### Chapter 220 – Rest – Hell’s Hotel Kitchen (2)
—
– Lee Eunsol
I was already shocked that the ingredients were in such a bizarre state, but the thought of having to eat 12 plates of food left me utterly dumbfounded.
“Hey! Hey! Are you serious? I’m not a food fighter! How on earth am I supposed to eat 12 plates?”
“Why can’t you eat them?”
Has this guy—no, this monster—finally lost his mind?
“You told me to judge fairly, right? I’ve never even eaten more than three plates at a buffet! Asking me to eat 12 plates out of nowhere? Are you nuts?”
“Oh! Are you saying your stomach isn’t big enough?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Then don’t worry about that part!”
The merchant proudly pulled out a bunch of pills from his hands.
“…”
“For every plate you finish, just take one of these pills. This will completely solve the stomach issue. It’ll also prevent the previous dishes’ flavors from affecting the next ones’ evaluation. Additionally, every dish will be served on the hotel’s special plate, so nothing will be cold or lose flavor while you’re eating.”
I didn’t even bother questioning if such pills or plates could exist in this world. It’s a hotel, after all; we just roll with it. But the thought of having to force down 12 plates of food made from the eerie sounds coming from the kitchen seemed unbearable.
“Hyung! Does a cow really have a nose on its leg?”
“Ugh, come on! Seungyub! Did I tell you to throw that away?”
“Sis, do mushrooms usually move?”
“Ehh! Songee, that’s not a mushroom!”
“I don’t have to eat that, right? Thank goodness.”
“They said Eunsol is eating it.”
Kain, please! Just because I don’t have to eat it, doesn’t mean I’m relieved! I was already feeling queasy just looking at the food.
“Merchant~~! Merchant~~!”
“Oh? Kim Ahri participant, do you have something to say?”
“Can you extend the cooking time? The ingredients are so weird; it takes forever to prepare! Oh! Just now, a shrimp split in half and another shrimp popped out of it!”
“That’s our hotel specialty, ‘Division Shrimp.’ As for extending the cooking time, if all the participants agree—”
“We all agree!”
The cooking time was extended to 1 hour and 30 minutes. But would that guarantee any edible food?
Isn’t it too much to ask for regular shrimp instead of ‘Division Shrimp’? I covered my face with both hands and waited, and waited. 1 hour and 30 minutes isn’t really a long time.
*
After the cooking time ended, my companions gathered around with eight plates covered in silver lids.
— Clunk! Clunk!
“…”
“Haha! Park Seungyub participant? Your dish looks remarkably fresh!”
“It won’t die no matter how much I hit it.”
“So you just put it in a plate, huh?”
Oh Buddha! Did I lack in my training too much?
“Chef Lee Eunsol.”
“…”
“Chef Lee Eunsol?”
“Uh….”
“Please wear the hat for the evaluation. It’ll help with a fair judgment.”
A hat? Now that I think about it, there was one sitting on the table since we got here. Does the hat have some significance? Or is it just a pointless gimmick? What does “helps with a fair evaluation” even mean?
“Participants, please bring your dishes in the order I call your names. First up, Kim Mooksung participant?”
Hearing Grandpa’s name calmed my nerves. After chatting with him for several months, I could tell he had plenty of life experience and that he had some solid cooking skills too!
Sure enough, the plate in front of me smelled decent even before the lid came off.
“What dish is this, Grandpa?”
“You’ll see. It’s simply seafood stew, so don’t worry.”
As he said, the dish contained various shellfish, octopus, and fish perfectly arranged in a seafood stew. Maybe this is a thoughtful consideration for the day when I have to eat a massive amount? I appreciated that the serving size was relatively small.
…
“How do I evaluate this?”
“Just do it how you want.”
“Grandpa! Great effort! My score is~! 8 out of 10. There’s absolutely no fishy smell, the seasoning is spot-on, and the umami flavor is rich. The chewiness of the shellfish and the refreshing broth were excellent!”
Grandpa tilted his head at my words.
“Since I’m confident in my seafood stew skills, an 8 feels a bit lacking… Can I ask why I lost 2 points?”
Before I could respond, the merchant jumped in.
“Kim Mooksung participant!”
“…”
“Please address the chef with honorifics.”
“Can I ask why I lost 2 points?”
The answer to that question was quite simple.
“The octopus is way too fresh.”
The octopus I picked up with my chopsticks looked completely cooked, but its tentacles were sluggishly twitching. If someone who wasn’t used to eating live seafood were in my position, they’d surely barf just looking at it!
“Why the heck isn’t that octopus dying after I cut off its head and legs and boiled it for 20 minutes?”
The merchant chimed in.
“Haha! Participant, the hotel’s specialty octopus is very heat-resistant. However, it’s sensitive to cold, so it needs to be frozen before cooking—”
“Stop with the nonsense!”
Grandpa grumbled and left the table. After popping one of the pills, a magical sensation of food disappearing from my stomach washed over me, and my mouth felt refreshed. Now it was the next turn.
The next dish was brought in by Elena.
“Phew! Other participants struggled with weird ingredients, huh? But not all the ingredients in that storage were bizarre. I mostly used normal ingredients, so you’ll definitely like it.”
Just hearing that put me at ease.
As soon as I saw the pink color of the soup, I recognized it instantly. It was none other than Borscht, a traditional Eastern European soup. That unique pink color came from beets, and it’s topped with sour cream, known as smetana!
As Elena said, the ingredients were regular enough; there was no mishap with squirming squid or anything. I slowly stirred with my spoon and emptied the plate.
“Elena, I’ll give you extra points just for using good ingredients. So glad there were no wriggling onions.”
“Thank you!”
“Did you learn the recipe from your mother?”
“Well, not exactly. I naturally picked it up as I grew up since it’s a dish I often eat.”
“You must have made it for others several times too, right?”
“Yes! I’ve made it for my dad a few times and for friends I met in Korea.”
“Did they all like it?”
“Of course.”
“Too bad!”
“Pardon?”
“They probably couldn’t tell you the truth since they were looking at Elena’s face. Or they might have thought it tasted weird because they hadn’t tried Borscht before. Honestly, I’ve tried it, and if you’re not getting the recipe from your mom, it’s good that she wouldn’t be surprised if she tasted this.”
“Eh? What do you mean?”
“The ingredients are excellent, the plating’s neat, and I can feel your thoughtfulness. Everything’s great except one thing: the ‘taste’. In the future, only serve Borscht to close friends. The others will eat it without a word.”
“Ehhh?!”
“My score is 5. Now move aside. Next!”
After my scathing critique, Elena was left in shock, mouth agape, while my companions wore dazed expressions. Soon, I was feeling dazed too.
“Whaaaaaat! What is this? Hey merchant! What in the world is this?!”
“What do you mean?”
“Right after tasting the dish, my mouth started talking by itself! I was picking my words without even realizing it—”
“Haha! Did I not tell you when I handed you the hat? It helps with honest evaluations!”
“What does that even mean—”
“The hotel always worries about the connections of participants, like family and personal relations, interfering with fair evaluations. It’s unacceptable for someone to give a good review just because they have a good relationship with them or to shoot harsh words just because they dislike each other.”
I was left speechless!
Next, Songee’s plate was served in front of me. Maybe because I just saw the mad hat making Elena cry live, Songee seemed extremely cautious.
“Uh, sis. I wanted to make kimchi fried rice originally…”
“But you didn’t have any kimchi?”
“Yeeees! There was no kimchi, and we had gochugaru, but no gochujang either.”
“So what is this? Napa cabbage instead of kimchi? The seasoning is soy sauce?”
“Yes. Think of it as Napa cabbage soy-sauce fried rice.”
“What a recipe with no roots whatsoever.”
“…”
I emptied the plate.
“On the plus side, the ingredients didn’t squirm, so that’s good. The level of frying is fairly decent too.”
“Th-That’s a relief.”
“But did you even taste this? Did the cabbage swim in seawater? This is the saltiest fried rice I’ve ever eaten in my life! And that fried egg? The outside is completely burnt! Even a caveman would handle fire better than you!”
Upon hearing my shout, Songee wore a pitiful expression as if she could fly away, then hurriedly fled. My score was 4.
The kitchen was filled with chaos! The next plate was brought in by Ari.
“I’m just not going to say anything.”
When the lid was lifted, beef stew was revealed.
I swallowed just one spoon, and the hat’s mysterious malicious power vanished!
The tender meat melted in my mouth, accompanied by the fragrant aroma from the bay leaves and various vegetables delighting my taste buds! The rich, oily stew broth made me wish I had more!
“Ari!”
“Yeah?”
“This is amazing! What is this? Seriously delicious! Have you ever worked as a chef?”
“Hmm. What’s my score?”
“Without a doubt, 10 points! 10 points! I’ve never had a dish this good in my life!”
Ari’s mouth curved upward!
Did she really learn to cook somewhere? I mean, it wouldn’t be weird if she had some kitchen experience, but this is just too impressive!
No joke, each spoonful felt like lightning striking my brain! How could there be such a dish? Despite growing up in a rich family with exposure to gourmet food, this is beyond comparison—
… How is this real? She’s not a full-time chef who’s been honing her beef stew skills for 30 years!
“I object!”
A booming voice from behind caught my attention. Kain raised his hand.
“I saw that just before!”
“Shut up!”
“Ari, you be quiet. Kain, please go ahead.”
“Ari added her blood just before finishing the dish. I suspect some malevolent sorcery from the power of the old blood.”
… Everyone turned with blank expressions toward Ari.
“Ehhh! Judge time!”
“… Go ahead.”
“This cooking contest isn’t only about the food tasting good, right? Isn’t it? There was no rule against adding my blood!”
“Well, that’s more of a common sense issue—”
“There’s nowhere in this world that says you can’t cook using just the legs of the beef! According to the hotel’s logic, I might be right?”
The chaos around me intensified with that voice adding to the confusion.
“Hmmm. That’s a valid point.”
“What’s valid about that?”
“Well, there’s no rule in Hell’s Hotel Kitchen against using one’s lineage. I didn’t prohibit that either. Plus, hotel ingredients are generally ‘special’ items, so Ari’s blood could be seen as a ‘personal unique secret ingredient.’”
This cooking contest must be insane. Didn’t the hotel just say it would exclude variables like family connections? Exclude relationships, but allow brainwashing via lineage? Impressive indeed.
“Moreover, since Chef Eunsol already declared a score of 10 points, the evaluation is concluded.”
“Haha! Did you hear that? Kain! You should’ve objected earlier.”
“Wow! Is the world really going mad?”
It’s not the world that’s gone crazy, it’s just the hotel. I replied dazedly.
“Fine, I get it, but if you add blood in again, I’ll give you a 0 next time.”
“Yeeees!”
“Next!”
The next dish laid in front of me was Kain’s plate.
— Clunk!
I had a terrible premonition. Something ‘fresh’ is about to come up!
My site has received a lot of DMCA notices, lol. From now on, I will update the MTL on https://darkmtl.com/.
The site is fast and lightweight because there are no ads yet. However, the theme is different from Cybor-TL, so take some time to familiarize yourself.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.