kitchen had made a mistake with the ingredient currently being served, then perhaps that subtle difference in flavour could prevent the dumpling from reaching an even higher level.
Once he started thinking that way, he could no longer keep quiet.
Kobe and Matsusaka cattle were raised differently. It was not simply a matter of geographic origin but of distinct brands, so naturally their flavours could differ as well. At least, Jo Minjoon could taste a difference. Matsusaka beef tended to have heavier marbling, while Kobe beef’s marbling felt more balanced. If there were no meaningful distinction, people would have no reason to prefer one over the other.
Jo Minjoon finally spoke. “The menu says the beef is from Kobe… but what I’m tasting is softer and richer than the balanced marbling I associate with Kobe. Is this really… Kobe beef?”
At that moment, silence fell over the table.