Chapter 67: Temptation of Three Stars (2)
Chapter 67: Temptation of Three Stars (2)
He couldn’t see the recipes. The system only displayed recipes for dishes whose cooking level was lower than his tasting level, and since everything before him had scored eight or nine points, that was still beyond him.
Looking around, Jo Minjoon realised the other four seemed to be experiencing much the same thing. Even with an ordinary palate, these were flavours that would be difficult to dislike. If the amuse-bouche alone was this impressive, then how good would the dishes that came afterwards be? You could usually judge a restaurant’s level to some extent by its opening course, and if things continued like this, they really might be about to have the best meal of their lives.
Joanne spoke absent-mindedly. “Anderson, shouldn’t you be used to this kind of thing?”
“To what?”
“Your parents’ restaurant. I heard it’s also a three-Michelin-star restaurant. Shouldn’t you at least be more accustomed to this kind of stimulation?”
“Wait, what are you talking about? Anderson’s parents own a three-star Michelin restaurant?” Jo Minjoon turned towards Anderson with a shocked expression.
It was something he had never heard before, but Anderson never got the chance to answer because the next dish arrived. Restaurants like this placed great importance on maintaining the flow of the meal, so it wasn’t surprising that the next course appeared almost as soon as they finished the amuse-bouche.
The first thing Jo Minjoon noticed was a round mound of caviar—Ossetra caviar, one of the more commonly eaten premium varieties. Lemon mayonnaise custard had been spread across the base of the plate, with kumquat jam on top. There were also soapberries simmered in sugar syrup, seaweed, and chive oil.
(Translator’s Note: Ossetra caviar — One of the principal traditional premium caviars associated historically with sturgeon from the Caspian and Black Sea regions. Ossetra eggs are generally noted for their firm texture and distinctive marine, often nutty flavour)
Honestly, the dish moved him less than the ones before it. Its cooking score was eight, and there was nothing wrong with the harmony of the seasonings. That wasn’t the problem. The moment he ate the caviar, its distinctive aroma spread through his mouth, and he simply wasn’t accustomed to it. To be honest, he found it slightly fishy.
……I’m still not much of a gourmet.
Jo Minjoon glanced at the others. Anderson and Peter seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit, while Joanne and Ivanna, after trying a little of the caviar, began focusing more on the jam and custard.
While Jo Minjoon was cleansing his palate, Martin asked carefully, “How is it, Minjoon? Can you give it a score?”
“……Martin. Even so, I think it would be too rude to score the food after coming all the way here.”
“Hey, that’s a customer’s right. What’s wrong with it?”
“Even if I’m a customer, I’m also their junior as a chef.”
“Chefs go to other restaurants and evaluate dishes all the time these days. Just do it once. Look, the chefs over there seem pretty interested too.” Martin pointed towards the kitchen at the side of the dining room. It was an open kitchen, so the entire scene inside could be seen clearly from the hall. A man who appeared to be the head chef stood there with his arms crossed, looking in their direction. Martin nudged one of the nearby staff members. “Go ask the head chef whether he minds Minjoon scoring his dishes.”
The answer came back quickly: he didn’t mind. If anything, he had been hoping Jo Minjoon would do it.
In the end, Jo Minjoon could only sigh and give his scores. “They’re all eight points, except for one. The gougère from the amuse-bouche was a nine. But personally, the paprika orange was the most delicious.”
“Oh, right. Now that I think about it, you aren’t scoring how much you like the food. You’re scoring the cooking itself.”
“Yes. Getting scores like this before the main course has even appeared means the chef’s skill is extraordinary. They were really excellent dishes.”
Almost as soon as he finished speaking, the next course arrived.
It was coconut-milk rice pudding topped with a hollow cylinder of ice. Inside the ice were grapefruit, caramelised grapefruit peel, basil, trout roe, roasted coconut, and pistachio. There was also one particularly familiar ingredient: a light dusting of roasted grain powder over the rice pudding.
The ice itself wasn’t ordinary either. It had been made from frozen ginger water. The presentation was something only modern cuisine could have produced.
Jo Minjoon admired it for a moment before becoming confused. He had no idea how he was supposed to eat it.
Elly, the server assigned to their table, explained softly, “You should break the ice cylinder, then mix everything inside together before eating it.”
“Oh, I understand.”
The moment Jo Minjoon broke the ice, he felt a pang of regret at destroying such a beautiful presentation, but there was nothing else to be done. The chef’s work would only be completed once the carefully arranged dish was broken apart and mixed together.
Nine points.
It was the second nine-point dish.
Unlike the gougère, however, it contained no unfamiliar ingredients. It was the sort of flavour that should have made him sigh in admiration while eating—no, there wasn’t even enough room in his mind for admiration.
As the ice melted, the fragrance of ginger spread through his mouth, followed by the trout roe bursting sharply against his tongue. The acidity of the grapefruit met the rice pudding and the melted coconut cream within it, producing a flavour that reminded him faintly of a mojito. It was refreshing and rich at the same time, lifting the entire dish without making it heavy.
Martin started to ask something, but Jo Minjoon immediately raised a hand.
“I’m begging you, don’t ask me questions right now. Ask me later, after I’m finished. Then I’ll answer you even if you tell me to stop talking. But for now, just let me concentrate on this.”
“……All right.”
With Jo Minjoon speaking that firmly, even Martin couldn’t force an interview on him.
The servers smiled brightly. There were few customers more pleasing to a kitchen than one who truly knew how to enjoy the food.
Jo Minjoon bit his lip.
He was angry.
There were dishes like this in the world, yet why had he spent so much of his life eating things that could hardly even be compared to them? And it wasn’t only him. Most people lived their entire lives without ever encountering cooking like this. Money was undoubtedly the greatest barrier, but even knowing that, the food was so delicious that he found reality itself difficult to accept.
The next course arrived without giving them any real time to recover. It felt like fighting one of those roly-poly dolls: knock one down, and another immediately sprang back up. Every time he thought he had finally recovered from one dish, the next appeared.
And yet every course that came was almost flawless. Even knowing this was a three-Michelin-star restaurant, Jo Minjoon still wondered whether it was truly possible for an entire tasting menu to proceed without a weakness. Everything he had always insisted should exist on a plate was here. He was experiencing firsthand the ideal he had always believed in—that a chef’s cooking had to be complete down to the smallest detail.
The next course was bread, scoring seven points. It came with two kinds of butter. One was ordinary butter shaped into a long, curved strand like a thick udon noodle, while the other was green butter blended with parsley and tarragon, rolled so beautifully that at first glance it almost looked like fruit.
After they finished the fist-sized bread, the next dish appeared immediately. Cucumber, green apple, cheese, onion, and a tapioca crisp were arranged on the plate, and then the head chef himself approached. His name was Dave. He personally poured hot orange consommé over each dish.
The flavour was, of course, excellent. Jo Minjoon had never imagined warm cucumber could taste this good. Heating it had softened some of the cucumber’s natural aroma, but that didn’t diminish the dish. Instead, the orange consommé filled the space left behind, while the green apple kept the overall flavour light.
The next dish was sous-vide salmon, served with olives, lemon-peel purée, cabbage, and potatoes as garnish. Sous vide was a method of cooking food at low temperatures for extended periods, sometimes as long as seventy-two hours.
Dave explained that this salmon had been cooked for twenty-four hours.
(Translator’s Note: Sous vide —A technique in which food is vacuum-sealed and cooked for an extended period at a precisely controlled temperature, often much lower than conventional cooking temperatures. Modern culinary sous vide was developed during the early 1970s. Bruno Goussault was experimenting with low-temperature vacuum cooking by 1971, while Georges Pralus famously applied the technique to foie gras at the Troisgros restaurant in 1974)
And that time was unmistakably reflected in the fish. The salmon was soft without falling apart, and it carried none of the unpleasant fishiness that could sometimes remain in the skin—only a clean, appetising aroma. It was the best salmon dish Jo Minjoon had ever eaten, which only made it more disappointing that the portion was barely larger than a single bite.
Each time a new dish arrived, the sommelier followed with a different wine and poured some into their glasses. But Jo Minjoon almost felt the wine wasn’t necessary. Even without the acidity and sweetness of alcohol cleansing his palate, the food itself already felt complete.
(Translator’s Note: Sommelier — A specialist responsible for wine selection, wine service, pairing recommendations, and often cellar management in professional restaurants. The modern restaurant position developed out of older French household and hospitality occupations and became closely associated with nineteenth- and twentieth-century European fine dining)
For Jo Minjoon, it was an entirely new world. How far could cooking be pushed? How original could a combination of ingredients become? How completely could a chef draw out an ingredient’s flavour? Sitting here, he felt as though he were learning the answers to all of those questions at once.
Then came a completely different problem.
“I’m going crazy,” Jo Minjoon said bitterly.
“What? Why? Is something wrong?”
The cameramen and staff immediately looked at him nervously. Had he found some fault with the food?
Jo Minjoon’s face twisted with genuine frustration. “I’m full.”
“……”
Joanne simply stared at him in silence.
Anderson frowned. “Now that you mention it, I’m starting to notice it too.”
“Do this.” Ivanna spoke up.
Sitting in her chair, she leaned her upper body to the right, then to the left, then back to the right again, swaying like the arm of a metronome.
Joanne looked at her as though she were witnessing something bizarre. “……What are you doing?”
“I saw this on television a long time ago. A person who ate a hundred and seventy pieces of sushi at once said this was the method. If you shake your body like this, the food in your stomach settles into place and creates more room.”
“Even so, that’s embarrassing. Stop it.” Joanne blushed harder than Ivanna herself and grabbed her to make her stop.
Ivanna looked at her with obvious dissatisfaction. Despite being twenty-two, she still had a surprisingly childish side.
“I told you a method because you said you were full.”
“……I don’t think even Minjoon would use that method.”
At Joanne’s words, Ivanna turned towards him as though asking whether that was really true.
Jo Minjoon awkwardly avoided her gaze.
Just then, the next dish arrived.
……Nine points.
He still hadn’t seen a ten-point dish. He had thought at least one might appear, but now that even the main course had arrived without reaching that score, perhaps it would be better to stop expecting one.
Of course, that didn’t mean this dish was anything less than extraordinary. Even when Jo Minjoon pushed himself into that almost supernatural state of concentration, the best he could produce was an eight-point dish. A nine-point dish was still far beyond him.
What appeared next was a perfectly cooked Wagyu steak accompanied by roasted salsify, mushrooms, matsutake, mashua, and finger lime. Finger lime, sometimes called caviar lime, was long and narrow like a finger, while the flesh inside consisted of tiny bead-like sacs that resembled fish roe.
(Translator’s Note: Wagyu — A collective term for designated Japanese cattle breeds renowned for their capacity to develop extensive intramuscular marbling. Modern Japanese Wagyu breeding was shaped during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the development and formalisation of domestic cattle lines.)
(Translator’s Note:Matsutake — A highly prized wild mushroom associated particularly with Japanese cuisine and valued for its strong, spicy, pine-like aroma. Matsutake has appeared in Japanese literary and culinary culture for more than a thousand years, including references from the classical Heian period (794–1185).)
(Finger lime — Citrus australasica — A citrus fruit native to the rainforests of eastern Australia. Its interior consists of separate bead-like juice vesicles that resemble fish roe, giving rise to the modern nickname “caviar lime”.)
Its acidity was naturally strong, like any lime, but a properly ripened finger lime also possessed a surprising sweetness. When that sweetness mingled with its sharp acidity, it produced an appealing flavour that was difficult to put into words.
Even so, Jo Minjoon tilted his head.
It was delicious, but somehow it felt arranged more as preparation for the next course than as a complete conclusion in itself.
And this wasn’t even an appetiser. It was a main course.
The portion was barely the size of two pieces of chewing gum.
Fine-dining restaurants might serve small portions to preserve the intensity of each flavour, but even so, this felt excessive.
Then Elly approached carrying another plate.
Jo Minjoon barely noticed the dish itself at first. He couldn’t. The system window beside it immediately seized all of his attention.
[Calf Cheek]
Freshness: 95%
Origins: Too many ingredients to display
Quality: High
Cooking Score: 10/10
His heart began pounding.
Jo Minjoon stared at the dish with the expression of a girl who had fallen hopelessly in love. Even Elly, who was setting down the plates, flushed slightly under the intensity of his gaze.
His voice trembled. “How…… should I eat this?”
There was no ice shell to break, no unusual arrangement that required explanation. He simply wanted to ask. He wanted to experience this moment as perfectly and clearly as possible.
Elly answered calmly. “The accompaniments on the two sides are different, so I recommend tasting the difference between them. Start with the left side.”
“Thank you.”
Only then did Jo Minjoon properly look at the plate.
As Elly had said, the two sides were composed differently. On the left were endive braised in red wine, sunflower seeds, raisins, black mint, chives, and a red-wine sauce. On the right were white-anchovy tempura and white-anchovy cream.
Jo Minjoon cut off an appropriate piece from the left side of the calf cheek, gathered as many of the accompaniments as he could onto it, and put everything into his mouth.
The flavour seemed to strike not his tongue, but his brain. His temple throbbed.
A faint trace of alcohol remained in the red-wine sauce. Its flavour and weight were thick and powerful, and once combined with the meat, it overwhelmed his tongue for an instant before allowing the texture and flavour of the calf cheek itself to emerge with even greater clarity.
The cheek seemed to have been slowly cooked in the oven. Its overall texture was soft and moist, yet the flavour remained so vivid that he could almost distinguish the individual fibres of the meat as he chewed. Every bite brought the sunflower seeds, herbs, and raisins into the flavour one after another, each asserting its own presence without overpowering the meat.
It felt like watching a 3D film after spending his entire life watching in 2D.
The dishes he had once considered complex suddenly seemed simple and flat by comparison.
Jo Minjoon forced down the emotions rising inside him and turned to the right side of the plate.
Tempura referred to Japanese-style battered and fried food. White anchovies were, simply put, a thicker type of anchovy. Beside the tempura sat a white-anchovy cream, alongside what seemed to be a perilla-based sauce and wine sauce.
Jo Minjoon cut the tempura and calf cheek into suitable pieces, added some of the white-anchovy cream, and put everything into his mouth.
His face immediately contorted.
Not because it tasted bad.
Because it was too delicious.
The flavour was so overwhelming that it felt as though it might crush him. The anchovy hidden inside the crisp yet tender tempura met the calf cheek, and when the smooth white-anchovy cream wrapped itself around both, the resulting taste was beyond comparison.
Normally, satisfaction would make someone smile.
But simply lifting the corners of his mouth wasn’t enough to express what he felt. Every muscle in his face tightened instead.
Then, suddenly, tears began to fall.
This time, his eyes weren’t merely damp as they had been before. He was actually crying.
Jo Minjoon hurriedly wiped the tears from his flushed face with a handkerchief.
And the moment he did, a series of system messages appeared before him.
[You have eaten a dish that brought a chef’s abilities to their utmost limit.]
[You comprehended the flavour of the dish in every aspect. Your horizon of taste has broadened significantly.]
[Your tasting level has increased!]