Chapter 31: A Well-Made Dish and Good Food (2)
Chapter 31: A Well-Made Dish and Good Food (2)
Of course, considering that Chloe’s cooking level was 7, it was not strange for her to produce a 6-point dish. If she was in poor condition, something like that could easily happen. Yet even taking that into account, there was no trace of dissatisfaction on Chloe’s face. If she knew she had failed, there was no way she would look so unconcerned.
And Chloe was not such a poor chef that she could not tell whether or not she had failed at a dish. That was what confused Jo Minjoon even more. How could she look so relaxed after making a 6-point dish?
Jo Minjoon stared doubtfully at the soup. Just then, someone touched him on the back.
“What are you doing? Come sit down.”
It was Kaya. She had plated the grilled scallops herself. Soup, pasta, and the main dish of scallops were now all arranged on the table. Rather than a proper course meal, it looked closer to a Korean-style full meal with everything served together.
Since they were eating among themselves, there was no need to worry about serving order. Jo Minjoon took his seat. Marco put the dough into the oven, then walked towards the table and said, “It looks like a buffet.”
Kaya merely smiled. Jo Minjoon turned his attention to her dish. Perhaps she had simply cooked at her usual level, but her grilled scallops were worth 7 points. Their surfaces had been seared until they looked almost like butter-glazed custard pudding.
However, the first thing Jo Minjoon tasted was the potato soup. It was supposed to be the centrepiece of the meal, so naturally, he tried it first.
The soup was not as thick as a cream soup. Instead, its consistency reminded him of the broth from Korean gamja ongsimi or samgyetang. When he drank a spoonful of the brownish soup, its clean flavour and the aroma of spring onions spread through his mouth.
(Translator’s Note: Gamja ongsimi —A Korean soup containing small dumplings made primarily from grated potato and potato starch. It is particularly associated with Gangwon Province, a mountainous region where potatoes became an important staple. Gamja means “potato”, while ongsimi refers to the rounded dumplings.)
(Translator’s Note: Samgyetang —A Korean soup made from a whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice and commonly simmered with ginseng, garlic, and jujubes. It is traditionally eaten during the three hottest sambok days of summer according to the Korean practice of combating heat with hot, nourishing food.)
It was delicious.
But that was all.
It tasted like something he might have eaten somewhere before. It was neither particularly delicate nor particularly intense, sitting somewhere squarely in the middle.
“Wow, Chloe. This is delicious.”
At Kaya’s voice, Jo Minjoon could not help being surprised. Kaya was not especially talkative, and she was even worse at giving compliments. When Jo Minjoon saw that the soup had only scored 6 points, he had assumed Kaya would surely criticise it.
Yet the result was the complete opposite.
Jo Minjoon drank more of the soup with a puzzled expression. This time, he ate some of the mashed potato together with the buttercup greens. Again, it was only that good. It was perfectly enjoyable as a meal, but it lacked the strong impression Chloe’s cooking usually gave him.
At that moment, a thought occurred to Jo Minjoon.
Why does a dish have to impress me?
Perhaps he was overthinking something pointless. Now that he thought about it, the meat served at Korean barbecue restaurants rarely received very high scores either. When he remembered the restaurants he had eaten at back in Korea, most of their food would probably have been worth only 5 or 6 points.
But that did not mean the meat had tasted bad. No one eating it had been dissatisfied. It had been good food. Admittedly, calling simply grilling meat “cooking” might be stretching the definition, but no one would deny that it was food worth eating.
That made Jo Minjoon begin to question the scoring system itself. At first, he had assumed that, exactly as the name suggested, it simply assigned a score to food. But did that score really represent everything about a dish?
Once he started thinking that way, the word cooking itself began to bother him.
“Minjoon? What’s with that expression? Does it not taste good?”
Jo Minjoon, who had been lost in thought, came back to himself at Chloe’s voice. She was watching him anxiously. He gave an awkward smile. In that brief moment, countless thoughts ran through his mind, including whether he ought to tell her what he honestly thought.
But since this concerned cooking, he decided it would be better not to brush it aside. Besides, he wondered whether this might be why Chloe had been eliminated comparatively early despite her considerable skill.
Jo Minjoon opened his mouth. “It tastes good. But if I’m being honest, that’s all. Of course, it feels strange to judge your cooking this seriously when we’re just eating together, but I still feel a little disappointed. At the same time, I’m confused. It definitely doesn’t feel like a professional dish, but even so, I can’t say that it feels lacking either. This…”
“Isn’t it fine like this?”
The one who answered was not Chloe, but Kaya. She was licking her spoon like a sweet as she continued, “It’s simple, and that’s what makes it good. If you added this and that to a dish like this, it would only become excessive.”
“I think so too. But it still feels disappointing. Chloe, we’re cooking here because we need to eat, but also because we need to practise. Doesn’t that mean you’re thinking of making this kind of dish in the next mission?”
“That’s true, but… is that bad?”
Chloe tilted her head as she asked. Jo Minjoon did not want to say anything harsh to someone looking at him so honestly, but because he was her friend, he felt that he had to. It might be necessary if Chloe wanted to survive the competition.
“It’s difficult to explain, but let me put it this way. If you ask me what I think of this dish, I’m satisfied. I could probably eat it once a day and enjoy it every time. But if you ask whether this shows the full extent of your ability, then my answer is no. Even if a skilled chef puts frozen food in the microwave, the result will still only be average. I think this potato soup recipe is similar. No, perhaps potato soup itself is like that.”
“Mm…”
“What I mean is… potato soup might not be a very good dish for showing off your abilities.”
“…At least, this potato soup isn’t. It tastes good, but it’s more the kind of thing you simply eat comfortably. I think it’s closer to a familiar everyday meal than something you would serve as part of a course.”
At those words, Chloe fell into thought, touching her lips. She did not seem hurt by what he had said. Rather, she appeared to be treating it as a problem she had been given to solve.
But it was also a problem for Jo Minjoon. Even as he shared his thoughts with her, his voice had not been filled with confidence. The cooking score hovering before him was the reason.
That only made Chloe’s next question harder to answer.
“Then does that mean potato soup is a dish that shouldn’t be served in a restaurant? Because it can’t fully show a chef’s abilities or produce a professional flavour?”
Jo Minjoon had no immediate answer.
Was that really true?
Should a dish that had no room for improvement never be served in a restaurant? And even if that were true, who had decided such a rule?
Jo Minjoon could not find an answer. He had once worked in a restaurant, but only as the junior cook. He had carried the title of chef, but in reality, he had been little more than the person responsible for odd jobs. He did not know enough about how restaurants truly functioned to see through the issue.
In truth, Jo Minjoon wanted to agree with Chloe. If every type of cooking had a predetermined limit, and its value was decided by that limit, then he found the idea terribly sad. It was almost like saying that every person was born with a different value.
“I don’t know.”
In the end, that was all Jo Minjoon could say.
But Chloe did not blame him. Instead, she smiled brightly, warm and welcoming. It was a very Chloe-like smile.
“Then let’s think about it together. We have plenty of time.”
“…Yeah. Let’s.”
“First, let’s eat the pasta. At this rate, it won’t just get cold. It’ll get soggy.”
Chloe smiled and picked up her fork. Jo Minjoon smiled faintly and brought the aglio e olio he had made to his mouth.
The flavour had come out successfully. The spaghetti coated in oil carried a subtle aroma of garlic alongside the sharp heat of peperoncino. The most important element, however, was the salt. Personally, Jo Minjoon believed the key to seasoning aglio e olio was its saltiness: just enough for you to faintly register it. It was the sort of flavour Koreans could easily grow tired of.
But Jo Minjoon thought that anyone skilled enough to participate in Grand Chef should be able to appreciate such subtlety. Sure enough, a faint smile appeared on Chloe’s face.
“It’s a flavour that pushes and pulls.”
“That’s what I was aiming for. Something like a fluttering flavour? That kind of feeling. Marco, what about you?”
“…Honestly, I think it needs more seasoning. I’m used to eating salty food.”
“Then add some of that cheese over there. It should suit you better.”
“I was planning to.”
Marco wiped the sweat from his forehead and sprinkled some cheese over his pasta. The aroma immediately tickled his nose. Even though it was only being added to Marco’s own plate, the scent was that strong.
Was this the power of cheese?
Jo Minjoon ignored the temptation rising in one corner of his heart and twirled the noodles around his fork. Aglio e olio with cheese was an entirely different dish. At least, he wanted to keep believing that.
“It’s lacking.”
Kaya spoke abruptly, but Jo Minjoon was not surprised. It was fairly normal for her to grumble about food. If anything, he was glad to hear her reaction. Her extraordinary palate was, in some ways, a better ability than Jo Minjoon’s system. She alone could take a single bite and grasp the overall structure of its flavours.
“What’s lacking?”
“The overall balance. I think there’s too much parsley powder, and the noodles and oil haven’t come together properly. You should’ve added more pasta water. You rushed it too much.”
“Mm. I’ll remember that.”
He did not feel offended. Sometimes, being criticised made people resent the person pointing out their mistakes. But Kaya knew exactly what she was talking about, and she was pointing these things out for Jo Minjoon’s sake. Knowing that, he had no reason to feel bad. At the very least, he was not so petty as to resent her for it.
At the same time, however, he could not help wondering about something.
They were both 6-point dishes: Chloe’s potato soup and Jo Minjoon’s aglio e olio.
So why had Kaya said nothing negative about the potato soup, yet immediately pointed out everything lacking in his aglio e olio?
His question did not last long. It could not.
“Then start eating mine too, slowly. The flavour will fall apart if you leave it too long.”
Kaya stared anxiously at her scallops as though looking at a bedridden old man. Jo Minjoon laughed and put one into his mouth.
Naturally, it was delicious. Kaya’s skills had not gone anywhere. In the case of scallops, their flavour could sometimes become clearer once they had cooled slightly. The butter, just beginning to firm but melting again in his mouth, and the scallop itself, soft as a woman’s lips, were both thoroughly satisfying.
Kaya watched him with shining eyes. “How is it?”
“Same as always. There’s nothing to criticise.”
Jo Minjoon shrugged. Kaya turned towards Marco and Chloe. Chloe said nothing and merely smiled, which was answer enough.
Then Marco opened his mouth.
Kaya immediately tensed and looked at him, but what Marco said had nothing to do with her dish.
“I’m going to get the soufflé now. It should be ready.”
When Marco returned, he was carrying a chocolate soufflé dusted with white icing sugar like snow.
Chloe exclaimed, “Wow, Marco. Even the smell of your baking is perfect. Why did you come to Grand Chef? You should’ve gone to something like Grand Party City instead.”
“…But that doesn’t exist.”
Marco replied with a hopeless expression, then cut the soufflé with a cake knife and served a portion onto each plate.
Jo Minjoon was startled as he looked at it. It had been a while since he had seen food of this quality.
8 points.
Soufflé was a very simple dish, but just like aglio e olio, the difference in flavour could be like heaven and earth depending on the chef—or in this case, the pastry chef. That also meant it was the perfect dish for showcasing Marco’s abilities properly.
How would it taste?
Jo Minjoon cut off a piece with his fork. It was so soft that it could not even be compared to sponge cake, and as it tore apart, hot steam escaped from within, rich with the aroma of chocolate.
Jo Minjoon slowly brought it to his mouth.
Sweet, soft flavour spread across his tongue. There was a faint acidity to it, along with a dense, sticky richness, and the sensation seemed to overwhelm his entire mouth.
All Jo Minjoon could do was laugh happily.
Before he knew it, his concerns about the scoring system had drifted far away.