Spread-Out Wings (7)

The Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes scored 10 points for its cooking score. Honestly, Jo Minjoon was not expecting that. He was sure its quality was no less than that of Jo Reggiano and Six Meats, but its cooking process was not more complex than theirs.

‘Is it recognizing this technique?’

It may sound laughable to want recognition from the system, but Jo Minjoon could feel his heart flutter. It was not because he simply was acknowledged for his method, either. His recipe preserved the taste of the cod. It highlighted the taste of the main ingredient, rather than overwhelming it with the flavors of the other ingredients. This was because his recipe had been influenced, in part, by the “cuisine skill” that he felt this way.

What that meant was Jo Minjoon was currently walking the proper path. It meant that the path he had been looking for after countless trials and errors was not one that existed only inside his head.

‘Actually, even if the system had not recognized it, I would have just been stubborn about it.’

But knowing he did not have to worry about such a trivial matter did make his heart feel a bit lighter.

Jo Minjoon turned his head after withdrawing himself from distracting thoughts. They had been talking with the manager of the grocery store that Kaya normally goes to for a while now. After listening attentively for a bit, he realized they were talking about quality.

“These beets have all become soft, Allie. We normally come here because the quality’s so good even if your prices are insane, but… how can you bring these beets out like this?”

“That’s why I’m not selling those beets, I said?”

“But I need beets, you see?”

“Try going somewhere else. In any case, I don’t have any to sell. They’ve all gone bad because of the heat. You’re better off going to a supermarket like Whole Foods or something. Their situation may be better. At the very least, they would have a large quantity, so maybe out of 10 you could find 1 okay one?”

“…Sigh. Guess it can’t be helped. How long until some decent beets come in?”

“I’ll only know that once time has passed,” Allie replied with a nonchalant attitude.

Kaya glowered at Allie as if to express her dissatisfaction, but she began examining other groceries instead. Complaining about wanting ingredients that were not available would not make them become available.

Kang Byungyoon asked, “What would happen if you cannot get beets?”

“Well, we’ll have to find some way. Either find beets or find other ingredients we can use in place of beets. Or completely change the recipe.”

“…The last choice sounds like it would be quite difficult, no?”

“Not really. There are clear-cut categories within cooking. Within each category of recipes, there are many dishes with similar properties… Finding a substitute recipe is not that difficult.”

“But isn’t it difficult to design that recipe?”

“That’s why experience is so important,” Jo Minjoon calmly replied.

“When such a situation arises, we can substitute in recipes we already have without giving it much thought.”

Jo Minjoon did not particularly enjoy rehashing a recipe he had already presented to people. That is why when it came to dishes like Jo Reggiano, he let them be ordered individually and avoided putting them in the chef’s tasting course.

However, with that said, it is obviously better to be using a tried and true recipe rather than putting an unverified one before guests hurriedly. And that obviousness is ultimately what makes the difference.

‘I would like to think Chef Minjoon does have a long history of work experience, but…’

It seemed like that would be a sensitive topic to bring up, so he made no effort to speak of it. However, when he thought about it, even if Jo Minjoon and Kaya had the same length of work experience, he wondered if their concentrations had differed.

He did not think that it was simply because the two of them had put more effort in than other chefs. For now, the two of them were having recipes sent to them by chefs from other nations in the world. They were Irregular Lab’s recipes.

Naturally, not all the recipes were impressive. Only a part of them was impressive, and among those, even fewer were usable at Lotus Bridge.

However, the inspiration derived from those recipes did not greatly differ by how impressive or ordinary they were. It was inevitable that the more information they were exposed to, the more inspiration they could receive compared to others.

‘Then there is the fact there are two of them.’

Even if they were to spend 1 year, for them it was the equivalent of two years. Or perhaps even longer. Seeing how they exchanged feedback on equal footing, it was clearly better than them trying to develop and agonize over it on their own.

“I’ll entrust today to you, too,” Jo Minjoon smiled brightly while looking at Kang Byungyoon.

Kang Byungyoon laughed awkwardly. Jo Minjoon was referring to properly expressing everything surrounding the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes.

After tasting it for the first time, Kang Byungyoon had been agonizing daily over how to properly express its taste. However, no matter how much he thought about it, he could not think of a way to capture the entirety of its taste.

This was actually a rare issue. Modern cameras are capable of a high quality compared to a long time ago. The high-resolution cameras could capture the glisten on individual rice grains fully. In fact, they could capture on camera the food even more clearly than one could see in real life.

Take the easiest ramen dish as an example. The moment people lay their eyes on the noodles they normally do not even pay attention to, do they not immediately set off for the kitchen to start making it themselves?

However, it was different for the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes. For one, its appearance from the outside is not one that makes you think of it as potentially delicious. Rather, while it would look tasty, it looked ordinary and just like a satisfying fish steak.

Kang Byungyoon had to overcome this. He had to prove that the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes was anything but an ordinary dish. And it was not something he could solve by simply changing the angle of lighting. Ultimately, what people can derive from the screen is a taste they already know. And this was a taste they had never experienced before in their lives.

That is why Kang Byungyoon was trying a different approach.

If he was unable to express it via the food, he could express it via people.

---

It was that evening. Lotus Bridge was full of customers, as usual. While three tables were temporarily empty because of no-shows, each would soon be filled from the line of thirty people waiting in line.

Kang Byungyoon chewed on his fingernails nervously while waiting for the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes to come out. He wondered how the customers would look once they got a taste of it.

Among the customers who had agreed to be filmed, the first ones to experience the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes were a couple and their two children who had not yet entered elementary school.

‘For goodness’ sake, please show me something,’ Kang Byungyoon fervently prayed while looking at the parents.

They must have frequented this type of restaurant often because they wielded their knives rather skillfully. If they were the gourmand type, they would inevitably find themselves admiring the dish’s worth.

However, they did not immediately taste the dish. They were parents. After preparing the fish with their utensils, they placed the prepared food before their children. Kang Byungyoon glanced sideways at the children. He was not expecting much from the children. They would probably smile and exclaim how good it tasted. They may even be the type of children who are picky about eating fish and frown instead.

It was at that very moment when he was having those thoughts…

“Waaaaaah!”

The younger of the two children, a boy, broke out in tears as if he had been taken surprise by something. The parents patted the child on his back and asked him why he was crying.

Kang Byungyoon thought at that very moment that maybe the fish had not been properly deboned. However, there was no way such a rookie mistake could have been made…

The very moment those thoughts came to mind, the child said, “Th-the taste is… scary!”

At the child’s words, both the parents and, of course, Kang Byungyoon wore puzzled expressions on their faces. However, they soon figured out the real meaning behind it. The taste was scary. What could be the reason for the child feeling scared of the taste? The reason was simple.

‘…Minjoon, Kaya. You two are truly the real deal.’

When someone hears a sound they had never heard before in their life, the first thing they feel is fear. Kang Byungyoon thought that what the child had felt when eating the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes was something akin to that.

While a child is not without a sense of taste, for the sensitive palate of that child, the wave of taste of the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes enveloping the child was one he had never experienced before. This cod dish was the most aggressive dish Jo Minjoon had made.

This was a bit unexpected. From its external appearance alone, the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes looked rather serene compared to Jo Reggiano and the Six Meats. Tomato pesto was heaped heavily on top of the evenly crisped cod skin. And under its flesh spread out like a lake was the tomato olive broth.

It looked a bit like an island on a lake. How many people would have guessed it would possess such an aggressive taste? At the very least, he could tell that the child had not been one of them. And that is why the child had been so surprised. It was clearly the child’s first time experiencing such a bold and sharp flavor.

Not long after the child had cried did Simon approach the child’s parents. He asked them with a tender smile, “Is there anything wrong? I heard your child crying.”

“Ah, no… nothing is wrong. It looks like the food was so delicious it had surprised him,” the child’s mother replied as if in disbelief.

The child who, as she had said, thought the taste was scary was sitting there eating every piece of the cod meat on the plate before him. Almost as if it was a scary movie type of dish. A taste that even though you are scared, you cannot avert your eyes and keep eating more of it.

It was a brief disturbance, but the other customers could hear the conversation between them. They must have thought it strange. Just what kind of intensity did this dish possess that it could cause a child to cry? Was it maybe too spicy that it made one’s eyes tear up?

For them to find an answer to that, the other customers could only hurry to finish their current course and move on to the next dish. And soon, they all encountered the Cod That Swallowed Tomatoes, and they all understood the child.

“…Oh, my goodness. I don’t understand why this restaurant is still only rated two Michelin stars.”

An elderly man with a neatly trimmed thick beard shook his head side to side. A youth sitting next to him looked at him quizzically and asked, “Is this that impressive?”

“Don’t say a word and just try it.”

“Ah, okay. I was a bit slow cutting it up.”

The youth laughed awkwardly and finished cutting the rest of the cod up. The knife easily sliced through both the skin and the meat. And soon, the meat was entering his mouth. He clenched his fork and knife and let out a moan and finally said, “Mm… Whew… Grandfather, wow, this is wow…”

“You get it now?”

“…I totally get it.”

“There’s a reason why they say Rachel has an eye for these things,” the elderly man said calmly.

However, unlike his words, his face was filled with delight. It was that type of dish. No matter how tired you may be, one bite of this dish would make you happy.

The youth said, “With something like this, it doesn’t seem that difficult for them to get rated 3 stars, don’t you think?”

“We just have to wait and see about that one. You think it’s easy getting 3 stars?”

Right after having said that he did not understand how the restaurant was still only at two stars, that sounded rather cheeky to say. The youth looked at the elderly man in disbelief, but the old man did not even look his way and had turned to look at the kitchen.

‘Has it already been over a year since they got two stars?’

As soon as they had established the restaurant, they had received two stars. If they were to receive three stars within a year of that, this restaurant would truly go down in history. Those who had accomplished that so far could easily be counted on one hand. If you were to calculate the odds of it happening, they were really low.

However, the old man still smiled.

“I met someone famous in history today.”

CREDITS:
Original author: 양치기자리
Translator: Comic Seoul
Proofreader: Potato