Chapter 166: The Friendly Judge (2)
Chapter 166: The Friendly Judge (2)
Ben stared at Jo Minjoon with a disgruntled expression before taking off his apron and turning away sharply. Anyone watching him leave the restaurant could tell from his stride alone how angry he was. Jo Minjoon watched him go with a cold expression, while Javier, who had witnessed the whole exchange, spoke in disbelief.
“…I thought he was an angel, but he’s actually a ghost.”
“He’s not a ghost. He’s a fairy.”
An irritated voice suddenly cut in. Javier jumped in surprise and looked around, but the only person sitting at his table was Janet. He turned towards her with a puzzled expression.
“A fairy? Are you one of Minjoon’s fans?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You just said it. You said he’s a fairy, not a ghost. And you sounded pretty annoyed too.”
“I never said anything like that. What are you talking about?”
Janet looked at Javier as though he were insane. Javier fell silent, confused. He was certain he had heard a voice, and just as he began wondering where it had come from, a small head popped out from underneath the loose tablecloth.
“…!”
Javier nearly screamed, but managed to swallow the sound as his whole body jolted. Ella looked at the trembling Javier with a smug expression.
“My uncle isn’t a ghost.”
“…Uh, uncle? You mean Minjoon? Wait, more importantly, who are you?”
“My name is Ella.”
Ella answered proudly before climbing up and sitting beside Janet. Janet watched her with a slightly nervous expression, but Ella simply rested herself against the table and turned her head towards Jo Minjoon. Javier tried speaking to her again.
“Do you know Minjoon?”
“Yes. He’s my uncle.”
“…Uncle?”
This time, Janet looked at Ella in confusion. No matter how she looked at the girl, Ella showed no signs of being Asian, and all sorts of complicated family trees began running through Janet’s mind. Javier, however, quickly realised that ‘uncle’ was simply being used as a sign of closeness.
“Your uncle must treat you well.”
“Yes. He plays with me a lot, cooks tasty food when I’m hungry, and… hmm…”
Ella pursed her lips and fell into deep thought, but Javier did not need to hear anything more. He quietly looked towards Jo Minjoon and thought that if a child spoke about him this fondly, then he was probably a gentle person most of the time.
Then why is he so harsh right now?
Jo Minjoon’s judgement had not been harsh only towards Ben. It had to be harsh, because he kept seeing applicants who simply were not prepared. Of course, they had applied to become apprentices precisely because they were inexperienced, but only three of them looked as though they had genuinely spent much time practising on their own.
Jo Minjoon walked over to a thin Black man and examined his garlic. Every slice was nearly identical in thickness. If he desperately wanted to find flaws, he probably could, but nothing significant stood out. Jo Minjoon looked towards the man, who was watching him and the others with an extremely nervous expression.
“…Mr. Justin. You said you taught yourself to cook, correct?”
“Y-Yes!”
Anderson lifted one of the garlic slices and compared it with the others before speaking.
“Your application says you’re a truck driver. I know truck drivers work long hours. How did you find time to study cooking?”
“I did whatever I could. I slept a little less and cooked whenever I had even a small amount of time. Whenever possible, the meals I ate on the road were things I’d prepared myself.”
Apparently, what Jo Minjoon had said to Ben had left quite an impression. Jo Minjoon gave an awkward fake cough, while Rachel smiled gently.
“A truck driver. I suppose we could ask you to drive whenever we go shopping for ingredients.”
“Thank you!”
“Don’t celebrate yet. That’s only if you’re selected.”
Jo Minjoon’s voice was cold. Justin’s expression immediately fell, but Jo Minjoon could not help it. There was still another apprentice test left, and he did not want Justin getting so excited that he lost focus and failed to show his real ability.
I finally understand why Alan had to be so strict with us.
After the knife-skills test, four more people were eliminated following Ben, leaving only four applicants. Internally, Jo Minjoon was rooting for Justin. Justin was the only applicant with Cooking Level 5, and Jo Minjoon wanted capable people to become part of their kitchen family. Of course, it was impossible to judge someone’s character properly in a single day, but from what he had seen so far, Justin did not appear to be a bad person.
The ingredient for the second test was also garlic. The first test had focused on precision and knife skills, while this one would test speed by having the applicants peel an entire container of garlic. As Rachel explained the test, Jo Minjoon added,
“Just so you know, you may not put the garlic in a container and shake it. The only tool you can use is your knife. We’re testing how quickly you can work with your hands, so you can’t use shortcuts.”
There had been a time when Jo Minjoon himself, as an apprentice, had foolishly peeled garlic one clove at a time with a knife. Only later did he learn that if you put garlic into a container and shook it vigorously, much of the skin would peel off by itself. Unfortunately, he had already suffered through almost a month of doing it the slow way before discovering that trick.
Still, when testing someone’s hand speed, making them handle ingredients—especially small ones such as garlic—was an effective method.
Anderson blew the whistle loudly. The applicants flinched in surprise and immediately began working. They struck the garlic bulbs with the butt of their knives to separate the cloves, then used the knife tips to peel away the skins one by one.
The result was not what Jo Minjoon expected. Justin finished third out of the four. At first glance, that seemed to put him at a disadvantage, but Jo Minjoon calmly examined the condition of each applicant’s garlic, and a decision quickly formed in his mind.
The judges stepped aside and exchanged their opinions. All of them reached the same conclusion, and Rachel finally spoke.
“At first, we considered announcing the result later, but there’s nothing more painful than waiting while clinging to hope. The judges reached a unanimous decision, so I won’t drag this out unnecessarily. This isn’t a television programme, after all.”
With that, Rachel walked over to Justin, whose lips were trembling with anxiety. She placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled.
“Welcome. You’re part of our family now.”
“Thank you… THANK YOU!”
Justin’s eyes reddened as he shouted in a shaking voice. Jo Minjoon looked towards the remaining three applicants. The slowest person had an expression of resignation, as though they had already expected to fail, but the other two were visibly disappointed. Jo Minjoon approached them.
“Do you know why you were eliminated?”
“…No. I’m not sure.”
“Look at this.”
Jo Minjoon placed several cloves of garlic on the chopping board, some peeled by them and one peeled by Justin. He lifted the cloves and asked,
“Can you see the difference?”
The applicants quietly studied them. By the time they finally noticed and let out a small “Ah,” Anderson had already stepped forward.
“Just because we told you to work quickly doesn’t mean you can do a sloppy job. I’m sure all of you were nervous. That made you focus too much on the time and move your hands faster than usual. But no matter what happens, you can’t damage the ingredient. Ingredients are the foundation of cooking, and apprentices are often the ones responsible for preparing that foundation.”
Justin’s garlic was perfectly clean, without a single cut. The others were different. Some cloves had been nicked by the blade, while others bore crushed or bruised patches. Their juices had already begun leaking out, making the surfaces sticky.
Jo Minjoon spoke more gently.
“I understand that you felt rushed. But there’s only one reason a chef should ever rush: because a customer is waiting. Even then, you can’t serve damaged ingredients just because you’re pressed for time. If you remember that, I’m confident you’ll be able to earn a place in another restaurant someday.”
Although Jo Minjoon had little actual professional experience as a working chef, his words still carried weight. The reason was simple. Whenever he cooked, he always thought about the people who would eventually eat the food, and that sincerity came through in every word he said.
One of the eliminated applicants stepped towards him. She was a white woman who looked slightly younger than Jo Minjoon, and her eyes were shining as she looked up at him.
“Thank you for saying that. This might sound strange coming from me, but I started dreaming of becoming a chef after watching you cook. You showed me how glamorous and stylish cooking could be. And today, I feel like I learned something else from you—the heart a chef should have. I’ll remember that.”
“…Thank you for thinking so highly of me. Let’s both keep working hard. Neither of us has reached the end of our road yet.”
The woman smiled despite her disappointment, then slowly turned and walked away. Rachel watched the departing applicants and spoke.
“Don’t let this discourage you. There is no failure in taking on a challenge unless you give up.”
The words were meant for those leaving, yet the person most affected by them was Anderson. There had been many times, as the world continued focusing its attention on Jo Minjoon, when Anderson had wondered whether Jo Minjoon had become a wall he could never climb over.
You don’t lose… until you give up.
With the apprentice selected, it was time to move on to the prep cooks. Of the fifteen applicants, four would become part of their kitchen family.
Perhaps because they were applying for a position above apprentice, most of them possessed reasonably solid skills. Only one had Cooking Level 4, nine were Level 5, and the remaining five were Level 6.
Level 4 seems a little low for someone applying as a prep cook.
The applicant looked to be around thirty, and Jo Minjoon suspected they might have accumulated restaurant experience without developing comparable technical skill. Naturally, his attention moved towards the applicants at Cooking Level 6. He could hardly help it. Unlike the numerical scores attached to dishes, Jo Minjoon understood the difference between cooking levels firsthand because he had climbed through those levels himself.
Even the difference between someone at the very peak of Level 5 and someone who had only just entered Level 6 was significant. Of course, someone already at the bottleneck of Level 5 might advance with a single insight, but no one could predict when that insight would arrive.
Rachel spoke.
“There’s a simple reason we’re selecting four prep cooks. Minjoon and Anderson, along with the two demi-chefs we’ll select later today, will each need an assistant. What we’re asking from you isn’t creativity. What we expect is much simpler: when you’re given a recipe, you must be able to follow it accurately and complete the dish without mistakes. But before we begin…”
A mischievous smile appeared on Rachel’s face.
“I want to ask all of you something. If you’re selected and assigned to assist one of the demi-chefs, who would you rather work under? Since we haven’t chosen the other two demi-chefs yet, I suppose your only options for now are Minjoon and Anderson.”
She phrased it like a joke intended to ease the tension, but both Jo Minjoon and Anderson immediately developed sharp looks in their eyes. Men had a tendency to become strangely competitive over childish things, and Jo Minjoon and Anderson were no exception.
Anderson looked towards Rachel.
“Teacher. Before they decide, may I make a campaign speech?”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
“Ahem.”
Anderson cleared his throat and stepped in front of the applicants. Jo Minjoon gave him a look that plainly asked, Do you really have to do this? For a brief moment, Anderson questioned himself too, but something inside him decided that he absolutely wanted to win.
He spoke in the friendliest voice he could manage, though coming from Anderson, it still sounded painfully awkward.
“I have a fairly stiff personality. However, that also means I won’t micromanage you. I’ll only interfere when I think something genuinely needs correcting. And…”
Anderson smiled meaningfully.
“I’ll promise you this. If you choose me and end up being selected, I’ll personally cook you a fine-dining dinner.”
The applicants immediately reacted with cheers and drawn-out “Oooohs.” Regardless of everything else, Anderson had been the runner-up on Grand Chef. He had also received elite culinary training at Glouto from childhood. Being personally served a fine-dining meal made by him sounded like a dream, and their faces filled with curiosity and anticipation.
Jo Minjoon glared at Anderson and stepped forward.
“If Anderson is making that kind of promise, then I suppose I don’t have much choice. I’ll treat whoever chooses me to fine dining as well. And honestly…”
Jo Minjoon smirked at Anderson.
“How can you properly understand a meal after tasting it only once? You need to try it at least twice if you want to compare and analyse it. So I’ll treat you twice.”
“…I agree. Then I’ll treat you three times.”
“Four.”
“Five.”
The two glared sharply at each other. Javier, who was watching the kitchen from the dining room, smiled as he spoke.
“Men turn into children whenever there’s a competition.”
“What?! Then will my uncle get younger?”
Ella sucked in a breath, her eyes widening in amazement. The unexpected question struck Javier so completely from the side that he had no idea how to respond, so Janet answered for him.
“He might even become younger than you.”
“Umm… can women get younger too?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. It probably depends on the person.”
Janet answered calmly. Ella looked relieved, as though one of the great mysteries of her life had finally been solved, but then her expression gradually became complicated.
“I think my mummy got younger too.”
“Why do you think that?”
Ella pressed her lips together and refused to answer. She could not. She had to protect her mummy’s dignity. Puffing out her cheeks, Ella thought solemnly,
That must be why Mummy uses strawberry-flavoured toothpaste.