God of Cooking

First Steps (3)

‘Level 6, finally.’

A small smile appeared on Minjoon’s face. This was a meaningful moment for him. Not just because he levelled up, no. What was important to him was the fact that he had levelled up shortly after joining Rose Island.

Of course, he levelled up pretty fast during grand chef. But that was pretty much inevitable. After all, he had been competing with several chefs that were better than him. There, he’d have been kicked out the moment he messed up. Having to make new dishes in that much pressure… It was inevitable that he’d grow there.

‘At least I knew a bit more about the themes beforehand.’

The themes changed several times later on in the show. But still, during the early stages, his knowledge from the future helped him out quite a bit.

‘I wish I could use this in the store, too.’

If he had had a lot of experience with restaurants, he would have been able to predict the food trends of the future quite well. But he had only worked in a single restaurant previously, and he had only really studied various recipes or food cultures around the world. Trying to predict food trends with just that would be a foolish endeavour.

“…Plus, trying to be aware of trends here would just be stupid.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, sorry. I was talking to myself.”

Maya seemed to be pretty nervous, seeing how she flinched the moment she heard Minjoon speak just now. Minjoon smiled apologetically at her as he shook his head. Rose Island was a restaurant that didn’t follow the trend. That said, it wasn’t like it was a restaurant that set the trend either.

Rose Island was… Like an anaconda. Most of the times, it slowly and carefully figured out what the customer wanted, but… Sometimes, it would just choke out the customers’ preferences with raw power as well. To Rose Island, that raw power was perfection.

That happened every once in a while. The score of the dish would come out to be 7, but Rachel would simply raise that score with words alone. Minjoon had had this happen a few times during the competition, but this was only when he had entered the zone. But Rachel was able to make this happen any time, anywhere.

‘She can see something that we can’t.’

Minjoon wanted to see exactly that. He wanted to feel it. He wanted to make that his. Right now, he just did his job as an extension of Rachel’s hand. But he wanted to become her brain some day. He wanted to know the feeling of being able to treat countless chefs as extensions of himself. This was what Minjoon’s dream was. He wanted to create his own perfect dish.

This made Minjoon hungry. This desire only got worse and worse the more he pushed it away. But right now, he had to push it away even further. He had to cut his desires off as he worked. This was Rachel’s kitchen, and he was her hand. He couldn’t dirty Rachel’s dishes with something as stupid as his desires. He couldn’t feed such a thing to his customers.

Minjoon wasn’t stupid. He knew very well what other chefs and gourmands said about him. Rachel Rose’s heir. A person who might take charge of not just the main restaurant, but all the other branches as well…

A person who might be worth befriending for the future. He had heard this quite a bit from the people around him.

But such words only served to make Minjoon nervous. Minjoon didn’t want to think about anything other than the food laid out in front of him. He didn’t want to respond to Rachel’s kindness with stupid greed. Some people would call Minjoon stupid for thinking like this, but Minjoon liked that side of himself.

And this attitude that Minjoon took for himself was very noticeable. At least, it was to Rachel. After all, Minjoon was doing his best not to act out despite having heard of all the rumors about himself. This made Rachel feel ever prouder of the man.

‘Heir, huh…’

She wanted to keep pondering on the word, but she couldn’t. Rachel raised her voice.

“Havierre! That rack of lamb is going to overcook in 5 seconds. Take it out!”

€

“Damn, how the hell are we supposed to go to other restaurants after this?”

“It does taste almost too good, yes.”

Joseph grinned as he took a bite out of the pasta dish in front of him. It was spaghetti served with snapper and snapper stock puree. As soon as the food entered his mouth, his eyes became incredibly sharp. This tasted far more powerful than the version Anderson showed back in the competition. Almost too good, even after taking Rachel into account.

“The puree… is extremely smooth. The snapper doesn’t overwhelm the pasta either. How nice. I’m not too sure if I should be praising chef Rachel for her leadership or chef Anderson’s skill for this…”

“Is commanding a kitchen that difficult?”

“If I’m being honest, a head chef who can actually follow the flow of the kitchen is very rare. It’s inevitable. A head chef is only human, after all. It’s not easy trying to follow the actions of tens of different chefs in the kitchen.”

One could easily detect a hint of admiration from Joseph’s voice. Sera couldn’t help but be surprised at this. Joseph was a respected chef in the restaurant industry. He was famous, too. A person of that standing was expressing quite the bit of admiration towards Rachel.

Sera took one more bite of the pasta, trying to focus on the flavor a bit more this time. Was it thanks to the way Joseph described it? The dish tasted far better than it did last time. When she chewed, she could feel the tiny bit of uncooked pasta in the middle of the noodles.

The ‘perfect al dente’ was a hot topic amongst many people, but most accepted that it was a subjective thing. Well… At least, it was either that or just trying pasta in Italy.

But the spaghetti wasn’t subjective at all. It was absolute. It was hard to imagine a more perfectly cooked pasta when she tasted this. Sera smiled. Not a fake one for the television, but a true joyful smile.

“This tastes quite wonderful. It might even be better than the pastas in Italy.”

“The person in charge of the pasta must be quite talented. Plus, Rose Island only handles the best ingredients from the most famous producers. Though, I suppose it’d be more accurate for me to say that the young producers who worked with Rose Island all became incredibly famous over the years.”

“So Rose Island wasn’t the only restaurant that experienced growth.”

“Most restaurants grow like this. Though of course, one would have to pick out good people to grow with.”

“Rachel was really lucky, huh. Speaking of which, Joseph, how was growing for you? Do you think you picked good people to work with?”

“Most of the time, yes. Some of them gave up in the middle, wanting to be carpenters or actors. That is why I approached a few producers for Rose Island once, but… They didn’t seem very willing to work with me.”

Joseph emptied his plate as he said this. The pasta’s texture was simply irresistible.

“I was wondering if chef Anderson had improved or if chef Rachel was just that good, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. With the food being this good, it’s obvious someone’s skill had to have improved.”

“There’s a reason why the head chefs of Rose Island are all called monsters.”

“The chefs at my restaurant are quite something too.”

“Not as great as the chefs here though.”

“…Still poking me where it really hurts, huh.”

Jeremy made a silly grin towards Joseph’s bitter face. Sera let out a sigh of disappointment.

“I’m a little sad about coming for a TV show. I want to take my time to enjoy the food.”

“Tsk tsk, you shouldn’t be saying that as a celebrity. You should take joy in explaining the flavors of the food you eat.”

“I still have a way to go, huh.”

Sera put on an embarrassed face at Jeremy’s jab. The servers brought out the sorbet. The mint + lime combo cleaned their palate quite well. It was to reset their tongue before they headed over to the main. Sera turned to look at Joseph.

“I think Minjoon was the one who made this. What do you think?”

“Amazing. Minjoon seemed very nervous with desserts some time ago. Of course, this didn’t come out as a dessert, but it’s still very tasty. Almost unbelievably good for just a palate cleanser.”

“It seems Anderson and Minjoon grew quite a bit here.”

“There’s a reason why so many chefs want to work here. They experience tremendous growth at a place like this.”

By the time the main dish was about to come, a thunderous applause sounded from the hall. Rachel had come out of the kitchen to speak.

“Thank you for believing in a person who has been dead for a decade. I hope you are enjoying the food I am serving you today. I’ve tried my best to meet your expectations that have only been growing over the last ten years.”

Another round of applause. A few people were even whistling. Lisa, who had been looking at Rachel from the back, seemed to want to cry. This was the place her father had been waiting for for over ten years. She was happy that she could be here in place of Jack, but… She also felt quite sad for her father. A baker who stood next to her exclaimed in surprise.

“Lisa, are you crying?”

“… No I’m not.”

“But…”

A different baker stopped him before the other one could say any more. Lisa quietly looked over at Rachel. The head chef was now greeting each customer individually. Of course, this was no different from Joseph & co. in the room.

“I’m been too long, Rachel.”

“Ah, Sera. I haven’t seen you since the hunger trip. How did you find the food?”

“Is that even a question? It’s amazing! I won’t ever be able to forget about this restaurant like this!”

“Thanks for the compliment. What did you like best so far?”

“The dessert isn’t out, so I can’t comment on that, but…”

Sera paused to look at the other two at the table. The three of them took a breath before exclaiming in unison.

“““Potato soup!”””

Rachel raised her brows in surprise.

“So that really is the most popular dish. My other disciples thought so as well. My customers, too.”

“It really was perfect. The potato soup itself was good, but it wasn’t too special. The bacon foam was a game changer. I would never have thought that a foam of all things could taste so strong.”

“It was a combination of the charm of molecular gastronomy and the charm of traditional methods. I think this is the best form of fusion cuisine that one can create.”

Rachel turned to look at Jeremy. The man shrugged in response.

“It was tasty. I really don’t have much to add after those two. The bacon foam wouldn’t have been too tasty by itself. Probably a little too salty, in fact. But man, are you good at making stuff taste good…”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“A compliment. I’m just a little annoyed. I want to insult you sometimes, but you just don’t give me any chance to do that.”

Rachel smiled a little. Sera piped in to ask a question.

“What did Minjoon say? I recall he had this habit of putting scores on food?”

“Ah… that scoring thing.”

Rachel smirked.

“Ten points, apparently.”

End.