God of Cooking

“People have always told me your perfect palate is a great gift,” June murmured in a cheerful voice as if she was humming to herself. Instead of answering, Min-joon listened quietly to her.

She opened her mouth again.

“And they also said when you started evaluating the restaurant, all the chefs would be anxiously waiting for your verdict.”

“They did.”

“But why didn’t you do it?”

Min-joon couldn’t easily answer her question. Like she said, people were expecting and waiting for his evaluation. But why couldn’t he do it? Did he think he was not competent enough? Or did he think their expectations were too high, compared with his competence?

No, that couldn’t be the answer because he was not conscious of them. He only cared about one thing, which was the system.

If he had not been able to check his level, he might have tried harder. However, he only had a gastronomy level of 8. When there were plenty of veteran chefs with gastronomy level 9, he didn’t want to present his own evaluation as if he was already a master of gastronomy.

But this time, he thought of promoting himself. Why? Was it because he thought he had the highest gastronomic level in the world?

‘No…’

He was as full of confidence as ever. He still had the inclination to rely on the system. But one thing had changed. He had someone who could reply to his question, “Can I do it?”

June did not wait for his hesitation. And that was what told Rachel from him. While Rachel watched him growing slowly, June tried to develop his potential as much as possible. It was hard to tell which method was better or worse, but it was true that June’s method definitely paid off because he could show the world his gastronomic power for the first time thanks to her.

And the moment he did it, he could not stop it because his evaluation of the major restaurants in New York had already been known to people.

“If you can, you should do it. If you agonize over whether you have to do it or not, you are only wasting your time. You are not waiting for the right time to do it, but you are just missing it.”

“I won’t miss it.”

“I’m not trying to scold you, so don’t get sullen.”

She looked out of the window while trying to appease him in an indifferent tone. The streets crowded with people in New York disturbed her eyes and stimulated her desire to stand out the most among the countless people out there.

“Sometimes I envy you,” she murmured as if she was craving for it. Even though she knew he was looking at her with a puzzled expression, she didn’t look back at him. If she did, she was afraid he could peek into her soft spot.

“What you have now is something no one has ever tried. People trust Michelin’s power, but they never trust the evaluation of any ordinary chef. But you are different because you have shown something perfect that no gourmet in the world has ever shown.”

“Well, I think I have to work more responsibly, given the impact of each evaluation I’m going to make.”

“It’s good you have such a sense of responsibility, but that’s not what you need the most. The thing is, whether you really enjoy this or not. Just do whatever you want. Don’t think about what’s going to happen after you do it because I know your senses are more mature and smarter than you think. Just follow your instinct. Do you know what I mean?”

“Sort of.”

“Great.”

He chuckled at her response. She looked at him for a moment with a curious expression, then turned her head.

“You have been to the restaurant you are going to visit today, right?”

“Yes, it was the first restaurant where I enjoyed cooking level 9 food for the first time, and it seemed to remind me of a fresh start in New York.”

While he was saying that, the sign of the restaurant East Rabbit Garden was in his eyes. This was the restaurant where he had nice food with cooking level 9 for the first time. And this was the restaurant that made him feel that he would be really happy if he could make a dish like that. In other words, this was the restaurant where he had a dream and fantasy about cooking.

Min-joon was trying to evaluate this restaurant as the chief guide of Choters, which he once visited as a customer as well as an amateur observer.

***

“If you intend to implement that plan, I can’t do it alone.”

“What are you going to do if you can’t do it alone?”

“I want to do it with Kaya.”

When Min-joon first said that, June looked at him with a ridiculous expression.

But he understood her feelings because his reply might have made her feel he was talking nonsense like an immature person who could not distinguish between his private and public matters. But June didn’t know Kaya’s worth yet. She didn’t understand what a great feel she had for tasting food.

However, he could not give it up by citing June’s ignorance of Kaya, for it was Kaya who he needed the most to proceed with this project as the Choters guide. He hoped that Kaya, who had a gastronomic level of 10 and a real perfect palate would make up for what he was lacking in as far as his evaluation was concerned. So, he was confident he would never make any mistake in evaluation if Kaya worked with him.

In the end, he had to persuade June, which was the reason why he needed to work with Kaya, explaining it was not because he wanted to be with her because she was his lover and that she had never examined how talented Kaya was. Eventually, he arranged a meeting between June and Kaya, and Kaya showed her everything she could about her fantastic feel for taste. For example, Kaya showed her how sensitive her feel for each ingredient was, how much she could reproduce the recipe in question, what was the purpose of the dish in question and how the dish brought out such a taste. Watching Kaya understanding and analyzing all of that, June could not help but be amazed by her unbelievable feel for taste.

‘Oh my… How come this couple has a perfect palate?’

She even wondered if this was a miracle or coincidence or something she just had to take for granted because it was so absurd.

She had hardly seen any chef with a perfect palate in cooking history. What was the probability of two chefs with a perfect palate appearing at the same time, with the two being a lover at that?

Could this happen in reality?

However, June was sure that Kaya was a chef with a perfect palate. She felt Kaya was a bit different from Min-joon. She was not as good as him in terms of analyzing recipes and ingredients, she was far better than him in terms of understanding cooking itself.

In fact, Kaya was already far ahead of June in that field. Watching her catch the strength and weakness of any ingredient and grasping the results of their harmony, June couldn’t understand why she couldn’t stand out properly just because she was eclipsed by his fame so far.

‘Well, come to think about it, it’s not true she hasn’t stood out yet because she has never lost to Min-joon.’

At the Grand Chef competition, Kaya and other competitions after that. Kaya never lagged behind Min-joon. Even when he competed at the Paris International Culinary Competition, Kaya was with him. No matter how great his skills were, he would not have won the Paris competition if Kaya’s perfect feel for taste and her cooking skills were mediocre.

So, Kaya gave June a new headache. She had to ponder over how she could make the best use of the duo. What came to her mind, first of all, was to create something like a Choters guide, not Cho guide.

The name Choters was conceived by Kaya. Did he say that it originated from her memory of making chicken tofu Choters in the past? In fact, things like its origin weren’t very important to her. It wasn’t too bad that her sense of coining the name ‘Choters’ was terribly simple, for the simpler it was, the better people could remember it well. Giving dignity and class to the name was something the two would have to cultivate in the days to come.

“Oh, sorry I’m late. I got stuck in traffic.”

Arriving at the restaurant later than Min-joon and June, Kaya apologized to them in a careless manner and sat down.

In the meantime, a man standing next to their table spoke to Kaya in an overly kind manner.

“Ah, Miss Reuters! It’s an honor to meet you. I really enjoyed watching you at the Grand Chef competition. I would like to congratulate you on your victory at the Paris International Culinary Competition!”

“Thank you. I also watched some videos about your food or something like that a few times, Jamie. This guy here has told me so many times he likes the taste of East Rabbit Garden food.”

Jamie smiled at her words. Watching him, Min-joon slowly opened his mouth.

“As I said before, I would like to order the best course you selected, Jamie.”

“At that time, you said you enjoyed a dish with cooking level 9 for the first time, right? Well, let me show you a dish with the perfect score of 10 today.”

“I wish you could do so,” Min-joon answered calmly, with a smile.

Clenching his fist, Jamie turned and went back to the kitchen.