Eventually, the demi-chefs began to introduce themselves with awkward expressions one by one, when Min-joon quietly looked around their kitchen. As a matter of fact, he was not just looking at them, but checking their cooking level.
‘Obviously, there is an insurmountable wall between the main and branch offices.’
Head chef Brandon’s cooking level was 9. However, none of the other chefs were at level 8. Those at level 7 were three, and all the others were below that level. In fact, this was normal. It would be even weirder if anybody worked as a sous chef or demi chef with cooking level 8. In that respect, Rachel’s kitchen staff were pretty good, compared with their precedents.
“Are you Min-joon?”
At that moment, the Hispanic chef who was scolded by Brandon a little while ago spoke to him. He spoke in rather unnatural English with French accent, but considering that he was in France now, his English wasn’t that bad.
Min-joon said with a nod, “Actually, there is only one among us whose name looks like me, right?” Min-joon said.
“Hahaha, that’s why I came up here. I’m Adrian.”
“You’re good at English.”
“Well, the chefs here speak English well. As you know, Chef Brandon is a native speaker of English, so I heard that he doesn’t hire any chef who doesn’t speak English well. Aside from that…” Adrian’s eyes sparkled at that moment.
He continued, “Can you show me how you are cooking? I’ve heard a lot about our main restaurant in Los Angeles, but I don’t have a chance to check what’s different from our cooking here. I’m curious. You’re a demi-chef like us. I’m really curious if it’s really true there is a gap between our cooking skills.”
He could have beaten around the bush to bring up the topic, but he was rather straightforward. And Min-joon liked the way he spoke out like that.
Min-joon said with a smile, “Can you promise one thing for me then?”
“What promise?”
“Promise me you won’t admire me so much.”
When he said that, Adrian looked at Min-joon curiously as if he could not understand what he was talking about.
Min-joon said in a calm voice, which was serious enough to be taken as a joke, “If you admire me so much, I feel ashamed.”
There was clear confusion on Adrian’s face now. Gosh, he knew well that most of the people called genius weren’t ordinary, but he had never seen a geek like Min-joon. As if he felt so embarrassed by Min-joon’s unexpected reply, he just looked at Min-joon blankly.
Grinning at him, Min-joon said, “I am also embarrassed by what I have said. Let me take back what I said. Which kitchen counter can I use?”
“Please come here,” Adrian said.
At that moment, all the other demi chefs of the Paris branch approached and dragged Adrian to one side. With an embarrassed expression, he looked at them.
“What? What’s the matter with you, guys?” Adrian demanded.
“Don’t be so kind to him.”
“Why shouldn’t I? He is our guest.”
“I didn’t say you should not. Look at the situation now. They are demi chefs, and we’re also demi chefs. And we are branch people, but they are from our main restaurant. Of course, Kaya and Chloe have nothing to do with the main store, but they are also sent by the head office of Rose Island.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Are you going to bow to them from the beginning?”
Talis, a black woman with her black hair tied, admonished him.
Then she whispered, conscious of Min-joon, “I’m not saying we should pick a quarrel with them, but I don’t want them to look down on us. So, try to be more mature in a tense atmosphere. Try to show them you are an elite chef.”
“But we are not elites.”
“Damn it!” She stared at him, biting her lips tightly. When he looked down with a sullen expression, she opened his mouth with a sigh, “If you’re not an elite, try to pretend you’re an elite. You’ve got to know how to get the start on them.”
“Why don’t we just enjoy mingling with them? They are guests who have come here from afar.”
“Okay. Do whatever you want. But keep this in mind. The prestige of our branch here depends on how you act.”
After giving him a stern warning like that, Talis returned to her seat. Adrian sighed a heavy sigh as if he couldn’t understand. He wondered if being kind to him would undermine his prestige. Of course, he admitted that he was acting casually, but that was his personality. Whoever the guest was, for example, even if Rachel Rose was here, he would not be tense or nervous at all.
He would not accept Tails’s sharp warning, but her voice kept ringing in his ears. Coming back to the kitchen table where Min-joon and Kaya were standing, he didn’t speak to them as cheerfully as before.
Min-joon spoke to Adrian in a curious voice, “What’s up, Adrian? Suddenly you seem to feel under the weather. What’s wrong?”
“No, nothing. I’m hungry.”
“Really?”
Min-joon looked at Adrian quietly. He wondered how Adrian changed his moods so suddenly just because he was hungry. But he felt given the chef’s appetite, Adrian’s action might not be that strange.
So, Min-joon asked with a smile, “Then, now that I’m going to cook, let me make the dish you want to enjoy. Do you have any dishes that you like? Please tell me the ingredients you prefer.”
“Well, I don’t know how to single out my favorite dish. Basically, I like to eat something with a delicious sauce, and my favorite ingredients are Magret de Canard.”
“Magret de Canard? What is that?”
Kaya tilted her head as if she heard it for the first time. Rather than learning to cook, she had relied on her own experience and sense of taste, so it was natural that she didn’t know that recipe name.
Min-joon opened his mouth with a calm voice.
“Oh, it refers to duck breasts. The high-quality parts of duck breasts, in particular. When it comes to that recipe, they are picky about the duck’s species and breeding methods. It’s quite tricky to cook.”
“Anyway, French guys really like to harass ducks.”
Everybody knows that foie gras usually refers to goose liver, but the foie gras enjoyed mainly by people of the middle class was often made with duck liver. So, it was understandable that Kaya grumbled.
Min-joon glanced at Adrian, but he seemed to think Min-joon’s talking in half jest was interesting.
Adrian opened his mouth, grinning at him, “It’s probably the people in our country who love duck dishes the most in the world. They love goose dishes, too. Of course, they hate us for that.”
Instead of answering, Kaya shrugged and looked back at Min-joon. They exchanged glances for a moment. They were already exchanging lots of conversation through such glance, so much so that the demi chefs there were surprised.
“What are you going to use for the sauce?”
“Bisque sauce. I mean scallops.”
“It wouldn’t be bad. Are you using shrimp?”
“No.”
“As you know, you can’t bring out good tastes with scallop alone. What else are you making up for it?”
“I’m going to put a pumpkin. It could be called a pumpkin scallops bisque.”
“That’s not enough. How about adding a little foie gras paté?”
“Okay. Shall we start?”
“Yeah. You go and choose the ingredients.”
Their conversation ended in an instant. At the same time, they also finished discussing the recipe. Watching the two talking about it, Adrian was just amazed, so were other staff of the Paris branch including its head chef Brandon.
‘They were already done thinking about the recipe? No way…’
Normally, that would be impossible. As for the recipe, it was not supposed to come about by roughly combining the ingredients according to the instruction. Unless they recreated the recipe that they already knew, it was impossible for them to come out with the new recipe so quickly.
After all, Brandon could not help but approach the two and ask.
“Are you going to use the recipe you are already familiar with?”
“Nope. We’ve developed a new recipe.”
“Are you sure you have already developed a recipe during that short time?”
“Well, as far as recipes are concerned, we are clicking with each other very well.”
Of course, it would be true for any excellent chef pair to come up with a new recipe so quickly. Brandon’s face stiffened when Kaya replied casually. Devising a new recipe meant that the chef would reflect his culinary ideas in the dish he was making. And while he was doing it, he was supposed to conflict with somebody else because of his original recipe ideas.
However, to Brandon’s surprise, Kaya and Min-joon accepted each other’s recipes without any conflict. So, Brandon could only think of two scenarios about this: they were generous enough to yield their stubbornness or they shared the same cooking ideas.
Even if they didn’t have the same ideas, the way they cooked would look alike. Otherwise, they would have to disagree and make a conflict anyhow.
Brandon put off making the judgment. It would not be too late for him to think seriously about this even after he watched what kind of dishes the two would make.
While Brandon was thinking about it, Min-joon was already taking all the ingredients to the kitchen. When he felt that Min-joon picked the ingredients in best condition, Kaya melted the butter in a frying pan. Then she started to fry the onions there.
‘Is she making a bisque first?’
The other pairs from the main restaurant were still in the middle of developing recipes, so those in the kitchen naturally fixed their eyes on Kaya and Min-joon.
Even though they knew that dozens of eyes were now fixed on them, Min-joon and Kaya were not at all nervous, which was natural in some respects.
In fact, the two cooked in front of so many people until now that they didn’t feel nervous or tense before dozens of demi chefs of the Paris branch. Besides, they cooked even before tens of hundred, or millions of people when they appeared on TV. Basically, their cooking experiences were long enough to make them free from any nervousness before the demi chefs here.
Was it because they were too relaxed while cooking? The demi-chefs in the branch stared at the pair’s perfect chemistry blankly.
Adrian muttered as if he couldn’t believe it, “Are they really the same demi chefs as us? No, it doesn’t make sense. How can demi chefs be so good like that?”
Adrian was shocked and surprised. He could not believe what was happening before his eyes.
In some respects, it was natural that he reacted like that because he thought that the demi chef’s mission was to make a dish under the direction of the sous chef and head chef. In other words, if he could make a dish better than what the sous chef or head wanted him to do, he didn’t have to stay as a demi chef. But what Kaya and Min-joon were cooking now was way beyond the mission of a demi chef that Adrian used to know.
