Chapter 187: The Return of the Legend (2)
Chapter 187: The Return of the Legend (2)
“Haha…… That’s quite a lot of confidence.”
Even Matthew, with his many years of experience, could not help being taken aback for a moment by that response. He was not the only one. Some of the chefs and audience members laughed, while others stared at Jo Minjoon in admiration.
Matthew asked the question everyone wanted answered.
“I’m curious where that confidence comes from. Is it the name of Rose Island?”
“Is there any tree in the world with only a single root? Confidence is the same. And besides, the name Rose Island gives us more of a sense of responsibility than confidence.”
“Then……”
Chloe suddenly interjected, asking with a beautiful smile, “What would you say is your thickest root, Minjoon?”
“For me……”
Jo Minjoon stopped for a moment. His eyes wandered uncertainly before turning towards the ceiling.
He did not need long to think.
“I’d have to say my teammates.”
“You do realise that’s a very typical answer, right?”
“It has to be typical. Universal answers like that tend not to be wrong.”
“Your old-fashioned personality hasn’t changed at all.”
Jo Minjoon simply smiled at Chloe’s response.
The question-and-answer session continued with the other teams. Interestingly, more teams mentioned Rose Island than did not.
One of the most memorable responses came from the leader of Glouto’s demi-chef team.
“Our Head Chefs gave us one special instruction.”
“What instruction?”
“They said they don’t care if we don’t win. Just make sure we don’t lose to a kid like Anderson.”
Anderson grabbed his forehead as though he had developed a headache and looked resentfully towards the audience.
It was not difficult to find Amelia and Fabio. Both of them had their fingers in their mouths and were whistling loudly in approval.
Janet spoke as though deliberately rubbing salt into the wound.
“You have wonderful parents, don’t you?”
“……Don’t rub it in. It’s annoying.”
The other teams said much the same thing.
They wanted to surpass the legend of Rose Island.
Quite a few even growled that they would knock Jo Minjoon’s confidence down a peg.
But Minjoon was not nervous.
……First of all, there isn’t anyone here with Cooking Level 9.
When he thought about it, that was hardly surprising. Cooking Level 9 was not something that appeared easily.
There were, however, quite a few Level 8 chefs. Almost enough to fill all ten of his fingers.
Lee Tae Hoon, the Korean man who had greeted Jo Minjoon earlier, was one of them.
Even so, no team was as strong as Rose Island when their average levels were taken into account.
They had two Level 8 chefs and two Level 7 chefs.
There was no reason for Minjoon to be worried.
But he still needed to stay focused.
Lowering your guard was how unexpected results happened.
Jo Minjoon looked at the other three members of his team.
“There’s no reason for us to lose. Teacher Rachel’s recipe is perfect, and we’ve practised enough. What we need to aim for isn’t simply victory…… We need to let everyone know that Rose Island is truly back. We have to show them the most overwhelming presence possible. Even if we have to draw out every last bit of our souls, we need to be the best versions of ourselves we’ve ever been.”
“……You really are confident.”
“I already told you. I trust you.”
Jo Minjoon answered with an expression that seemed to ask why she even needed to question it.
Looking at him, Janet felt something stir inside her chest.
Trust.
It was a word that had been absent from her mind for many years.
She had never expected anyone to accept her so naturally as a teammate.
Jo Minjoon did not care that Janet was a female chef.
But it was not only Jo Minjoon. Anderson and Javier did not discriminate against her for being a woman either.
Nor did they try to help her because of it.
They simply treated her as another chef.
……I need to show them too.
She needed to prove that she was every bit as strong a chef as they believed her to be.
*
“The judging will be carried out by eleven food critics. We cannot reveal their identities until the dishes are complete. Please prepare food capable of winning over any judge, regardless of who they are!”
“You have exactly thirty minutes to cook. Is there anyone who hasn’t finished setting up yet?”
No one answered.
Chloe nodded and raised her voice.
Her heart was pounding.
Although the setting was different, she was now getting to say the very words the judges had once said to her when she had competed on Grand Chef.
“Start cooking!”
The moment Chloe shouted with an excited expression, every kitchen brigade sprang into motion.
Rose Island probably had the most distinctive workstation.
Their station was filled with various pieces of molecular gastronomy equipment.
Janet’s appetiser began as a salad that had been liquefied and then set into a jelly using gelatin. Afterwards, she would sprinkle sugar over the surface and caramelise it, creating a brittle, crunchy layer like thin candy over the jelly.
Anderson’s dish did not use molecular gastronomy at all. He was personally preparing shrimp balls and carrot gnocchi dough before cooking them, then plating them with a shrimp bisque made from the shells as a sauce and finishing the dish with a garnish of peas.
Javier’s dish combined traditional cooking with molecular gastronomy.
He lit the charcoal they had brought to grill an eel, while preparing boiled lentils to place underneath it. He would then top the eel with jellied soy sauce and finish the dish with a foamed ginger cream.
It was a reinterpretation of Japanese grilled eel.
As for Jo Minjoon……
I never imagined there would come a day when I’d be holding a syringe in the middle of a cooking competition.
His dish was a variation of the jelly spaghetti he had made for the tasting.
Rachel’s recipe was simple.
First, boil water with agar, then add white chocolate and coconut liqueur and let the mixture reduce slightly.
After that came the same process Minjoon had used before to make jelly spaghetti: draw the liquid into a syringe, inject it into a tube, then cool it in ice water.
The resulting chocolate spaghetti was so white that it resembled ordinary pasta.
On top, he would add a carbonated strawberry sauce with pieces of strawberry to imitate tomato sauce, while several raisins would represent meatballs.
Fake spaghetti.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary plate of spaghetti, but its flavour was completely different.
Dishes like this were known as fake dishes.
It was the kind of food that even experienced food critics were always excited to try.
Jo Minjoon began by preparing the strawberries.
There were two ways to carbonate fruit. One was to use a siphon or an iSi foaming device to force carbonation into it. The other was to place the fruit over dry ice.
(Translator’s Note: iSi siphon / culinary siphon — A pressurised whipping siphon used in professional and modernist cooking to aerate creams, sauces, foams, and other liquids, usually with nitrous oxide cartridges. The Austrian company iSi traces its industrial development to the nineteenth century, while pressurised cream whippers became common professional kitchen tools during the twentieth century. Modernist and molecular gastronomy later expanded their use beyond whipped cream to savoury foams and “espumas”.)
Jo Minjoon chose the latter.
The strawberries meant for the sauce and those meant for decoration were cut to different sizes.
After arranging them over the dry ice, he needed to quickly begin preparing the filling for the chocolate spaghetti.
Most of the audience’s attention was fixed on Rose Island.
That was not simply because of the restaurant’s name.
There were other teams using molecular gastronomy as well, but none relied on it as heavily as Rose Island.
There was something fascinating about watching a restaurant that represented the glory of the past embrace such modern cooking techniques.
“Little Anderson’s gotten much better at making dough.”
“Of course he has. He needs to be at least that good. Have you forgotten whose son he is?”
Amelia and Fabio were not even watching Glouto’s demi chefs.
Their attention was entirely focused on Rose Island.
More precisely, they were focused on Anderson, though their eyes occasionally wandered towards the others.
After Anderson, the person who attracted their attention most was Jo Minjoon.
His cooking was the most unusual, and he had more responsibilities than anyone else.
He not only had to prepare his own dish, but also monitor the condition of the other team members.
Fabio spoke with a hint of envy.
“Minjoon really does have strong command of a kitchen. Maybe it’s because of his excellent palate. He can taste something once and immediately figure out what’s wrong.”
“Our Anderson needs to become like that too.”
“He just hasn’t had the chance yet. If he gets the opportunity, he’ll do well.”
“But Minjoon will still be better.”
A husky voice suddenly cut in from beside them.
Amelia and Fabio frowned and turned, only to look confused.
A woman with long, black, curly hair was sitting next to them. She wore large sunglasses and a mask that covered her mouth.
There was no way to tell who she was.
The woman lowered her sunglasses slightly.
Even then, Amelia and Fabio still failed to recognise her.
Only after she pulled down her mask did their eyes widen.
“Kaya. It was you.”
“It’s been a while. I’ve been watching everything you’ve been doing with interest.”
“Everything? I haven’t really done much.”
“Well. You know…… Is that mask the same one you wore that time?”
Kaya’s face immediately flushed as she realised what Amelia meant.
Amelia burst out laughing, and Fabio subtly elbowed her in the side before smiling at Kaya.
“So, who are you here to cheer for today? The Grand Chef restaurant? Or Rose Island?”
“Both.”
“Ay, you can’t answer like that. There has to be one side you’re supporting more.”
“……I suppose the Grand Chef restaurant?”
It was an unexpected answer.
Amelia looked at her in confusion.
“That’s surprising. You’re not taking Minjoon’s side?”
“I don’t know.”
Kaya shrugged.
Truthfully, the reason she wanted the Grand Chef restaurant to win was also because of Jo Minjoon.
She wanted to see him disappointed.
She wanted to console him and hug him tightly afterwards.
She also wanted the satisfaction of being able to say, We beat you, and to remain the main character he had once said he admired as a chef.
“What about the two of you? Do you want Glouto to win? Or do you want Rose Island to win with Anderson as the star?”
“Glouto, obviously. Watching your child grow is enjoyable only until they reach about chest height. Once they grow taller than you, they start becoming a little disgusting.”
“……I’m taller than my mum too.”
“What a shame. You ended up becoming a disgusting daughter.”
“It’s fine. Minjoon tells me I’m pretty.”
Amelia looked at Fabio after Kaya said that.
Fabio merely stared back, wondering why she was looking at him.
Amelia sighed.
“Fine. I lose there.”
“When exactly did the two of you start competing?”
“……Honey. Could you do me a favour and just shut up?”
Fabio immediately closed his mouth and mimed zipping it shut.
Amelia looked back at Kaya and spoke challengingly.
“Just wait. My son is going to crush your boyfriend.”
“Hmph. Minjoon isn’t that weak.”
“For someone who isn’t weak, I seem to remember my son beating him on that recent Food critic programme.”
She was referring to the competition they had held during Hunger Trip.
Kaya could not argue against that.
Behind her mask, she twisted her lips and muttered irritably.
“Just wait. Today, Minjoon will definitely beat Anderson.”
Fabio finally murmured in disbelief.
“Um…… They’re on the same team……”