God of Cooking - Chapter 255 - Weirdo (3)
“Meal, you say…”
Jaina thought over the word dumbly. Since when did she stop enjoying food, and started eating it? It’s been a while she’s felt this ashamed over food. She picked up her fork again, then put it down.
Instead, she reached out with her fingers. She looked away nervously when she realized Paul was looking at her.
“It’s a sandwich. You don’t eat sandwiches with forks,” she responded.
“So, you like it?”
“Well, I know for sure it’s tasty. But a lot of things are tasty. Like burgers. If you’re telling me there’s something more to it…. I don’t really know. I can’t tell.”
“Do you remember what the server said before? This is a dish made by Minjoon.”
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“Is that important? Chef Rachel’s screened all the dishes already. Even if Minjoon came up with it, it still has to be according to chef Rachel’s standards.”
She knew well that there were tasters who thought chef Rachel should make all of the restaurant’s dishes. Jaina didn’t care much about it, though. She didn’t think the head chef had to be the one who did everything. To begin with, the people who were arguing over such things… it would be better to say things like ‘why isn’t chef Rachel cooking with a knife in her hand during work hours?’
This time, Jaina picked up the soft part of the sandwich. The one made with the innards of the baguette and the cassoulet. Her eyes became colored in pleasure as her tongue chased after the flavors of the sandwich.
‘So this is… what he wanted.’
She had to admit, this was a dish fitting of the ‘best restaurant in America’. That first piece of sandwich was good enough, but the second one was even better. It wasn’t objectively more tasty or anything. But there was a difference in texture compared to the first piece. That made the dish fun. Beautiful, even.
Paul was feeling the same thing as Jaina. This was a ‘fresh’ dish to him. He’s never had a dish decomposed by textures before like this.
‘Is this just obvious from Rachel Rose’s disciple, or is the chef just incredibly talented?’
Paul had to think about that for a minute. The answer was surprisingly simple. It was both. A skilled jeweler dug out a beautiful diamond out of a rock. Such a beautiful diamond wouldn’t be here without its original shape or the jeweler who dug it out. Jaina turned to speak to him exhaustedly.
“Was Rose Island… Always like this?”
“Don’t know. I don’t really understand your question.”
“Is it this tiring? Most other restaurants that I went to made me think ‘alright, let’s see what you got’, but… This is different. It’s like the restaurant’s telling me ‘let’s see if you can even begin to understand our dish’. This isn’t a good place to eat. This is… a testing ground. To test how good we are as tasters.”
“That’s a fair assessment. Rose Island is often out of reach from most people.”
“…How can a restaurant like this even exist?”
Jaina looked at the plate with an annoyed look. She’s always felt that American restaurants always dragged behind European ones. European restaurants always cared about tradition, and at its top was Michelin. Jaina was almost like a stereotypical taster from Michelin. Stuck-up in her ways, that is.
To her, American restaurants were ones that threw away tradition to the dogs. Rose Island was different, though. They were walking a very thin tightrope in the sky. Between modernism and tradition. Normally, restaurants like this only produced mediocre results.
Not Rose Island, though. They made something like this. Food that just shook her worldview entirely.
“Rose Island wasn’t accepted this widely in the beginning,” Paul began.
“Then?”
“They got a lot of bad reviews at first. They didn’t follow tradition, after all. They were even called the shame of Western cuisine once. But Rachel and Daniel didn’t give up. In the end, they were accepted by the community they were in.”
“They were getting bad reviews?”
“Funny, isn’t it? They made similar dishes compared to the ones here today back then. But now they’re called the best restaurant in America.”
Paul sounded a little bit disgusted as he spoke. He looked down at his plate as he continued.
“Whenever I feel like I’m getting arrogant, I think of this. Tradition isn’t always the answer. Every taster who called Rose Island a shameful restaurant got shamed themselves a few years later. They were insulted for their palates, even.”
“…I mean, that does happen. Reviews for restaurants flip pretty frequently.”
“To review a chef’s dish… means to review that chef’s entire life. We can invalidate someone’s life with just a few sentences. We can even… drive them to death.”
Paul looked incredibly heavy as he said this. Jaina thought of the man’s old story. He took off a star from a restaurant, and called the restaurant uninnovative and boring. A few days later, the head chef of the restaurant killed himself in the kitchen.
“I don’t think that was your fault,” Jaina said.
“Thank you. You’re kind. But… you should know, that the person who I really need to hear it from is no longer in this world. You should be careful as well. What you’re reviewing is food, but in reality it’s the chef’s entire life. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be strict. Just… you need to think more carefully for every review you make.”
“I understand.”
“I’m sorry. I made the meal very glum, didn’t I? I’m a failure of a taster.”
Paul smiled apologetically before attempting to continue the conversation.
“So, how does it all feel so far? Do you like this restaurant?”
“It feels like I’m looking at a medieval lady holding a smartphone.”
“What a complex review.”
“And…”
Jaina thought over her words for a second. Did she really want to say this? After a moment of thought, she realized that she did.
“She’s a very beautiful lady.”
€
“That table over there… they’ve got to be tasters, right?” Maya asked.
Minjoon looked over for a split second before returning to working on his jelly.
“Dunno. Might be just a grandpa coming to eat with his granddaughter.”
“Boo, what kind of a grandpa comes to eat with his granddaughter? Especially here? He’d probably come with his entire family.”
“Who knows? He might not have any other family. Or they could be friends. Anyway, get back to work. Making assumptions about guests is rude.”
“Yes…”
“Go check on the cheese foam. I need to know if it was done properly.”
Maya walked away with a depressed face. Minjoon looked at her for a second as he started thinking.
‘….Did I go too easy on her?’
Maybe he was trying too hard to make her feel comfortable. He did have a tendency to try to make people feel better around him. Not because he was a good person or anything. He just hated pushy people. As a teacher, he always got better results trying to look over and help his students. He even had students that kept contacting him after graduation.
It was the same when he was a cook. He often had to deal with very pushy people back then. He had to deal with a stupid amount of work because of certain people. He decided then that he really didn’t want to be a bad boss, which was part of the reason why he was so nice to Maya. But…
‘She acts too much like a kid sometimes.’
It wasn’t like she wasn’t working or anything. She helped him with almost everything, and she was very willing to learn as well. Just… she was kind of going about it like she was on a picnic? It would be nice if she was more serious about this.
Right then, his head clouded over. He stopped himself from falling by grabbing onto his work station. His head was throbbing. Was it because he overworked recently? He tried to get a few steady breaths to calm down.
“Are you okay, Minjoon?” he heard someone say.
Minjoon turned to the source of the voice. He could see blonde hair in his vision, but he couldn’t make out the face. He closed his eyes tightly for a second. There we go. Now he could see a little bit better. Minjoon put on a small smile on his face.
“Ah, Annie. What’s up?”
“I was just going to pass by, but you looked like you were about to collapse. Are you okay?”
“Sorry. I’m feeling a little weak.”
“That’s not it. Hm, what should we do… It’s going to take a while before the customers leave.”
“Don’t worry. It’s just the heat getting to me.”
“Phew… In that case, I’ll just have to give you a quick energy boost.”
Minjoon looked at Annie with a confused look. The woman just smiled at him brightly.
“There were customers who looked like tasters. They were very touched by your dish.”
“My dish? Hm… The cassoulet?”
“Yes. They couldn’t stop talking about it. It’s pretty amazing, they made a face like they’ve never eaten the dish before in their life.”
“Thank you. That does make for a pretty good booster.”
Minjoon smiled. He did feel more energetic, actually. Minjoon thought of a conversation he had with Rachel for a second.
‘How greedy of you.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘How did you think of trying to capture all of this? All the aspects of a cassoulet? Most people would have ruined the dish with that greed, but… You ended up plating that greed beautifully.’
He couldn’t remember if Rachel was smiling or laughing back then. Maybe she was doing both? Or neither? He couldn’t even remember. He only remembered what she said afterwards to him.
‘And you’re making me feel greedy, too. You make me want to take you again, despite the fact that I already did.’
He remembered his expression, though. He was crying. Quite a bit, too.
‘I’m happy that I could teach you.’
<Weirdo (3)> End.
