Chapter 333: He’s in a Different League (4)
With a smile, Min-joon whispered into Kaya’s ear, “If I had thought I could not win, I wouldn’t have thrown down the gauntlet from the beginning.”
“How mischievous you are!”
“Hey, tell me I’m clever instead.”
Kaya agreed then stuck Brian’s mullet dish on a fork. Min-joon also tore the mullet flesh with its skin and carefully put it in his mouth. Then he nodded with a gentle groan.
“It’s delicious. How about you?”
“Yeah, it’s delicious. The recipe isn’t too much, but it’s a little salty. However, it’s just a matter of preference, depending on one’s taste. He cooked it well.”
“Are you talking about my dish right now?” Brian immediately opened his mouth, watching Min-joon and Kaya.
Not embarra.s.sed, Min-joon replied with a casual expression, “Yeah. You made it well. I enjoyed your dish.”
“I have told you that Mediterranean cuisine is my specialty. I’m confident as far as making seafood is concerned. How about it? Would you want to admit you’re defeated?”
Min-joon responded to his childish provocation by just smiling. Since he first proposed this kind of childish compet.i.tion, Min-joon thought he didn’t have to react to this kind of childish act. Of course, if Brian’s cooking was much better than he thought, Min-joon might have reacted differently. Unfortunately, after he tasted Brian’s dish a bit, he felt he didn’t have to change his att.i.tude.
At that moment, Brian suddenly felt the partic.i.p.ants murmuring, so he turned his head. Some of them made an expression as if they were shocked, some looking happy while others were staring at the dish as if they could not understand.
What was certain was that their reaction to Min-joon’s dish was much more dramatic and powerful, compared with Brian’s dish, just like those partic.i.p.ants in Season 3 who tasted the dishes of a perfect cooking score at Dave’s restaurant. Min-joon could now make such a dish.
“What the heck…”
Brian watched them with an embarra.s.sing expression, and then he alighted on Min-joon’s sea bream dish with a hardened expression. On the surface, it was a dish that had nothing special. Or his dish was rather disappointing because it looked so typical without anything special, Brian thought.
At that moment, Brian slid another glance at Kaya for a moment then fixed his eyes on Min-joon’s dish after looking at him again. He never wanted to look embarra.s.sed or disgraceful to her. The first time he saw her on TV, he thought she was attractive. And at the moment he actually saw her here, he even thought that her existence itself was a great charm itself.
But the fact that she had a boyfriend tormented Brian so much. So, when he ran into her at the current Grand Chef compet.i.tion, he thought this was a golden opportunity to win her heart.
He knew that even though Min-joon was the guy who received the most attention in the restaurant world right now, he also received enough attention. Of course, people began to forget that he was the winner of the Grand Chef Season 1, but he believed that his credit as the winner of the Grand Chef was enough to make him think he was Min-joon’s rival.
But it didn’t take long for him to think twice. Just sticking Min-joon’s dish with a fork once and tasting it was enough for him to realize he was wrong.
‘Oh my G.o.d! What the heck is this? I can’t believe it…’
Brian stared at his empty fork with a pale and shocked expression. He brought the same ingredients as Min-joon’s from the same pantry. He cooked in the same kitchen and spent as much time as Min-joon cooking his dish. Or it seemed that Min-joon spent less time than him.
Min-joon’s recipe was much simpler than his. Of course, his cooking process was much more sophisticated than Min-joon’s, but he thought such a difference was secondary. But it was not. Such a minor difference brought about so big a change in their finished dishes.
Min-joon’s sea bream was clearly in a different league from his. Initially, he thought that the sea bream, as well as the broth puree mixed with it, was a common combination in any restaurant.
In fact, he felt something strange from the moment he cut the sea bream with a fork. Apparently, it was his rival’s dish, but he felt his heart was pounding when the skin of the sea bream was crispy and torn into a moderately moist texture. He knew that even without tasting it directly, he felt Min-joon’s sea bream dish deserved to be called an art the moment he put it in his mouth and savored its moist texture.
Its taste was nowhere near an adequate description. His burning desire to beat Min-joon disappeared in an instant. He wasn’t worried about what would come next. Even if a man was on death row before the execution of his death penalty, he would so much get carried away with the happiness the moment he tried this sea bream that he wouldn’t be able to think about anything until the noose was tied around his neck.
That was the taste Min-joon brought out from the sea bream. Even the sauce was just a puree based on the sea bream broth with some vegetables added. But that was enough. Or it was more than enough. The texture of the flesh that tasted like the softest jelly in the world the moment he took a bite of it, the saltiness of the clean sea that never tasted stale, and the savory taste of fried green onions and the puree-concentrated vegetables and sea bream broth. When Brian relished a mix of all this taste in his mouth, he thought it stupid that he insisted on a colorful and complicated recipe until now.
The partic.i.p.ants were more shocked than Brian, but not less. In the case of Brian, he had the experience of traveling around the world and enjoying all kinds of delicious dishes, but most of them had none. When Brian began to wonder how Min-joon could make such a great dish, the partic.i.p.ants were also so impressed with it that they just kept asking themselves how this kind of dish was possible in this world.
“Is it really possible to bring out this kind of taste from the sea bream?”
A woman among the partic.i.p.ants muttered blankly, with even tears welling up in her eyes.
She could not believe that she could feel the rich savory taste of the sea bream just by focusing on the taste of the ingredients.
At the same time, she couldn’t believe that Min-joon was a rookie chef who turned into a professional chef in less than a year. Chefs in local restaurants often have 10 or 20 years of experience, but she had never felt their dishes were better than the dish Min-joon served right now. To put it simply, she had never been impressed by their dishes.
“I just wonder if this is the signature dish of Rose Island or Chef Min-joon’s own…”
It was not just by sheer luck that Cho Reggiano, Min-joon’s signature dessert, shook the entirety of America. Certainly, Min-joon was a well-prepared chef. If he could impress people with a simple dish like this without using any special skills, what kind of dishes would he produce at the moment he fully used his cooking skills? Just imagining it sent chills down her spine.
But Min-joon didn’t fluctuate between being happy and being sad about their reactions. In a calm manner, he tore the sea bream he cooked and put it in his mouth. He took lemon water in his mouth and smiled. Brian couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with Min-joon.
“You asked me to do something a little while ago. What was it?” Min-joon asked.
But Brian couldn’t answer.
Min-joon said with a smile, “You asked me to surrender, right?”
Brian couldn’t answer anything. He admitted having said that. Of course, he mentioned it half in jest, but at the same time, he was sincere because he was convinced he would win by that time. But right now, his half-baked self-esteem was about to collapse at any moment.
He could pretend he didn’t lose in the compet.i.tion. He could pretend he didn’t know who was the winner. He could even pretend he was the winner or pretend to put on an air of conceit. However, if he made a mistake now, he would end up being called a fool who didn’t know Min-joon was in a different league from him.
“Ahaha…”
Brian laughed as if he thought Min-joon was kidding, but he sweated deep down. He couldn’t figure out how to react at this moment. So, he didn’t make the judgment on who’s the winner of this compet.i.tion. After all, what moved him was not his cleverness but his self-pride.
“It isn’t over till it’s over,” Brian said.
“Well, you didn’t say that at first.”
“Oh, I was kidding then. Let’s leave the decision to our clever referees.”
Even though he actually made a dish that was worse than Min-joon’s, he didn’t want to admit that in front of so many people and Kaya. He made up his mind like that because of his self-pride, and it wasn’t that bad.
Unfortunately, not only Min-joon but also the partic.i.p.ants clearly knew what he was thinking about at the moment. However, Min-joon did not respond to it. Whatever Brian did, the referees were supposed to judge who was the winner. And all of those who tasted their dishes already knew who they would declare the winner.
“Let’s do this. If you think Brian’s dish tasted better, raise your hands, but please raise your hands if Min-joon’s dish was better,” Kaya said in a calm voice with her arms folded.
Brian signaled to his team members with a glance. He knew clearly he lost, but without winning some of their pity votes, he would look really miserable to Kaya. He felt even a few pity votes would save his face. A bittersweet defeat would be much better than an overwhelming defeat to him.
Brian swallowed. He wished that some of his teammates would raise their hands for him.
His teammates knew why he had cast such a glance at them. They also felt Min-joon’s dish was overwhelmingly more delicious. They could understand it would be okay to give him pity votes, given their friendly relations with him.
But even they seemed to have decided to judge independently.