God of Cooking

Chapter 429: Sowing Weed Seeds (10)

‘Isn’t this the time to think about Min-joon’s future?’

Dobby looked askance at Teo and Enzo. His dish was perfect. At least, he could say without hesitation that his dish contained everything he had learned from his boss June. It was the most well-balanced among the course dishes he had made in his lifetime, and it contained plenty of luxurious ingredients.

Theo and Enzo’s team had one of the most difficult handicaps. It was Theo, not Enzo, who was leading this pair right now. Maybe Enzo let his son Theo take the lead on purpose, but this was also an opportunity for Dobby.

‘Theo is going to be a great chef, too. He may represent France at an international cooking contest.’

But Teo hadn’t reached that level yet. At least, it was too early for Theo to be mentioned as Dobby’s opponent. Honestly, Dobby was a little puzzled. He could understand Enzo gave his son a chance to grow up, but he wondered if it was necessary to leave everything to Theo.

In Dobby’s eyes, the more he thought about Enzo’s participation, the more he couldn’t understand it. If he came back to this contest because he wanted to get even with Chef Daniel, didn’t he do his best from the beginning? If he didn’t do his best because Min-joon was here, not Chef Daniel, wasn’t it more appropriate for him to make Theo a pair with somebody other than himself?

To be honest, he could not think Enzo’s judgment was right if he really participated in this contest simply because of his defeat in the past.

‘Anyway, calm down, Dobby. You don’t have any reason to be afraid of him now.’

Even if Dobby mumbled to himself deep down, he couldn’t stop his heart’s pounding.

And he soon learned why. The reason he was so nervous right now wasn’t because he was worried that Enzo and Teo might be doing better than him. It was because of Min-joon and Kaya.

‘Because I have never thought the Min-joon pair would be such a formidable rival.’

Now Dobby had to honestly admit that he had been so haunted during this contest. It was natural that he thought so because he could not find any genuine rivals among his peers except for the head chefs. Even when the media reports described them as a genius pair and even veteran chefs with decades of experience were defeated by the pair, Dobby never expected he might also be defeated by the pair.

Actually, Dobby was called a genius chef in the past. So, compared with Min-joon in the genius category, it was natural that he deserved a higher place than Min-joon in the chef world because he had more years of experience.

“I think we were not humble enough…” said Eva.

“What the heck are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Well, that’s what I feel.”

Dobby responded with a slightly tired voice and looked at the front. The judges were evaluating Enzo and Teo’s course meal consisting of four courses. Maybe the pair made such a choice, considering that the judges might be full early on. The most striking feature of the Enzo and Theo pair was that they put an unusual emphasis on the taste and condition of the customers, which could be hardly found in other chefs in this contest.

Except for pre-meal bread and butter, Enzo and Teo served four main dishes. The first was a stingray boiled in wine, served with cream sauce. The second was beef stewed in spinach after seasoning, and the third was a duck confit served with a wine sauce boiled for dozens of hours. And the last one was mille-feuille, a symbol of a dessert that people mentioned whenever they discussed French cuisine.

Compared to the whole meal on one table prepared by Min-joon and Kaya, the Enzo and Teo pair’s full course was such a contrast. Of course, it didn’t mean their course meal was bad. While the Min-joon and Kaya pair’s one table course showed an abundance of food, which was never excessive, the Enzo and Teo pair’s course had no leftovers even if the judges wanted to eat more after trying one course.

However, considering that the judges were quite full right now, the Enzo pair’s choice was clever. The judges didn’t stop uttering exclamations while taking each course. They didn’t do so out of courtesy. Even though the pair served only four different dishes, each of them had the best taste on its own.

Watching the judges quietly, Dobby thought the pair made the right decision, but Teo was obviously nervous when the judges stood before him.

‘I can’t be eliminated here,’ Theo thought to himself.

He wanted to advance to the finals to save Enzo’s face. So, he wanted to compete with Min-joon fairly and objectively. So Theo wanted to fight with Min-joon confidently. He didn’t want to give his father Enzo another defeat he had suffered in the past.

While thinking about that, however, Theo could not help but be consumed by a strong sense of defeat at the same time because of the whole course meal on one table prepared by Min-joon today. Although Min-joon’s dish was different from his, nobody could say clearly which was better.

Teo felt so many things today. He learned how much a chef’s job could shine, how many things it could change, and what outcomes his challenge would bring about. And he also realized that even lack of experience or age difference was not an excuse for not changing the cuisine market.

So, Teo felt like he had to challenge himself this time. If he missed the opportunity right now and could not compete with Min-joon as a result, he instinctively felt that he would never have another chance to compete with Min-joon in his life.

Honestly, Teo felt even some hard feelings against Enzo because of the uncomfortable truth about his defeat to Chef Daniel in the past. What would change anyway when he knew that the world he thought had no ceilings was actually blocked by a very thick glass ceiling?

If Enzo wanted to show him that he could break that ceiling, he wished his father could show his real abilities in this contest. But Enzo forced Theo to break the ceiling by himself, which angered Teo.

But Teo couldn’t say anything to his father. He could not even think of wiping his sweaty face off with a handkerchief, just listening to the judges’ evaluation and final scores.

His average score was 9.5. The judges praised the pair for having prepared a full course that perfectly reproduced the clean taste and composition of the French cuisine. Despite their praise and a good score, Teo could not put up a smile.

Right now, what was hovering in his ears was what the judges said about Min-joon and Kaya. He could not forget the judges’ final score of the pair’s dishes. Actually, what Min-joon and Kaya made was not based on any combination and recipe that were supposed to bring about good results. In fact, the pair won the hearts of the judges today by making an unusual and adventurous attempt that was bound to be a failure in anybody’s eyes.

‘Then, what challenge did I make today?’

What adventures did he make and what dreams was he dreaming? On the plates prepared by Kaya and Min-joon, their individuality and dreams were reflected. Suddenly, Theo recalled his dream that he once revealed to Min-joon and Kaya with a smile. He told them he wanted to succeed his father Enzo’s restaurant, and that it was his little wish to keep that restaurant.

But he felt his little wish so shameful right after he met them. More precisely, he felt that way after watching what kind of dishes the pair were making. He asked himself if it was alright if he could be satisfied with inheriting his father’s restaurant? Could he be satisfied with such a dream? He thought the frog was the happiest in the well, but the outside world that Kaya and Min-joon showed was so beautiful. So much so that if the frog was eaten by a snake, he wanted to peek into that momentary happiness in the outside world.

Eventually, Theo didn’t say anything when the judges passed by him and moved to Dobby.

“Whew! I’m so nervous because I would be eliminated if I didn’t get a score higher than 9.5.”

“Are you confident you can get a score higher than that?”

“Well, I think the food got cold. Please take it into account when you give me the score.”

“Absolutely, we will.”

“Then I have won,” Dobby replied with a smile.

But Eva sighed, seeing him expressing his confidence in a leisurely manner. In fact, she knew Dobby got so nervous and tense a little while ago, so she could not understand what made him pretend to be so confident. What if he didn’t get more than 9.5?”

What Dobby and Eva made was literally a five-course meal, which was the most common at Rose Island. Because of Rachel Rose’s influence on them, the pair’s dishes could not help but reflect a lot on Italian cuisines, so their dishes included ravioli, pasta, and even steak in the course.

Trying such dishes of the Dobby and Eva pair, the judges felt something was lacking, which they felt a little while ago while evaluating the Enzo and Theo pair’s full course.

Actually, the judges felt the two pairs’ dishes were lacking in something right after they tried the full Asian course on one table prepared by Min-joon and Kaya. Experiencing the uniqueness and the new world of cuisine in the pair’s one table meal, the judges felt somewhat frustrated when they evaluated the Dobby and the Enzo pairs’ dishes.

Obviously, Dobby and Eva’s dishes were delicious. The stuffing, made with dozens of ingredients in ravioli, had a deep and colorful taste that one could not easily find even in Italy. The sweetmeat puale, made by mixing herbs, prawns, and crab meat, did not smell fishy, and even considering that the steak was grilled precisely in medium rare, it didn’t taste excessive or insufficient when they chewed it. When they ate it with soy sauce puree with a little wasabi served together, they even felt like they were eating Japanese wagyu.

In short, the Dobby pair’s full course dishes were perfect. At least, that was what the judges felt, but while they were evaluating the pair’s dishes, they could not help but review Min-joon and Kaya’s dishes.

Feeling somewhat a strange atmosphere, Dobby bit his lips.

A little moment later, however, the judges announced the score after serious deliberation.

The average score was 9.55 points, slightly ahead of the Enzo and Theo pair’s 9.50.

That was the moment when Dobby and Eva advanced to the finals, at last.

But Dobby wasn’t happy. The chefs from Rose Island succeeded to advance to the finals at the Paris International Cooking Contest, the pride of France. It was as if the United States put a flag in the heart of France.

Dobby could have felt a sense of conquest at this moment, but what filled his heart was a strange feeling of defeat and embarrassment. He had never thought that Min-joon and Kaya would look so mighty as chefs. But he had to admit that the tide was turned. Maybe the Min-joon pair were on an equal footing with him from the start, but he alone was mistaken.

Dobby thought he was like a “wall” that Min-joon would have to climb, thinking the latter might be able to do so someday, although he didn’t know when. He felt he could accept his growth comfortably.

But that was not true.

The wall he had to climb was Min-joon and Kaya.

And it was he himself who tried to climb the wall.