Chapter 78: Spring, Spring, Spring (2)
Chapter 78: Spring, Spring, Spring (2)
Jason Bean: Rose Island… I want to go there too. How much would it cost?
Sophia Chen: It depends on the branch, but for the one in Chicago, around $300 per person should be enough. If you just want to go to a three-star restaurant and it doesn’t have to be Rose Island, there are plenty of places that cost about half that.
Jason Bean: @Sophia Chen Compared to the value of the name, that’s not as expensive as I expected. I thought it would cost at least a thousand dollars.
Sophia Chen: @Jason Bean A restaurant that charges a thousand dollars… Unless you order something extremely expensive, I think it would be hard to find a place like that.
Tomos Surrey: There’s quite a bit of romance in the food truck episode too. Peter talking with Jo Minjoon was cool. It had that feeling of comrades sharing their friendship before going off to war. Well, even so, that doesn’t erase the fact that Peter insulted Kaya over her past.
Dante Miles: Honestly, I understand what you mean, but I can’t sympathise with him. Whatever situation he was in, he still made me feel bad.
Sienna A.: Personally, I thought Anderson really showed how experienced he was during the food truck mission, and it was good to see. I was also moved when Chloe stepped in for Kaya.
Luke Joe: Yeah, that part was good. All the irritation I felt watching those jerks disappeared when I saw how Chloe reacted. She seems genuinely kind. I want to be her friend.
Kaya Lotus: I’m Kaya.
Glori Castillo: Then I’m Jo Minjoon.
Kaya Lotus: @Glori Castillo So you’re sitting next to me right now?
Gina Carr: @Glori Castillo Don’t respond to every idiot like this. There are plenty of people who act that way because they’re desperate for attention.
Kaya Lotus: @Gina Carr I’m still Kaya.
Roy Sherfan: I’m going to marry Kaya.
Wretic: I think Jo already took her.
Roy Sherfan: @Wretic I’ll take her back.
Pat Fiasco: Anyway, I never thought I’d see Rachel on television again. I thought she’d remain nothing more than a memory from when I was a kid, so it’s nice to see her again like this. I think the ratings are going to climb really high too.
K.R.R: I think it already went over one-third. What surprised me even more than her appearance was how interested she seemed in Jo Minjoon. I heard every chef Rachel taught received at least one Michelin star. Minjoon’s future looks bright.
Pat Fiasco: @K.R.R It would be nice if Minjoon and Kaya opened a restaurant together. And then got married.
Tess Gilly: I have something to say. When I was in middle school…
“Almost everything is about Minjoon and Kaya.”
After reading through the comments, Chloe put her mobile phone back into her pocket. Even though she tried not to let it bother her, she could not completely suppress a faint sense of disappointment.
I’m doing my best too.
She muttered it only in her heart, so there was no way anyone else could hear.
It was not as though Chloe was unpopular. She had both personality and ability, and plenty of viewers liked her. But Jo Minjoon and Kaya’s popularity was overwhelming. Anderson also seemed to have more fans than she did. Of course, ranking them like that was meaningless, but seeing the difference still left her feeling somewhat frustrated.
It was spring, not autumn, so why did she feel so gloomy?
Chloe pressed both cheeks with her hands and pushed her lips out like a fish. Joanne and Ivanna, who had been watching her from nearby, exchanged a glance before walking over.
Joanne asked, “Why do you look so down?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just tired.” Chloe laughed, but it was a weak laugh.
Ivanna pulled a chocolate bar wrapped in plastic from inside her clothes and held it out to Chloe. “Eat. It’ll give you some energy.”
“…Thanks.”
Chloe peeled off the wrapper and took a bite. A biscuit hidden beneath the chocolate crumbled softly between her teeth, and there was cream inside as well.
She looked impressed.
“Did you make this?”
“No. Sasha made it for me.”
“I should ask her to make me some too.” To combine chocolate and cream this smoothly was impressive. Chloe smiled. “I think everything Sasha makes has been getting better lately.”
“You think so too? I thought the same thing.” Joanne sounded surprised.
Chloe finished the chocolate with a much brighter expression and even licked the chocolate from her fingers.
At that moment, Kaya and Jo Minjoon came up the stairs and entered the kitchen.
Chloe simply watched them in silence, but Joanne spoke. “Looks like Kaya’s making breakfast again. If they keep this up, aren’t they going to start dating? At this point, even I’m getting confu—ow! What was that?”
Joanne stopped mid-sentence and looked resentfully at Ivanna.
Ivanna brought the hand she had used to pinch Joanne’s waist up to her mouth and made a quiet shh gesture. Then she glanced subtly towards Chloe.
Joanne looked at Ivanna’s finger, then at Chloe’s back as she continued staring towards the kitchen. A strange expression came over her face.
“…Seriously?”
“Yeah. Chloe likes Minjoon.”
“What?!” Chloe, who had been staring blankly ahead, jolted and turned around.
Joanne covered her face with one hand. She had pinched Ivanna precisely so she would show some tact, only for Ivanna to say it in the same calm voice she used for everything.
Chloe hurriedly waved both hands, her face turning red. “Now you’re trying to drag me into that too? No, seriously, it’s not like that.”
“Okay.” Ivanna replied in her usual sleepy voice, as though the answer did not particularly matter either way.
Chloe abruptly stood up in an exaggerated motion. “Let’s go ask Sasha to make more of this. It’s delicious. Aren’t you coming? We should probably eat breakfast soon too.”
Neither of them answered.
All Chloe could see was the suspicion in Joanne’s eyes.
Her expression became almost tearful.
-
Rose Island’s Chicago branch had been flooded with reservation calls ever since the episode showing Jo Minjoon’s visit aired.
Of course, it was a three-star restaurant, so getting a table without booking well in advance had never been easy. But things had become ridiculous now. So many calls were coming in that even if someone rang a thousand times, perhaps only one call would get through.
For Dave, it was difficult to know whether he should be pleased or worried.
Having more customers was obviously good, but the surge in attention also meant that regular patrons were struggling even to get through on the phone, much less secure a reservation.
Worse, there would undoubtedly be people who booked in the heat of excitement and then cancelled once the actual date arrived. Perhaps that would still be preferable. If they failed to cancel and simply never showed up, the restaurant would be left wasting ingredients and preparation.
There were more than a few restaurants that had suffered badly because of cancelled or abandoned reservations, so it was hardly strange that Dave looked worried.
His expression brightened, however, when the youngest chef leaned in and whispered something to him.
Dave immediately left the kitchen and headed towards a private room. The moment he saw the people seated inside, his face lit up.
“Oh, God. Joseph, Alan, and Emily too! You actually came.”
The three stood and greeted him in turn.
He shook hands with Joseph and Emily, but when he reached Alan, the two embraced instead. There had been a time when Alan and Dave had worked in the same kitchen.
Alan spoke calmly. “This is the first time I’ve come since you got three stars, right?”
“Seems like it. Have you been well?”
“Same as always. Though I think I’d be doing even better if I got one more star.”
Dave smiled and took their orders, although calling it an order was almost excessive. There were only two options: animal or plant.
All three chose the animal course.
After Dave returned to the kitchen, the judges sat in silence for a moment. A few meaningless remarks passed between them before Joseph finally went straight to the point.
“The level of the contestants this season is unusually high.”
His voice sounded pleased and troubled at the same time. His expression matched it, like that of a student staring at a problem he did not know how to solve.
Alan and Emily looked much the same.
Emily sighed. “Minjoon said something during his interview. He said there were six 8-point dishes in the last buffet mission. It’s funny to treat his standard as one hundred per cent reliable, but honestly, I understand what he meant. Those six dishes he mentioned didn’t fall behind food made by specialised chefs. If the plating had been a little better, you could serve them in a restaurant and get good reviews.”
“That’s exactly why deciding what kind of mission to give them next is so difficult…”
Normally, they would simply proceed with the missions they had already planned.
But this time, that was becoming difficult.
The contestants this season were simply too strong for the planned challenges to create a genuine sense of danger.
In fact, after the previous mission, Martin had practically groaned in despair. A competition programme needed one or two contestants to make obvious mistakes or fall visibly behind the others, but that was rarely happening this season.
There was a clear difference between eliminating someone who had made a decisive mistake and eliminating someone who had simply done well while another person did slightly better.
Of course, if only the cream of the crop survived, the overall level would inevitably rise. But if they wanted viewers to feel nervous, they needed scenes where the contestants genuinely struggled.
At least once, they had to create that tension.
That was the problem they needed to solve for the next broadcast.
Emily spoke. “What about Asian food? I don’t think all of them are familiar with it. We could get some good footage of them scrambling around.”
“It’s not a bad idea. But viewers would think we were giving Chloe—or rather, Minjoon—an unfair advantage. Considering how much influence Minjoon’s popularity already has… if it happened once, people might let it go, but if it happened twice, they’d start thinking the producers were doing it on pur—” Alan stopped talking.
He swallowed and looked towards the servers approaching with the first dishes.
The amuse-bouches were arranged on top of a charred wooden plank.
Alan picked up a gougère and put it into his mouth. The flavour of cheese spread across his tongue, savoury with a faint sweetness, and the simple pleasure of it eased some of his tension.
When he spoke again, his voice was noticeably more relaxed.
“Anyway, let’s keep Asian cuisine as a possibility. We need something more definite.”
They did not continue the discussion while eating the main course.
Truthfully, the dishes in front of them demanded too much concentration for much conversation.
Then dessert arrived.
As Emily ate the sudachi curd with green apple jelly, admiration appeared on her face.
“Minjoon really did reproduce the recipe exactly. I can’t taste any difference. It genuinely feels as though it was made by the same chef in the same restaurant. At the time, I thought it only seemed identical because I was relying on my memory…”
“…I can’t find even the slightest difference either. It’s difficult to treat his absolute sense of taste as something that fits within ordinary common sense.” Alan sounded almost disgusted by how extraordinary it was.
Emily looked at him with an unreadable smile. Her red tongue briefly appeared between her lips as she spoke gently.
“If he comes over to this side, he might really become a food critic unlike anyone else in history. I wonder how far he’ll go if he stays on the path of cooking. Of course, his ability to reproduce recipes is undeniable, but because of that, he hasn’t really shown much cooking that is uniquely his own, has he?”
“Just because he hasn’t shown much of it doesn’t mean you should assume he can’t and give up on him beforehand. Minjoon’s palate will be an advantage in cooking, not a hindrance. And I rate him highly as a chef too. He has talent. He didn’t survive this long through luck alone.”
Alan and Emily’s gazes sharpened.
As the atmosphere between them began to tighten, Joseph spoke softly. “But Minjoon wants to become a chef. I think that settles the matter.”
“…You never know. He might change his mind later.” Emily sounded disappointed.
Joseph looked at her. “Emily. Just as you can’t leave the world of tasting, Minjoon can’t leave the world of cooking. Everyone has a place they’re meant to occupy. And when you’re forced away from that place, it hurts so much you can hardly endure it.”
He raised one hand.
The skin had been burned by oil and fire, and scars from knife cuts covered his fingers. It was a rough hand, hardly something anyone would call beautiful.
That scarred finger pointed towards the kitchen.
“Minjoon’s place isn’t here. It’s there. No matter how much you want him, you can’t change where he belongs. No one can. And no one should.”
Emily did not answer.
She knew perfectly well that wanting Jo Minjoon for herself was simply greed.
A stifled sigh escaped her lips.
Then Alan suddenly spoke. “…I thought of a mission.”
Joseph and Emily immediately turned towards him.
The corner of Alan’s mouth lifted.
“Why are we arguing like this in the first place? Because someone unlike anyone we’ve dealt with before has appeared. And why did we gather here today? For the same reason. These contestants are clearly better than the ones from previous seasons. Difficult ingredients are giving us headaches.”
His smile broadened, as though he were enjoying the thought too much to suppress it.
“So we return the favour.”
Emily leaned forward, nearly dying of curiosity.
“What is it? What did you think of?”
“Ingredients.”
Alan continued.
“Let’s give them ingredients they’ve never handled before.”