Chapter 74 - Chapter 74: Unexpected Collaboration (1)

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Unexpected Collaboration (1)

#Who is the leading role of Grand Chef Season 1, which has the highest viewer ratings?

If a broadcaster had to pick who was the most popular, they would have picked Grand Chef without hesitation. They had an average of 5 million viewers, and at times it even surpassed 7 million, making it the top current show.

And who was the cause of that result? Was it because the missions were better planned out? No. Even the food truck episode was not planned ahead of time, so that couldn’t have been the cause.

The reason why Season 3 was more popular was because of the contestants. To be more exact, it had to do with a few of the contestants. Among the broadcasters, it was even said that Season 3 was a gift from the gods. That meant there were quite a few contestants with star qualities.

The first one was Anderson Russo. The confident and attractive man was recently revealed to be the son of Favio and Amelia Russo. The owners of a Michelin 3-star restaurant. His parents were the chefs there as well.

Anderson Russo’s skills elicited great curiosity amongst the viewers. He was too skilled to be an amateur, and he had a deep understanding of food. When he stood in front of the cooking station, his confidence and charisma were unbeatable. As such, the news about his parents and their restaurant were both shocking yet understandable.

As for Kaya Reuters, she was on the other side of the spectrum. The Cinderella, who only graduated elementary school and helped her mother at the market, drew more attention on the show than anyone else.

But she wasn’t gaining attention in only the good ways. She also received criticism for her cursing on the show.

But the reason why she still had fans was because she was beautiful and talented. Also, she was 18 years old. Her skills were too advanced for someone who just became a legal adult. In particular, after showing her skills with fire, fans began calling her the chef of fire.

In addition to Reuters’ unfortunate past and her genius ways, there was another reason why she was gaining attention, and that was the dramatic relationship she conveyed with Cho Min Joon. No one knew if the producers created it or if it was just luck, but the important part was that they were gaining lots of attention from viewers.

And the viewers weren’t wasting their energy with their hopes. Reuters, who was known for her snappy and offensive attitude, let her guard down around Cho Min Joon. Their interactions made viewers cheer them on even more, but that response recently changed.

It happened on May 4. On May 4, Grand Chef exceeded 7 million viewers. It was the show where Cho Min Joon revealed his perfect palate, and the viewers’ response to that could be explained quite simply. The video of him getting all the ingredients right surpassed 30 million views online.

Originally, the viewers saw Cho and Reuters’ relationship as a pleasant exchange, but as soon as it was revealed that Cho Min Joon was a genius, the people couldn’t accept it as just an average relationship. They made it into a genius interested in another genius, and it made them anticipate it even more.

And that anticipation was going to be perfectly conveyed in the number of viewers. Of course, those views didn’t reflect only the interesting cooking portions of the show, but that didn’t mean it was worthless. Grand Chef was going to maintain its popularity and take the throne of television.

But there was one question. If Grand Chef’s popularity was due to a few contestants, would the number of viewers decrease as contestants get disqualified? Or would it go up even higher?

2010.05.12 – Angela Eve

“… Disqualified.”

Cho Min Joon stared at his phone with a weird look on his face while lying on top of his blanket. It wasn’t because the report was covering something unusual, but it made him think of something. The way Peter left after getting disqualified made him see a reflection of himself as well.

And that was all because of Martin. Cho Min Joon sighed. After Martin’s proposal, all he could think about was the tasting trip. He had a type of insurance. A backup plan for if he was disqualified.

He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be happy or sad about the fact that he now had a safety net.

Worrying about it made him hungry. Cho Min Joon headed into the kitchen.

It had already been a week since Peter was disqualified, but there was still no news of the next mission. Cho Min Joon had an idea of what the next mission would be. He couldn’t remember the exact order of the missions, but he remembered the most memorable parts. To be exact, the missions where Kaya thrived. After all, he watched all the clips of Kaya separately.

He didn’t remember the risotto mission. He couldn’t remember it well. It was possible that Kaya chose a different dish or a different mission was carried out.

But the upcoming mission was too interesting to change just because of Cho Min Joon’s addition. He believed the producers wouldn’t have changed it.

“Did you just get up?”

“It’s been a while.”

Only Anderson was in the kitchen. It made sense. After all, it was only 7 in the morning. Kaya and Chloe were the only other ones who would come to the kitchen this early, but Chloe got in the habit of exercising in the mornings, and Kaya woke up early to go to the market, but these days, she also slept in quite often.

“What are you making?”

“Potato Gratin.”

“… In the morning?”

Anderson shrugged and didn’t answer. It was possible to want to eat such a heavy meal in the morning, so Cho Min Joon didn’t question further. Anderson pointed at the pantry with his eyes.

“New vegetables came in this morning. Make something with it.”

“Oh, really?”

Like Anderson said, the pantry was filled with vegetables with over 90% freshness.

‘I feel like noodles.’

But he didn’t crave pasta. He felt like oil and sauce were too heavy for a morning meal, but rather than making seafood pasta, he thought it would be better to eat noodles inside a soup.

At that moment, he saw udon noodles and rice noodles. Cho Min Joon’s eyes wavered between the two. He like udon noodles better, but rice noodles went better with broth.

So Cho Min Joon went with the rice noodles. After all, rice noodles were better at making the freshness of vegetables come alive. When it came to udon, the noodles always ended up being the star of the show. On the other hand, it was possible to enjoy the vegetables as much as the rice noodles, but onions, parsley, bean sprouts, and coriander was all there was to it. Cho Min Joon liked all of those. He didn’t hate coriander either. As long as the scent was unique and not smelly, he didn’t have a reason to hate it.

In contrast to the simple list of ingredients, it was actually difficult to make rice noodles. Other than beef broth, bean sprouts, green onions, peppers, coriander, radish, ginger, onion, and lime, there were just fish sauce, chili sauce, and hoisin sauce.

That was why most families didn’t make rice noodles at home. There were too many ingredients, and the sauces that were needed weren’t commonly used in households. On top of that, if they did buy the sauces, they had nowhere else to use them. Of course, fish sauce could replace most of the sauces… but the flavors weren’t the same.

After soaking the rice noodles in water, Cho Min Joon opened the wrapper containing the broth. He normally would’ve made broth from bone, but it was too early for such efforts. Cho Min Joon poured the broth into the pot and added onions and ginger.

He didn’t make pickled onions. He didn’t know about the natives’ taste, but Cho Min Joon didn’t’ like the flavors to be too strong. It was so strong that it swallowed up all the other flavors. It was almost as if he hated pickled radish that was 10 times as sour with his black bean noodles.

As soon as he added the fish sauce, salt, and pepper into the broth and took out the beef brisket, Chloe returned to the kitchen in her sportswear. She had her hair tied up and breathed heavily with flushed cheeks, but it didn’t look like she was searing. It was still cold out. Cho Min Joon asked in a calm voice, “Did you finish exercising?”

“Yeah. But I saw someone weird out in the garden. He was hanging on the wall taking photos.”

“… Another reporter?”

Multiple reporters tried to enter the Chef House and got kicked out. It made sense. Just like how paparazzi followed stars around, they were interested in Grand Chef as well since it was so popular on TV. Chloe shook her head.

“I don’t know. The guard caught him and erased all the photos, but I came inside just to avoid the whole thing. What did you make? It smells good.”

“Rice noodles.”

“Oh, you’re making noodles with broth.”

“I like rice noodles with broth rather than dry. Do you want some? I’m almost done. I made plenty. Enough for 3 to 4 people.

“Then I’d like a bowl.”

Chloe smiled with her hands put together. Cho Min Joon glanced over at the halls. It was time for Kaya to arrive, but she was nowhere in sight. Perhaps, she was sleeping in this time. At that moment, Kaya entered the kitchen with her messy hair tied up and in a stretched out t-shirt and wrinkled pants.

Chloe looked at Kaya’s hair with sparkling eyes. She liked messy hair. She actually made an effort to style her hair that way after showering. Cho Min Joon laughed.

“Kaya. I thought you were supposed to make me breakfast every morning.”

“I never said at what time. It’s only 8.”

Cho Min Joon smirked in response. She probably needed a lot of sleep anyway. Anderson finished his potato gratin and looked around at them.

“Anyone want potato gratin?”

“I’ll pass. I don’t want to eat cheese and get sick again.”

In response to Cho Min Joon’s answer, Anderson showed a disappointed look on his face. Cho Min Joon shrugged and continued, “I can’t help it. It gets harder to digest cheese as I get older.”

“… You’re only 21.”

“I’m at an age where I age rather than grow. It’s different from teens. Besides, my body doesn’t handle cheese well to begin with.”

Anderson squinted his eyes and ate his gnocchi with cheese. The gnocchi, which was made with cream sauce, was chewy yet soft. Chloe lifted her hand.

“Anderson, I’ll have some.”

“… Okay.”

Meanwhile, the rice noodles were being completed. Cho Ming Joon poured the broth over the rice noodles and finished it off with onions and peppers. He then put lime juice and other sauces into different bowls and put them on the table.

He was hungry from the smell while cooking. He had some broth in between, but that made him even hungrier.

But he also knew that eating it now would make it more delicious than ever. All four of them sat down at the table. Kaya had made egg rolls and put it on the table. Kaya scoffed and said, “Here are egg rolls. I made breakfast, okay?”

“Good enough.”

Kaya glared at Cho Min Joon, but she couldn’t say anything. She was too hungry, and the rice noodles looked delicious. Anderson didn’t have the rice noodles. After all, he made a lot of potato gratin. The portion got smaller once Chloe took some, but there were still lots. Anderson glanced at Kaya.

“Are you going to have any gratin?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Anderson turned his head away. It felt a little awkward, but Cho Min Joon didn’t care. Anderson and Kaya had been awkward ever since the team mission where they fought, so it was no wonder they weren’t fond of each other.

Cho Min Joon slowly put the rice noodles into his mouth. The broth was hot, but since the noodles were made in cold water, there was no need to blow on it. The broth smelled strongly of meat and tickled his nose. Most Koreans hated coriander, but not Cho Min Joon.

Strong flavors weren’t good, but when it came to coriander, the stronger the better. It was an intense scent. It took over not just the nose but the entire mouth as well.

He also liked the crispy bean sprouts as well as the texture of the noodles. The cooking score was 7. These days, it was hard to make anything worth 6 points. For most foods, it was easy for him to reach 7 points.

‘Maybe I’m close to becoming a level 7.’

Thinking that while eating made the rice noodles taste even better. Kaya glanced at Cho Min Joon and said, “It’s good.”

“I agree.”

“Thanks.”

In response to Kaya and Chloe, Cho Min Joon smiled. Cho Min Joon took another bite and then asked, “When do you think the next mission will be?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe they’ll surprise us.”

“I hope it’s not like the food truck mission. It was fun but tiring.”

“I agree.”

At that moment, Kaya looked at Cho Min Joon and asked, “Do you want to make a bet?”

“What kind?”

“About what the mission will be. If I win… I don’t have to make you breakfast anymore. And if you win, I’ll make you lunch, too. What do you think?”

“… You’re becoming the typical gambler, you know that?”

“Shut up. Are you in or not? Why? Do you think you’ll lose?”

The smile on her face made it obvious what she was up to. Cho Min Joon smiled and asked, “What do you think it’ll be?”

“There’s 10 of us, so it’ll be a team mission of 5 against 5. Since I said it first, you have to say something else.”

“Okay. I think it’ll be an individual mission.”

“… Really?”

Kaya looked at Cho Min Joon with doubt because he accepted it too easily. Cho Min Joon smiled without a word. From what he remembered, when there were 10 contestants remaining, it wasn’t a team mission. To be more exact, there was only 1 team mission after that point, and he remembered a scene where 10 plates were placed on top of the table. If his memory served him right, this mission was…

‘A buffet.’