Chapter 68: Temptation of Three Stars (3)
Chapter 68: Temptation of Three Stars (3)
Normally, a notification like that would have made him overjoyed. But right now, the number itself mattered less than the deep emotions that had passed across his tongue, which still lingered with extraordinary clarity.
Jo Minjoon picked up a piece of red-wine bread and used it to wipe up every last trace of sauce from the plate. Cleaning a plate so thoroughly that not even a drop remained was a greater compliment than a hundred words.
Elly collected the empty plates with a smile.
With the main course over, a strange mixture of fulfilment and reality finally settled over him. Jo Minjoon laughed awkwardly. No matter how delicious the food had been, the fact that he had actually cried was still embarrassing.
Anderson spoke calmly. “If all you have to pay for something that delicious is a few tears, that’s pretty cheap.”
“……But we are paying. The production staff are covering the bill, aren’t they?”
“You’re so stingy. Then think of it as a tip. A tip paid in tears.”
Jo Minjoon was just about to answer back when the servers approached again. This time, the plate was round with raised sides, almost like a shallow soup bowl. Inside were frozen cranberries and caramelised cranberries, roasted rye breadcrumbs, and a toasted meringue topped with sage.
They thought it looked rather heavy for a dessert, but then another server arrived carrying plates in both hands. Pine needles had been spread across each plate, with seasoned ice resting on top. The server transferred the ice onto their dessert plates one by one.
Honestly, there probably wasn’t much practical difference between placing the ice there beforehand and adding it at the table. In the end, it was a matter of service. Watching a dish being completed before your eyes was part of the experience.
The flavour wasn’t dramatically different from what its appearance suggested. The most interesting point was that the aroma of the pine needles had infused the ice, but after everything they had already eaten, something like that was no longer enough to astonish them. It felt less like a dish designed to overwhelm and more like a course intended to cleanly organise and settle the flavours left in the mouth.
Once they had finished, iced coffee was served with poached pear. Inside were ganache made from chocolate and cream, crisp cardamom and elderflower, and tamarind juice. With spices such as cardamom and tamarind included, the overall flavour carried a distinctive character that reminded him of South and Southeast Asian cuisine.
(Translator’s Note: Ganache —A preparation of chocolate and cream that may be used as a filling, glaze, sauce, or confectionery centre depending on its proportions. Ganache became established in French confectionery during the nineteenth century.)
“……This is delicious too.” Jo Minjoon laughed.
There hadn’t been a single obvious mistake throughout the entire course. No, perhaps this was simply a level at which mistakes were no longer acceptable. Every dish had been excessively delicious, and the head chef’s meticulousness and boldness were both clearly reflected in the food.
Someday, I’ll also……
It was the kind of meal that naturally made him think that way.
The next dessert was caramelised sudachi. Sudachi was a Japanese citrus fruit sometimes referred to in Korea as yeonggyul. The dish was predominantly yellow. At the bottom was a translucent, almost fluid sudachi curd that felt softer than cream.
(Translator’s Note: Sudachi —A small aromatic Japanese citrus fruit particularly associated with Tokushima Prefecture on Shikoku. It is usually harvested while green and used for its juice and fragrance rather than eaten as a sweet fruit. Commercial cultivation became especially important in Tokushima during the twentieth century, although the fruit has a much older history in Japan.)
On top of the sudachi curd were roasted cashews, Asian pear, nasturtium, green-apple jelly, and celery. The sudachi aroma wasn’t overwhelming; instead, it seemed to form the foundation of the dish. The nuttiness of the cashews, the sweetness of the pear and jelly, and the fresh acidity of the sudachi curd came together into an elegant, luxurious flavour.
(Translator’s Note: Nasturtium —An edible flowering plant native to the Andean regions of South America, particularly Peru and neighbouring areas. It was brought to Europe during the sixteenth century following Spanish contact with the Americas. Both its leaves and flowers have a distinctive peppery flavour and are widely used as edible garnishes.)
The desserts continued. There was lemon mint, frozen chestnut powder, vanilla cream and milk jam, chestnut purée with chocolate pastry, and a chocolate shell filled with caramel popcorn coated in liquid caramel. Branches and dried medicinal herbs decorated the plate. Once they had eaten the chocolates one by one, the meal finally came to an end.
The meal itself had lasted almost two and a half hours. None of the individual portions had been large, but eating continuously for that long had filled their stomachs surprisingly well. It felt almost like eating three packets of instant noodles in one sitting.
Looking around, Jo Minjoon saw that the others were in much the same state. Peter, who was naturally slim and had a small appetite, was breathing with some difficulty.
“Now, even if they told me one dish cost a thousand dollars, I wouldn’t eat it. No, I couldn’t.”
“……I don’t know. If they actually brought it out, I think you’d eat again. Anderson, you look pretty comfortable.”
“This amount of food isn’t much. Your stomachs are just small.”
Jo Minjoon didn’t bother arguing. Anderson was right. He himself wasn’t exactly a big eater.
Just then, Martin looked towards him. “You should have had plenty of time to enjoy yourselves by now. So, how do you feel? Will an interview be too difficult?”
“Let’s do it. What do you want to know? No, actually, there’s no need to ask. There was a ten-point dish. Only one, but that alone was enough to make this the best meal of my life.”
“……There was?” Martin looked genuinely surprised. Honestly, he had expected the highest score to be nine. Considering the absolute sense of taste Jo Minjoon had demonstrated so far, Martin had assumed that a ten-point score would only suit some almost transcendent dish.
Ten points was only a number in name. To Jo Minjoon, it represented the absolute highest score, a dish that didn’t even need further evaluation. Martin had never been sure something like that truly existed in the world.
But there wasn’t even a trace of hesitation on Jo Minjoon’s face.
Martin leaned forward slightly, his voice becoming more excited. “Which dish was it? Ah, no. Never mind. I think I know. It was that one, right? The white anchovy and calf cheek?”
There was hardly any need to guess. Jo Minjoon had only reacted strongly enough to cry once.
He nodded.
Martin let out a pleased exclamation. “That makes sense. Even among food critics, that dish has an excellent reputation. It’s considered the signature dish that helped this restaurant reach three stars……”
“It was that kind of dish. I already told you it was ten points. But it was also a hundred points. It was so complete that scoring it almost felt meaningless. It actually made me want to go to France and study.”
Jo Minjoon’s face was completely serious, without even a trace of laughter. Anyone looking at him could tell how deeply the meal had affected him.
Martin turned towards the other four. “Do you agree?”
“I can’t assign it a numerical score, but I agree that there wasn’t anything I could point out as a flaw. At the very least, I think it reached the limit of what a chef can do.” Anderson answered in a firm voice.
Martin was already thinking about how he could use the footage when a tall, heavily built man approached their table. It was Dave. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. His long brown hair was tied back, exposing his face clearly enough that he looked almost like a celebrity.
Dave glanced briefly at Jo Minjoon before looking around at the whole group.
“Was everything to your liking?”
“Yes. It was excellent.”
“The best meal of my life.”
A smile appeared on Dave’s face at their compliments. He spoke slowly.
“When I received a call from Chef Rachel, I was honestly surprised. She had never once asked me to do something like this before. But……”
Dave met Jo Minjoon’s eyes.
Jo Minjoon didn’t look away. If anything, his own eyes brightened as he stared back. This was a chef who wasn’t even forty yet and had produced a ten-point dish. There was no way Jo Minjoon could look at him without respect.
Dave’s cooking level was also nine. That put him on the same level as Joseph. Of course, there would still be differences even between people at the same level……
“So this is the programme featuring the man with an absolute sense of taste. I don’t watch much television, but I’ve heard quite a lot about you and your ability. I also watched the video. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Minjoon.”
“No. The pleasure is mine. It was an incredible dish. The best I’ve ever had in my life. Thank you.” Jo Minjoon firmly shook the hand Dave offered him.
The corner of Dave’s mouth lifted. “Did anything score ten points?”
“Yes. The calf cheek. It was ten points. And it was the first ten I’ve ever seen.”
“……Good. That makes me feel almost as pleased as being acknowledged by Chef Rachel.”
Jo Minjoon laughed awkwardly. It felt rather burdensome for Dave to place such weight on his praise, but honestly, he didn’t dislike it.
“Someday…… I’ll show you a dish like this too.”
“You will. In this world, taste matters more than you think. The ability you possess is extraordinary. I hope you use it well.”
Jo Minjoon only smiled without answering.
The van returning to the Grand Chef house was silent. There was no particular reason for it. The other four had simply fallen asleep.
Jo Minjoon closed his eyes and began recalling the dishes he had eaten that day.
If I tried to reproduce them…… how close could I get to the original flavours?
Honestly, it would be difficult without being able to read the recipes. Now that his tasting level had risen to eight, he could read the recipes of eight-point dishes, but nine-point dishes were still beyond his reach. He could identify ingredients regardless of the score, but he could only access complete recipes when their cooking level was equal to or below his tasting level.
It was a world where a single drop of sauce could change everything, where even the briefest difference in the time an ingredient spent over heat could completely alter the result. What he had experienced today was only a fragment of that world.
For some reason, Kaya’s face came to mind.
Kaya would have loved this if she’d tasted it.
Perhaps she would have enjoyed it even more than Jo Minjoon had. Unlike him, who hadn’t been born with any extraordinary ability, Kaya possessed an innately exceptional palate, yet her circumstances growing up had made it difficult for her to eat truly excellent food. Perhaps the best things she had ever tasted were simply the dishes she had cooked herself.
She had a tasting level of ten and an incredibly sensitive, delicate tongue, yet she had grown up largely eating her own cooking. If she had tasted Dave’s food…… perhaps the shock would have been far greater than what Jo Minjoon himself had experienced.
Jo Minjoon touched his phone.
He wanted to call her, but she was probably still in the middle of the elimination challenge. In the end, he sent a message instead.
[Me: What are you doing?]
The reply came only a few seconds later.
[Kaya: In the middle of the elimination challenge.]
[Me: What’s the mission?]
[Kaya: Apple pie. Everything from the dough.]
[Kaya: They’re judging now. Marco’s pie.]
Apple pie for Marco.
That was a mission Jo Minjoon hardly needed to worry about.
He sent another message.
[Me: The food was really delicious. I wish you could’ve come.]
[Kaya: Are you making fun of me?]
[Me: I’m serious. It’s a shame you missed it. Should I try making an inferior copy later so you can taste something similar?]
[Kaya: Want me to teach you what a bullet tastes like?]
Jo Minjoon hadn’t even intended to tease her, but apparently she was genuinely annoyed. The taste of a bullet. Even the scale of threats was different in America.
He smiled bitterly and stared at the phone for a moment. Then another message arrived.
[Kaya: ……It’s not like I’m actually going to shoot you. You’re not stupid enough to misunderstand that, right?]
It was obvious she had sent the follow-up because she was worried he might take her seriously.
At first, Kaya had seemed like nothing more than a prickly girl who knew how to swear, but the longer he knew her, the more clearly he saw her childish side. She had also been the one who kept pestering him because she thought he had ignored her over the whole norimaki incident.
If he replied carelessly now, she might end up feeling hurt again.
[Me: Why are you suddenly acting shy? If you’re going to act tough, then stay tough until the end. What’s with this? It’s not like you.]
[Kaya: Because you’re usually so sensitive.]
Jo Minjoon frowned.
Sensitive?
As far as he remembered, he had never behaved that way. Of course, he was the type to point out a napkin left on the table or notice when someone’s clothes weren’t clean, but he didn’t think that was enough to call him sensitive.
He was in the middle of typing a rebuttal when another message arrived.
[Kaya: Oh, someone got eliminated.]
[Me: Who?]
[Kaya: That person.]
It was a short reply, and not a helpful one.
Jo Minjoon stared at the screen before typing again.
[Me: How am I supposed to know who you mean from that? Tell me properly. Who got eliminated?]
No reply came.