Chapter 156: The Destined Match (2)
Chapter 156: The Destined Match (2)
Anderson frowned. Jo Minjoon had given him another ridiculous name.
But he gave Kaya a nice one.
For some reason, Jo Minjoon’s cheerful expression suddenly seemed irritating. Anderson shut his mouth and flexed his fingers.
Sushi.
Although he had spoken confidently, the truth was that he was not particularly accustomed to making it. For Westerners, sushi was generally closer to fast food than haute cuisine. It was something like Japan’s version of a hamburger.
There had never been much reason for him to invest time in learning to make fast food well. He had occasionally made sushi out of boredom, but that was about it. He doubted his skill would be much different from Jo Minjoon’s.
“But wouldn’t it be more fun if there were something at stake?” Emily was the one who suggested it.
Jo Minjoon spoke while thoroughly wiping his hands with a wet towel.
“There are two options. Either we set a penalty or offer a prize. Personally, I’d prefer the latter. Do you have anything to give us?”
“I don’t.” Emily answered immediately, then turned towards Martin.
Martin shrugged. “You can stare at a poor PD all you want. Nothing’s going to come out.”
“…There’s your answer. Let’s decide on a penalty.”
Jo Minjoon and Anderson exchanged uneasy glances.
They might both be acting confident, but neither had much experience making sushi. Not knowing who would win also meant not knowing who would end up suffering the penalty.
Jo Minjoon cautiously spoke. “But do we really need one? Even without—”
“Yes, we do. Look at how the viewers are reacting.”
[Shave your head. And don’t try to wriggle out of it…]
[That’s too much. How about fasting for a day? Although after eating all that, I doubt they’ll even want food anymore.]
[It’d be better if Kaya were here instead of Minjoon. A match with Minjoon at stake! …Sorry.]
The viewers were far more interested in the penalty than they had expected.
Then again, perhaps that was obvious. People said the two most entertaining things in the world were watching a fire and watching a fight. If there were a penalty attached, perhaps this competition could satisfy both urges at once.
Anderson looked resentfully at Emily.
She gave him a faint smile. “Since the conversation has gone this far, there’s only one answer. Just win.”
“…What are you going to do about the penalty?”
“Oh? You’re giving me the right to choose?” Emily’s smile took on a suggestive edge.
Unease crept over Anderson.
Sera leaned over and whispered something into Emily’s ear. The smile on Emily’s face deepened even further.
Jo Minjoon forced himself to remain calm. “Do you have something in mind?”
“I’m not sure whether to call it a penalty or a prize. This was Sera’s idea, so I don’t know whether you’ll like it.”
“Please stop beating around the bush and just say it. What is it?”
“A master-and-servant relationship.”
“…I’m going insane.” Anderson’s face stiffened.
Still, if he were being honest, it worked surprisingly well as both a prize and a punishment.
Anderson glared coldly at Jo Minjoon. What were they doing, taking something like this so seriously?
Yet his expression was completely earnest.
“Let’s do it.”
“…Seriously?”
“Why? Do you have a problem with that?”
“No. It’s not that… Fine. Let’s do it. I’m going to win anyway.” Instead of answering, Anderson merely smirked.
Before long, the staff began bringing in the equipment Samuel had provided. There was nothing particularly unusual among the tools: a rice cooker, cutting boards, knives, a metal grater, and a whetstone. Other than that, there were only ingredients for sushi.
Jo Minjoon checked the edge of his knife. “Looking at the ingredients, I suppose you want us to compete using nothing but the basics.”
“Rather than wanting that, this was simply all I could bring you. Do your best. I’m curious to see what kind of sushi the two of you will make.”
At Samuel’s answer, Jo Minjoon slowly examined the ingredients.
It seemed they would even have to grate the wasabi themselves. The root had been left whole.
Jo Minjoon picked it up and began rubbing it clockwise against the metal grater. Even people without much interest in sushi knew that grating wasabi consistently in one direction helped bring out its sweetness.
Once the wasabi was ready, it was time to choose the fish.
There were exactly two kinds: salmon and tuna. Both were fatty belly cuts with abundant marbling.
“…These are awfully expensive cuts to put in the hands of beginners. Sorry, tuna. Sorry, salmon.”
The rice had already been seasoned.
In the end, the difference between their sushi would come down to how they shaped the rice, their knife skills, and how appropriately they used the wasabi and soy sauce.
He could not even rely on the system’s predicted cooking score.
The only things here that could really be called part of a recipe were the amount of rice and the amount of wasabi, and even if the system told him those exact quantities, it was not something he could immediately reproduce perfectly with his hands.
“Let’s clarify one thing before we start.”
“What?”
“The rules. Do we have to serve the first sushi we make?”
Emily could not answer immediately.
In the first place, this barely qualified as a formal competition, and she had not been the one to propose it. She glanced around at the others.
Rachel spoke. “Of course you can’t serve customers something you don’t consider complete. Keep making them until you feel you have something worth presenting.”
“Yes, understood.”
“However.” Rachel continued.
Anderson and Jo Minjoon both fixed their eyes sharply on her lips.
“A chef must never waste ingredients either. Since you’re making the food with your own hands, whether the result is good or bad, make sure none of what you prepare ends up in the rubbish.”
She had phrased it indirectly, but the meaning was obvious.
They had to eat their failures themselves.
Jo Minjoon and Anderson both nodded.
The competition began.
Jo Minjoon first sliced into the tuna belly.
The first cut was a failure. Instead of having an even thickness, one side was thick while the other was thin. Because the surface had already been cut at an angle, even if he sliced the next piece perfectly, its shape would still be awkward.
The failed piece went straight into Jo Minjoon’s mouth.
He did not even dip it in soy sauce. After ruining such an expensive ingredient, he felt he had no right to indulge further.
Jo Minjoon made ten more cuts before finally reaching for the rice.
Anderson was working at roughly the same pace.
Of course, if their only goal had been to make sushi that was edible, they would already have had more than enough pieces ready.
But neither of them would be satisfied with merely edible sushi.
This was a competition.
More than that, it was a competition between two people who acknowledged each other as rivals.
Shaping the rice was no easy task.
It was difficult to judge the correct amount, and they had to make sure not to squeeze it so tightly that the grains were crushed. At the same time, if they handled it too lightly, the rice would fail to hold together and fall apart.
Both men had excellent dexterity. Overcoming that basic difficulty was not particularly hard.
But the memory of eating sushi at Yamamoto’s restaurant was still fresh in Jo Minjoon’s mind.
Naturally, there was no way he could reproduce Yamamoto’s technique. Yamamoto had spent his entire life developing those skills.
Even so, that did nothing to lessen Jo Minjoon’s dissatisfaction with his own sushi.
Anderson felt the same way.
Apply the right amount of wasabi.
Shape the rice to exactly the right firmness.
Brush on precisely the right amount of soy sauce.
Why was something so simple taking so long?
Sera eventually looked towards Emily with a tired expression. “…Aren’t those two taking this a little too seriously?”
“They’re chefs. Their pride is on the line, so of course they are. Besides, you said it yourself before. They’re rivals.”
“But still…” Sera felt strangely unsettled.
It was as though events were not unfolding the way they normally should.
[…]
[…ZZZZZ]
[Ah, I went for a walk. Is it over?]
[It’s over. Your walk, that is.]
[Are you serious? Hasn’t it already been more than two hours?]
[To be precise, it’s been about an hour and forty minutes.]
Sera stared blankly at the chat window.
One hour and forty minutes.
One hundred minutes.
Yes.
One hundred minutes.
It had already been one hundred minutes.
Enough time had passed for more than half of the food they had eaten earlier to be digested.
Yet they still had not tasted either Anderson’s or Jo Minjoon’s sushi.
“What exactly… What kind of sushi are they trying so hard to make?” Sera spoke as though she genuinely could not understand.
More than anything, she could not understand how they were enduring it.
One hundred minutes.
They had been making sushi for one hundred minutes.
And every failed piece they had produced during that time had gone into their own stomachs.
It was not as though they had started hungry, either. They had already been full from eating so many dishes.
[Looks like Jeremy fell asleep.]
[He is old, after all. As for Rachel… well, since they’re her disciples, maybe she’s happy just watching them put in so much effort.]
[For me, rather than happy… it’s kind of exciting. It feels like watching artists burn through their creative souls. Of course, if I went into a sushi restaurant and had to wait hours for my food, I’d probably flip a table and leave.]
The strange thing was that Sera understood exactly what the viewers meant.
She placed a hand over her chest.
The heartbeat she could feel through her clothes was anything but calm. Her entire body felt heated, and the source of that heat was unmistakably the two chefs working in front of her.
You could say it was because this was a competition, but competition alone was not what drove them.
At its core was their passion and love for cooking.
The fact that they could focus so completely on a single thing, that they could pour their hearts and souls into it, was both impressive and enviable.
“Emily. Can someone really become that absorbed in one thing?”
“You’re watching proof of it with your own eyes.”
“Even though I’m seeing it, I still can’t believe it. I hope that someday… someone can look at me and feel the same way.”
Emily said nothing.
She simply looked towards Jo Minjoon and Anderson.
They had already emptied two rice cookers.
The customers in the dining room had long since left because the restaurant had closed for its break. Samuel and the other chefs had joined the staff gathered around, watching the competition with interest.
Then, at last, something changed.
Anderson and Jo Minjoon exchanged glances.
Almost simultaneously, they placed their plates forward.
“It’s ready.”
Had every piece after that been free of mistakes?
One salmon sushi.
One tuna sushi.
Each of them placed one of each on a plate and presented them.
Truthfully, the flavour was still somewhat lacking compared with sushi from a specialised restaurant.
But the gap was not large.
The fish itself was of excellent quality, and the vinegared rice had already been prepared by the restaurant. Considering how little experience either Anderson or Jo Minjoon had making sushi, reaching this level was already an impressive achievement.
Jo Minjoon spoke apologetically. “I’m sorry. I know serving delicious food is important, but it’s also important not to make customers wait.”
“Don’t worry about it. This wasn’t that kind of competition in the first place.”
[Ah, it’s finally over. That was too much. I know chefs probably live like this all the time, but chasing perfection over something like sushi…]
[It’s funny when you think about it. Sushi is basically Japan’s version of a sandwich. It’s like rebuilding your sandwich because one ingredient is sitting at the wrong angle. Obviously it’s not exactly the same, but still.]
[So who won? I’ve been waiting forever just to find out.]
Both men had put in tremendous effort.
But a winner still had to be chosen.
The four judges carefully compared their impressions.
There was one notable difference between Anderson’s sushi and Jo Minjoon’s.
The thickness of the fish and the amount of wasabi were almost identical. The difference lay in the rice.
Jo Minjoon had pressed a slight hollow into the centre of his rice, leaving a small pocket of air.
Anderson had not.
The discussion did not last long.
Rachel soon spoke. “Before I announce the winner, I want to say that both of you did very well. I’m sure everyone watching today could see it. They all saw how seriously you approach cooking.”
Jo Minjoon and Anderson said nothing.
They simply stared heavily at Rachel’s lips.
She continued. “To be honest, your sushi was very similar in quality. However, the decision was unanimous. Anderson.”
“Yes.”
“Congratulations. You won.”
A brilliant smile spread across Anderson’s face.
It was pure, childlike joy—an expression so unlike his usual self that it almost seemed strange.
Jo Minjoon lowered his head with a bitter smile.
He had thought he might win this time.
Yet he had lost again.
Still, a loss was a loss. He needed to know why.
“In what way was my sushi lacking compared with his?”
“You made a small hollow in the middle of the rice.”
“Yes. Was that a problem?”
“It probably tasted good when you ate it immediately after making it. However…”
Rachel extended one finger.
She pointed first towards the cutting board, then slowly moved it towards her own plate.
“The taste changes by the time it reaches this point. Sushi is that kind of food. If we were sitting at a counter and eating each piece the instant you shaped it, the result might have been different. But you had to make enough sushi for all four of us, distribute the plates, and then wait for everyone to eat. During that time, the fish slowly sank into the hollow. Its weight pressed down on the already thinned layer of rice beneath it.”
Rachel formed circles with both index fingers and thumbs, pushed them together, then slowly pulled them apart.
Jo Minjoon finally understood.
Because the rice had been weakened in the middle, the formed piece would split apart far more easily.
That alone was enough to change the entire eating experience.
“A chef cannot learn cooking only on the cutting board. The real battle takes place at the table, on the customer’s plate, and finally inside their mouth. Still, I think this was a valuable experience for both of you.”
“…Yes. Thank you.” Jo Minjoon answered in a disappointed voice.
He had thought he could win.
He had tried to introduce a variation, only to be defeated by that very variation.
Jo Minjoon looked towards Anderson.
Anderson leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.
Then he looked directly at Jo Minjoon.
“Hey.”
“What?”
Anderson lifted an empty cup, laughed, and set it back down.
“Water.”