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. If he had been in her shoes, 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.
However, she was different from him in this approach. Even when she combined several ingredients, she wanted each particular flavor to stand out. That’s what June felt while tasting this particular soup. Her tongue felt refreshed with the peppermint, which made the taste of the lobster soup stand out even more.
Lotus Bridge has two head chefs, namely, Min-joon and Kaya. Even though June knew it, she naturally expected to feel more of Min-joon’s idiosyncrasies in the dishes. So, the fact that the dishes of Lotus Bridge were marked by Kaya’s cooking style surprised June. And she envied it, too.
June wanted to be honest with her feelings at the moment. At least for now she felt she was small and shabby, compared with Min-joon and Kaya. As a matter of fact, as much as she wanted to be the head of Rose Island, she wanted to have the type of restaurant that the chef couple just opened. Perhaps she wanted it more.
She felt even more so when she was served Kaya’s signature food Six Meats and Min-joon’s signature dessert Cho Reggiano one by one. Their all-time best recipes were placed side by side on the same table. Aside from the harmony and taste that the two signature dishes created, she felt it was really cool to see the two outstanding dishes together on the table.
At that moment she checked out Dave’s phone number, but hesitated to call him for some time.
‘What’s the point of calling him now? Just stop it, June,’ she muttered to herself.
Their relationship was rather ambiguous, which was marred by the scars of their foolish passion during their young days. Too much time has passed now for them to join hands and do something together.
Obviously Dave wants to reunite with June, and she is not apparently against it. But neither of them wanted to make a romantic move to each other first because they were afraid to make a mistake or see their relationship fall apart again. They always had to put off their confession to each other until some other time in order to keep even their wounded relationship.
June laid down on the bed, feeling limp and exhausted. She wanted to stay with Min-joon and congratulate him for a long time, but she couldn’t because this cute couple’s cooking, kitchen, restaurant, and all others made her realize what she had lost one by one.
Looking back, she was so insensitive to what’s happening around her that she forgot she lost a treasure. She closed her eyes because even if she opened her eyes, there was not anybody next to her.
<hr />
“It’s quite successful.”
The next morning after the party to celebrate the opening of Lotus Bridge Kaya, who just woke up and surfed the messages and comments about the restaurant on her SNS for some time, smiled triumphantly.
As if he was still sleepy, Min-joon looked at her and said, “How about their reaction? Good?’
“I see five comments uploaded on my SNS account. Two of them said our menu was great, two said we still had room for improvement, and the last one said she was disappointed. I think this much is okay, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’m surprised. I’ve felt you might make a big fuss because not all of the comments are good.”
“Well, I’m used to the habits of the netizens a bit.”
While there are people who say good things about something, there are others who criticize it. It’s the way of the world. It would be even more bizarre if everyone in the world gave only good reviews of something. Even Rachel’s main restaurant didn’t win 100% positive feedback from customers.
“By the way, there is lots of bad feedback about our bread.”
“Well, it’s the matter of the patissier.”
Min-joon sighed when she mentioned it. In fact, he could not refute it. They have been trying to find the best patissier, but it was not easy to find a patissier like Lisa or Jack, let alone Marco.
In the end, the person they hired was a baking level 7 patissier. Of course, baking level 7 was by no means low. He was a competent patissier, who made a lot of effort to be a good patissier during all his life.
But his baking level was not high enough. He should not be content with his current baking level in order to reach the level that Lotus Bridge wants. He should be the baking craftsman that everybody can recognize.
“Shall I forcibly take Marco here?”
“Not yet. Wait until Lisa completely recovers.”
Kaya shook her head as if it’s impossible to hire Marco. He sighed.
In fact, he knew it too. Even when Lisa was ill, she was snowed under with a heavy workload. Thanks to Marco, she could run her bakery in one way or another.
Even the current patissier with Lotus Bridge was not on a long-term contract, but a short-term one. Apparently the current patissier was not competent enough to convince Min-joon and Kaya to hire permanently. And the patissier himself didn’t want to be bound by Lotus Bridge for a long time because he was not guaranteed a decent pay at the just opened Lotus Bridge.
“I wonder if we opened the restaurant too soon.”
“But we can’t wait endlessly for the right patissier that we can’t find.”
“Is the ad on the opening for a patissier still valid, right?”
“Yeah. I made it clear that the patissier could start working in two months.”
“That’s good,” she lay on the bed with a sigh. “I hope a good patissier will come to us like magic.”
“There is no magic like that,” he said, giggling.
But the magic came along in just two days.
“Ah, Min-joon, Kaya, nice to meet you. I’m Rosa.”
The patissier applicant who came to Lotus Bridge a couple of days later was a woman who had an awkward way of talking. To be honest, the way she spoke didn’t strike them as good. But they didn’t want to take issue with that because there were lots of people like her. So Min-joon held her hand when she reached out.
“Nice to meet you. Rosa. Thank you for applying to our restaurant. Do you want to become a patissier?”
“Yes.”
“Could you please briefly introduce yourself?”
“Ummm… I’ve worked for a long time in places like bakeries and dessert cafes, but this is my first time serving a patisserie at the restaurant. Is that an issue?”
“No, not really. The difference between us and the dessert cafes is that you have to make desserts or breads that match our dishes, so it won’t be much different.”
“But there is one thing I need to tell you in advance…’
“Pardon?”
“I’m a little unwell.”
“Ah, may I ask why you are ill?
While asking her, he already knew what her problem was. It’s probably her way of speaking. But it was not a big problem since she would be working in the kitchen.
When she answered, however, it was something that he didn’t expect at all.
“Well, I can’t hear well.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“But you can now…”
Kaya, who was beside her, made a confused expression because Rosa was having a good conversation with them.
After she noticed it. Rosa smiled awkwardly and said, “I learned how to lip read if I focused on how the other party moved his or her lips. Of course, I have problems understanding if I talk with several people.”
Hearing that, Kaya looked at him quietly, as if she was asking for his opinion. He was as perturbed as her. The fact that she could not hear well was as serious as she could not see in the kitchen. Of course, since she would work in the patissier section, she would not be as busy as those in the kitchen section.
‘But I can’t lose her.’
It’s not because he felt sorry for her. He looked at her system window. She was a terrific patissier that he could hardly find elsewhere.
Her baking level was 9.
