Was the saying that a teacher and a disciple resemble each other true? When June was consumed by her insatiable greed, Min-joon could not easily get out of the swamp of his own greed.
It had already been a long time since dawn. After a few hours, the day would break, and he would have to face Kaya with recipes that he promised to her. A lot of notes were strewn on the desk. Grabbing his hair, he stared at the desk. He stopped thinking about it for some time. He even thought of giving it up, but he didn’t give up yet.
He still wanted to come up with new recipes to replace Cho Reggiano and Six Meats.
‘Can I make it?’
Once he decided to change Cho Reggiano and Six Meats, he felt all the existing recipes were shallow, even though he selected them after careful thinking and review.
He could not help but be frustrated, but he was clearly devising something in his mind. In other words, he was thinking of a gorgeous, beautiful, and perfect dining course that didn’t look pale compared with Rachel or June’s course.
But all he could think of right now was so vague. He was obviously drawing something perfect in his mind, but when he tried to write it down, he couldn’t. In some respects, it was no wonder he could not. No matter how excellent he was as a chef, he could make a Cho Reggiano or Six Meats overnight.
“Have you given up?” Kaya asked.
Instead of looking at her, he just looked down at the desk. He had to answer that he gave up. But he could not say it easily. He slowly came to her and gently stroked her neck with one hand.
“How stupid you are!” she said.
“I thought I could make it.”
“I know. You must have wanted to do it. I know how you feel because we have been aiming at something beyond our capacity.”
At that moment, he immediately understood why he had regrets over his unfinished recipe. In the end, Kaya was right. They have made countless great dishes so far, including their activities as the evaluators of Choters Guide through Choters’ activities, and through Rachel’s dishes. Because of that, they naturally had high standards of cooking.
Judging by their own standards, the course they created now didn’t fully meet their expectations. That was why he pushed himself too hard with only one day before the opening.
Kaya said, “You’ve got to be bold. Even if you don’t get the results you wanted, you shouldn’t hesitate. You know doing nothing is worse than ruining something.”
“Was I too greedy?”
“Yeah, I was. But it’s okay. As you usually said, you achieved something when you were greedy. The thing is today is not the only day we get something.”
Suddenly, he thought that she was talking like a grown-up. But he soon realized that she was no longer a little girl. She became a woman, and she became an adult. She became old enough to speak like a grown-up, not a child.
He felt he didn’t have to be in a hurry. He knew she was going to be the best chef in the world. As long as he was with her and didn’t lag behind her, he would be able to make the food that he wanted.
He looked at the desk for a moment. While looking at the messy notes on recipes, he quietly began to organize them.
She grabbed his hand and said, “Clean it up later. Let’s get some sleep first, so we can work hard tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, I don’t like to hear you saying that.”
He laughed it off awkwardly. It was dark. He was exhausted. He fell asleep right away.
Finally, the opening day broke. The dark clouds the night before disappeared. There were still some drops of water on the glass, but they dried up when the sun rose.
Food ingredients arrived at Lotus Bridge. Their preparation was perfect. Everyone in the kitchen showed up on time, or well before the opening of the restaurant without getting late. Their eyes were twinkling with expectations and thrill.
It was the day that Min-joon and Kaya had been waiting for all their lives. Of course, they were not perfect chefs. As the chefs who just opened their restaurant, there was obviously lots of room for improvement in their cuisine and courses.
That was why their cuisine gives more fun to the chefs themselves as well as the customers because it was alive and it was growing.
Finally, customers visited their restaurant. With expectations and doubts, they smiled every time they were served dishes one by one. Even the dishes that Min-joon thought were not perfect looked attractive to the customers.
Min-joon felt he didn’t have to be impatient because they just made a debut as the chefs of a new restaurant just like they started their honeymoon.
The sun went down. The sky turned red then black. The moon, which rose before sunset, shone particularly yellow among the stars.
There were only empty plates on the tables in the hall where the sound of customers’ laughter disappeared.
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People sometimes suspected June’s ties with Min-joon. Some head chefs of other branches even asked her if the reason why she took him as her sous chef was that she wanted to stop him from growing further right next to Chef Rachel.
When asked such a question, June just smiled silently. It would be a lie if she said she had no intention to check him at all. But she never hated him or stopped him from growing further because of that. At least, he knew that she was the best senior, a teacher, and the head chef he could have.
So when she entered Lotus Bridge on its opening day, she had only pure expectations and concerns. That was why she had so many mixed feelings right now.
She looked down at her phone.
When she first set her feet on Lotus Bridge, what she felt first was the gravitas of his newly opened restaurant. It sounded like a strange expression. It was actually that strangeness that she felt when she entered Lotus Bridge.
First of all, the interior of the restaurant was strange. Tables were covered with white tablecloths and black leather chairs next to them. The reason why she felt overwhelmed by that simple interior was probably because of the atmosphere of the restaurant itself. Brown marble surrounding the walls, colorful lanterns and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
The vases and candles placed on each table also contributed quite a bit to reviving the romantic sentiment of the restaurant. As for candles, however, she questioned if they were meaningful because the interior lighting of Lotus Bridge was so bright that the candlelight could hardly make even a single shadow.
Perhaps it’s a sign of their confidence that there was nothing wrong with their dishes, no matter how well they were exposed to the lights. Or they might have wanted to show their cuisine to the customers more clearly. As if he wanted to prove that he was a student of Rachel, who is also famous as a food artist, Min-joon’s plating was simple yet sophisticated just like Rose Island.
What came out with the amuse-bouche was orange dumplings. More precisely, it was a dish made with crab leg meat, onions, herbs with orange skins as the dumpling stuffing. It was truly challenging to combine the firm texture of crab with the chewy and fragrant taste of chilled oranges. It could be called the cuisine of ambitious young chefs like Min-joon and Kaya.
To be honest, the pre-meal bread that followed the amuse-bouche was not very attractive. The taste of the butter roll, ink bread, and rye bread was certainly not bad, but she wondered if customers could feel they were full when they ate food that would be served after that.
Of course, considering that in most restaurants, pre-meal bread was like that, this was nothing new. Actually, she was not disappointed by that at this restaurant because she was very much wondering how challenging the appetizers right after this pre-bread would be. After all, none of the appetizers betrayed her expectations.
Two appetizers followed the pre-bread. One of them was boiled egg and onion compote, added with Australian black truffle and Ferrari prosciutto.
Ferrari prosciutto had a fairly firm texture for prosciutto. And this alone made her realize how delicately Min-joon and Kaya approached cooking. As soon as the soft texture of the egg was added to the hardness of the prosciutto, she could find anything lacking in the texture of this dish. The aroma of black truffle, the sweetness of onion compote, the saltiness and savory of prosciutto, and the savory taste of eggs. While she was chewing on some sprouts with garnish, she wondered if this alone was worth her visit to Lotus Bridge.
The other appetizer was lobster soup with lemon ravioli and mint foam. When she ate the foam on the soup with the soup broth, the mint flavor disappeared with the foam, followed by the taste of the soup.
While tasting it, June couldn’t help but have a strange feeling because the dish had more of Kaya’s cooking than Min-joon’s. Perhaps he would probably have tried to harmonize the taste of the mint and the taste of lobster soup at the same time because he liked the harmony of tastes the most.
