“Ah. Their relationship is good. They get along well.”
PD Han watched the scene with a pleased expression.
“How on earth is that ‘getting along’?”
What was with this mood where both of them were trying to make Rowoon do the work…?
In any case, the atmosphere itself was not bad.
It was quite encouraging that their first start had been a success.
It was around the time the second seating started that it became clear that that thought had been mistaken.
They say relief leads to carelessness.
The confidence that they had wrapped up the first seating pretty well brought about carelessness.
“Hyung, we need two janchi guksu out.”
“Huh?”
Kim Bonggeun, who had just been doing the final plating of the bibimbap, stiffened.
“Wasn’t it two bibimbap? I thought the last order was two bibimbap, wasn’t it?”
“Just a moment.”
Rowoon quickly checked the order slip.
One noodles and one rice, two noodles, one noodles one rice…
The quantities Rowoon had checked were correct.
“Hyung. The rice dishes have all gone out already; we need two noodles.”
“What, why did I mistake it for bibimbap?”
Kim Bonggeun’s expression twisted with embarrassment.
“For now, hyung, it’s okay, so just get the two noodles ready first. Noodles come out quickly, so we can serve them without a problem.”
“Y-yeah. Got it. I’ll do that!”
Expression returned to the face of Kim Bonggeun, who had seemed completely out of it.
We almost had a big problem.
It was a relief that Rowoon had noticed in advance.
If not, a big mistake of serving the wrong dish would have happened.
I’m going to have to keep a close eye on things.
But Rowoon was not exactly free either.
Once the customers finished eating, the dishes started to pile up.
They had to get through them quickly so they could go straight into the next orders.
While Rowoon was finishing up the dishes,
“Hyung. They say this order came out wrong.”
Kang Chaheon had come back to the pass holding the order he had taken out.
“Huh? What? Wasn’t it the order for table 7?”
“Yes, it’s table 7, but they say they didn’t order potato jeon, they ordered two noodles and two bibimbap.”
“What?”
With a stunned face, Kim Bonggeun all but flew over to check the order slip.
“No way, it really is. I’m going crazy. Ah, come to think of it, this is the one Rowoon told me earlier was the additional order, right? Ha, I’m going crazy. I must have gotten it mixed up in that short time. What do we do?”
“First of all, I think it would be good to send out the potato jeon on the house.”
“R-right. For now, that’s best. We can make the noodles quickly…!”
It was true that janchi guksu was a very simple dish.
But that was only when you cooked the noodles properly without any mistakes.
“Huh? Oh, oh?”
While he was flustered and completely scattered, the pot with the noodles in it boiled over.
“Hyung!”
He was so out of it that he even tried to grab the pot with his bare hands.
If he grabbed not even the handle but the pot itself, it would be a horrible disaster.
It was a situation where the whole program could have been ruined.
It was Rowoon who barely stopped a disaster that could have sent him straight to the hospital.
“No, Rowoon… the noodles…!”
“Hyung. Calm down.”
The noodles were a mess, scattered along with the overflowing water.
Seeing that, Kim Bonggeun’s face crumpled.
On top of that, there was something even worse.
Perhaps because the water had overflowed, the burner was not working.
“The noodles… what do we do about the noodles…?”
It took about five minutes to cook the noodles to a pleasantly chewy texture.
That was the time it took to bring the water to a boil, put in the noodles, cool them once with cold water, and bring them to a boil again.
Internally, the time allotted to prepare the dishes for one table was ten to fifteen minutes.
But it had already gone over twenty minutes.
Realizing late that he had mixed up the order had been critical.
If, as earlier, Rowoon had checked in the middle once more, it would not have taken long to correct it.
“Lee Rowoon. Is table 7 still not ready?” asked Kang Chaheon as he came into the kitchen.
“They’ve already almost finished the free potato jeon.”
“Stall for a bit.”
Seeing the disaster in the kitchen, Kang Chaheon clicked his tongue and went back out.
“Hyung Bonggeun, it’s okay. Kang Chaheon will cover it somehow, so just stay calm for now.”
Rowoon soothed Kim Bonggeun.
If his mental state collapsed, the kitchen would collapse too.
But that did not last long.
“Hyung Bonggeun, can you take an additional order?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“We have an order for fried rice. There’s a little guest.”
“Ah, w-wait a second!”
Flustered, Kim Bonggeun rushed toward the rice cooker.
Then he opened the rice cooker and froze on the spot.
“Hyung, what is it?”
“I… I guess I forgot to press cook.”
“What?”
When they hurriedly checked, there really was only raw rice.
“For now, for now we’ll have to do the other dishes while the rice cooks…”
There was no strength in Kim Bonggeun’s voice as he pressed the cook button.
To make matters worse, they could hear a child whining outside.
Ah. This really is bad.
You could see in real time that Kim Bonggeun’s mental state was flying apart.
The small mistakes had snowballed.
Behind this was the string of irregular orders that kept coming in during the second seating.
There were times when one person ordered several dishes.
There were times when they saw what another table was eating and placed additional orders.
It was a situation where it was plenty easy to get confused.
Rowoon had given him reminders from time to time, but it was no wonder that Kim Bonggeun, who was in charge of all the cooking by himself, was overloading.
We can’t go on like this.
Rowoon quickly worked his brain.
What they needed now was time to get the situation under control.
In particular, once Kim Bonggeun made one mistake, he had begun to fall apart in succession.
At this point, they needed to get a firm hold on Kim Bonggeun’s mental state.
That way they would be able to manage properly for the two days still left.
“Aaagh… I’m going crazy. What do I do!”
Reality never goes the way practice does.
Compared to just a few days ago, the situation was so different that it felt like Kim Bonggeun’s mind was crumbling.
But Rowoon thought differently.
It might even be a good thing that we’re getting a preventative shot now.
Up until yesterday, no less, Kim Bonggeun had even been worrying that the menu might be too plain.
He had even ambitiously planned to add a special additional dish every day, asking what they thought about putting in a daily special.
If a problem had arisen on a day when there was such an additional variable…
Ugh. It’s even more awful to imagine.
Anyway, when you thought about it, now was actually the best timing.
The ones who can turn a crisis into an opportunity are the ones who can succeed.
Just then, it seemed some of the tables that had finished their main meal were ordering dessert.
The problem was that there were quite a lot of them.
Since it was dessert, those orders could pile up all at once too.
Rowoon was certain.
This hopeless situation needed improvement.
And that needs to happen right now.
“Potatoes? Why potatoes all of a sudden?”
asked Kim Bonggeun, who was boiling the thin wheat noodles while barely holding his crumbling mind together.
Next to him was the batter for potato jeon; it was the additional order a staff member, unable to just watch Kang Chaheon fail to take orders because he was making bungeoppang, had quietly passed on.
“With how things are right now, I don’t think anything will work. Can I use this deep fryer here?”
He switched on the deep fryer the production team had prepared but had had no occasion to use because of the menu.
He poured in oil immediately and started heating it.
Then, using the time it would take for the oil to heat, he began peeling the potatoes the neighbor had shared.
He used a peeler to shave the pile of pale potatoes into thin slices.
As he let the moisture drain from the sliced potatoes on a kitchen towel, he looked for one more important ingredient.
“Salt. Salt.”
The cooking station, which had been neatly organized, was now a mess as if a bomb had gone off.
It was like a reflection of the mental state of Kim Bonggeun, whose mind had crumbled.
Beep!
A notification beeped to say the set temperature had been reached.
Rowoon immediately put the sliced potatoes into the fryer basket.
Sizzle sizzle!
The delightful sound of oil crackling spread pleasantly.
“Rowoon, what is that you’re doing now?”
“Something to send out on the house to the customers.”
“On the house?”
“Yes. Right now they’re waiting because of our mistake. If their mood sours while they’re waiting, in the end their experience here will be remembered as the worst.”
“Ah, ah! I see!”
“I thought if possible, while they’re waiting it would be good if we could introduce a local specialty as a snack at the same time, so I decided to prepare this. And this kind of thin potato fries can be ready in no time.”
“Wow… Rowoon, you…”
Kim Bonggeun stared at Rowoon with his mouth hanging open.
He, the one with overall responsibility for the kitchen, had his mental state shattered by a few menu mistakes.
But the youngest, whom he had only ever thought of as the gentlest and softest, was maintaining the firmest mentality in this complete madhouse.
While Kim Bonggeun was marveling,
Tap, tap!
Rowoon scooped out the crisply fried potato chips.
He shook them firmly to get the oil off, then put them on kitchen towel and neatly removed the remaining grease.
Then he sprinkled over the salt he had dug out from the chaotic cooking station and tossed them evenly.
Three minutes and thirty seconds.
Cutting the potatoes thin, almost shaved, and frying them had worked.
He found a basket of suitable size and lined it with greaseproof paper.
The salted potato fries were laid neatly in the basket.
Now all that remained was to send them out like this.
But then.
…Wait. There’s no one to take them out.
Kim Bonggeun was in no state, busy trying to salvage the janchi guksu.
Outside, Kang Chaheon looked breathlessly busy turning out bungeoppang.
In that case, there was only one person left.
It was none other than Rowoon himself.
…Is it really okay for me to go?
Rowoon also knew the reactions from before he came on this program.
Those negative responses about him getting to appear on none other than PD Han’s variety show just by clinging to Kang Chaheon.
Most of the people who came here are probably fans of Kang Chaheon… to them, my very presence must be an eyesore.
PD Han had said he had fairly selected a variety of people by lottery.
But from the start, the ones applying would be mostly Kang Chaheon’s fans.
To them, there was a high possibility that Rowoon was nothing but someone they disliked.
But…
It has to be me.
What mattered now was getting the situation under control.
Hesitating because he was afraid of the hostility that might be poured on him to his face would only be childishness.
Doing whatever he could to be of help was the only way to come out of this with anything.
“Hoo…”
Letting out a tense breath, Rowoon pushed a tray loaded with baskets of potato fries and left the kitchen.
Fortunately, what he felt were friendly gazes.
They were a little put out from the long wait, but he sensed that they were still just at the stage right before it turned into real dissatisfaction.
Some of the tables even showed interest in the tray Rowoon was pushing.
The curious, watchful gazes peaked when Rowoon set the basket down on the table.
“Wow. What is this?”
“These are handmade potato chips made with honggamja, a local specialty red potato.”
“But we didn’t order this.”
“It’s on the house as an apology for the confusion in the kitchen. Please enjoy.”
Rowoon showed a bright smile.
The habits he had built up practicing in front of a mirror while filming “Gwiro” to study his expressions shone through.
As he put on a simple, harmless smile, he could feel the last traces of wariness the other person had held crumbling away.
It was a perfect success, beyond any need for words.
Leave a Reply