Chapter 58: Travelling, Cooking and Business (4)
Chapter 58: Travelling, Cooking and Business (4)
Perhaps this was what it meant to feel overwhelmed.
Looking at the crowd in their colourful clothes, people from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures gathered in one place, Jo Minjoon felt excited and intimidated at the same time. The youngest PD approached him and asked, “Are you opening now?”
“Yes.”
The PD nodded and returned to the production staff. Martin was nowhere to be seen. Just as the contestants had been divided into three teams, the staff had also been split into three groups, and Martin had been assigned to Chloe’s team.
When the side door of the truck opened, the team members preparing to take orders stared outside in disbelief. Jo Minjoon understood exactly how they felt. He knew Grand Chef had influence, but he had never imagined this many customers would actually show up.
Jo Minjoon stepped back inside the truck and said, “How should we handle this? Two people on the counter and the other three keep making more? Rice takes thirty minutes to cook…… Hmm. What ingredients do we still have?”
“We’re out of beef, and there are only a few avocados left.”
“……Then take the hamburger and tuna-avocado rolls off the menu. We’ll have to use the rice we were saving for tonight. What about the other ingredients?”
“There’s some roasted tandoori chicken left. Will that still be okay?”
“Norimaki is eaten cold, but if we leave it too long, the quality will start dropping. Still, let’s see what we can use. Don’t we have anything else in storage?”
“No. We used everything.”
“I’ll wash more rice first. You keep taking orders.”
There was no time to waste. Four of them moved to the front display counter, wrapping orders and handing them over, while Joanne handled the orders and money. Truthfully, the other three were not particularly suited to customer service. Anderson was curt, Ivanna was absent-minded, and Peter…… was Peter.
Jo Minjoon could have served customers too, but he was the best among them at preparing the rice. Since cooking the rice was the longest part of making norimaki, it made more sense for him to start another batch immediately.
He hesitated over how much to make before deciding on enough for roughly a hundred people. That meant filling two of the three rice cookers. More customers might come, but if the crowd suddenly thinned out, they would have to absorb the loss.
They could always save leftover rice for that evening, but Jo Minjoon did not particularly like the idea. There was a clear difference between freshly cooked rice and rice that had sat for five hours. Even when stored properly, the flavour inevitably declined. At least half the customers had probably come because of Grand Chef, and he did not want to disappoint them. Most might not notice a small difference in the rice, but wanting to serve something even slightly better was simply part of being a chef.
“Minjoon, once you’re finished, take over the counter.”
“I’m done, but why me?”
“I want to prepare more pork barbecue. And……”
Joanne leaned close and whispered into his ear as though sharing an important secret. “People want you. You’re the star attraction.”
“……If you were trying to embarrass me, congratulations. You succeeded.”
The phrase star attraction gave him goosebumps for some reason. Jo Minjoon frowned, then forced a faint smile and moved to the counter.
The first customer standing in front of him was an Asian girl. Her smile was so wide that it looked almost painful.
“Hello! I’m a huge fan!”
“Thank you. You’re Korean.”
“Yes! I heard you were running a food truck around here, so I got in my car and came straight over.”
She was speaking Korean. Thinking about it, it had been a long time since Jo Minjoon had met another Korean, let alone spoken Korean with one. Catching the subtle scent of her perfume, he smiled and asked, “What would you like?”
“One tuna-avocado and one Korean-style roll. Two rolls should be enough to fill me up, right?”
“As long as you’re not a big eater. That’ll be four dollars fifty altogether.”
“Here. Please win! I’ll be cheering for you.”
Jo Minjoon smiled instead of answering.
She was far from the only customer who wanted more than just food. Many hesitated before asking questions, but even they would eventually speak while he was taking their money and handing over change. Unsurprisingly, the most common question was always the same.
“Be honest. What’s really going on between you and Kaya?”
At first, Jo Minjoon answered that there was nothing between them, but no one seemed to believe him. Then again, even the other contestants did not believe him.
That did not mean he could tell people what they wanted to hear. The truth was the truth. As far as Jo Minjoon was concerned, he and Kaya were simply friends, or at most something resembling an older brother and younger sister.
Not every comment was about Kaya. There were plenty of encouraging ones too.
“I’ve been watching you cook.”
“Please make us something good.”
“Are you confident you can win?”
Jo Minjoon answered each one as naturally as he could, but dealing with people continuously was exhausting in its own way. They were serving an average of two or three customers a minute, and most people bought two rolls each. After half an hour, more than half of the original three hundred rolls were already gone.
The first to sell out was, unsurprisingly, the pork barbecue. Americans’ fondness for barbecue pork was hardly a secret. The second item to disappear was the hamburger roll.
The poorest seller, however, was not what Jo Minjoon had expected.
He had assumed it would be the Korean-style norimaki, the kimbap. There were plenty of norimaki with fillings similar to Korean kimbap, but they had deliberately labelled theirs as Korean, and he had thought that unfamiliarity might make it risky.
Yet the kimbap was actually selling quite well, ranking just behind the top two.
The worst seller was the sea urchin roe roll. Even when they were designing the menu, Jo Minjoon had suspected it might not perform well. Sea urchin roe simply did not seem especially appealing to the average American customer. Fortunately, they had prepared less of it than the other varieties.
“The rice should be almost ready. Joanne! Once you’re finished with the barbecue, come take the counter.”
“Give me a minute. I’m almost done.”
Joanne did not even turn around when she answered. She was too busy.
The rolls kept disappearing, while the queue outside remained long. Compared with the beginning, the rush had become somewhat manageable, but if the line continued growing, their current stock would last no more than another thirty minutes.
“Done! Let’s switch.”
Joanne finally came over. Jo Minjoon finished the transaction in front of him and returned to the rice cookers.
The rice had turned out beautifully. Because he had washed it more thoroughly than usual, there was no unpleasant smell at all, and every grain retained a clean, distinct shape. It looked so good that he smiled without realising it.
“Anderson, are the fried prawns and karaage ready?”
“They’re draining in the strainers. Once the excess oil is gone, you can use them immediately.”
From the beginning, Anderson had not been rolling norimaki. He had been concentrating on preparing fillings instead. It was not too much for him to manage. With one person handling orders, as long as everyone else stayed continuously busy without falling behind, the pace remained manageable.
Should we put two people on the counter tonight?
It was difficult to decide. If they did that, the remaining three would have to focus entirely on rolling. If they wanted someone free to help wherever needed, as Jo Minjoon had done just now, keeping only one person on the counter was better. On the other hand, the line would move more slowly.
Maybe we should change the way we sell them……
It was not a problem he needed to solve immediately.
Jo Minjoon added vinegar and kombu stock to the rice, folding it carefully so the grains would break as little as possible. Damaging the rice would muddy its clean flavour.
After that, everything was simple: spread rice over the nori, add the fillings, and roll.
This batch focused on pork barbecue, karaage, and fried prawn. Of the ingredients they still had available, those were the three best-selling options, so they made twice as much pork barbecue as before.
Rolling that many pieces took a physical toll on Jo Minjoon and Anderson. The muscles in their arms tightened, while their bent necks gradually grew stiff.
So this is the exhausting part of restaurant work.
The higher the standard of a restaurant, the more often there were repetitive tasks that had to be performed continuously without breaking the flow. When Jo Minjoon had once worked as the junior cook in an upscale restaurant, he had seen the same thing. Someone might spend hour after hour simply cutting vegetables.
Strangely, Jo Minjoon found this exhaustion satisfying.
It was fatigue born from cooking, not merely preparation.
His cooking.
Their cooking.
He could hold a knife, use a pan, and make customers smile. Just that thought made something inside his chest feel warm.
Anderson stuck out his tongue and muttered, “………Let’s rest for a minute. We don’t need to roll all of these immediately. We can do them in batches. We’re rolling faster than they’re selling anyway.”
“You rest. I’ll do a little more.”
“If the team leader keeps working, how am I supposed to stop?” Anderson grumbled, but continued rolling beside him.
Jo Minjoon glanced over and smiled without meaning to.
It was temporary, but this was still their restaurant.
They had customers.
They had good teammates.
If, someday, he could have this kind of life in a restaurant of his own……
“I thought I was going to die.”
“Me too. Ah…… even talking feels exhausting now.”
At Ivanna’s flat complaint, Joanne sighed in agreement.
They had worked for a little over two and a half hours and sold every single roll without leaving so much as one behind. The sea urchin roe rolls had only disappeared because there was eventually nothing else left to buy; even after the newly prepared pork barbecue, karaage, and other rolls sold out, those had still remained until the end.
Jo Minjoon smirked. “Want to hear something funny?”
“………Judging by that smile, I doubt it’s funny. But go ahead.”
“In half an hour, we have to start preparing again.”
“……….”
Joanne stared at him speechlessly.
Ivanna looked just as grim beside her.
Anderson sighed. “I used to help my parents in their restaurant, but somehow this feels even more exhausting.”
“Standing still was work too. No, I think standing might actually have been the worst part. How does my back hurt more than my arms and legs when those were the parts moving?”
“Lean your heads back. In a little while, we won’t even have time to loosen our necks.”
At Jo Minjoon’s words, all four of them simultaneously tilted their heads back as though they had rehearsed it.
It was fortunate a camera was installed nearby. The sight was so ridiculous that it would have been a shame not to record it.
Massaging the back of his neck, Jo Minjoon said, “I wonder what the other teams made. If they had as many customers as we did, they probably couldn’t keep their queues under control either. Norimaki is about as simple as food gets, and even this was exhausting.”
“Oh, now that you mention it…… Around now…… Wait a second.” Joanne picked up her mobile phone.
The other four immediately understood what she was doing. Customers would be posting about the other teams too, and they certainly would not keep the menus secret. Whatever each truck was selling would already have leaked online.
Joanne stared at the screen for quite a while.
Peter, unable to endure the suspense, finally asked, “What? What is it? Hurry up and tell us.”
“Give me a second. I’m reading. First, Hugo’s team is selling cakes and coffee. Looks like they went with a coffee-truck concept. And Chloe’s team…… seems to be selling skewers or sandwiches. But that’s not the important part. Apparently, they had a fight.”
Jo Minjoon’s expression immediately turned serious.
“……Did Kaya cause trouble?”
Joanne shook her head.
She frowned at the screen as though she could hardly believe what she was reading.
“No. Chloe.”