Chapter 292

The Clam Chowder from the Inn ‘Red Shell’.

And the Crab Meat Soup from the Lowdrake Restaurant.

After tasting both dishes, they began to ponder deeply to decide which one they personally found more delicious.

After all, deciding the best restaurant in Leila is no small matter, so the audience, with serious expressions, started evaluating the dishes they had eaten.

“Which dish do you think will win?”

“Hmm… That’s quite a difficult question.”

“Indeed. The Innkeeper’s Clam Chowder was surprisingly excellent, but this Crab Meat Soup also delivered an unexpected flavor…”

Mari, Karina, and Serena couldn’t easily come to a conclusion and kept glancing back and forth at the two soup bowls they had eaten.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make.

And they weren’t the only ones struggling with this dilemma.

“Ugh… This is too cruel! Having to choose between the two! Why must we make such a difficult choice after eating such delicious food?”

“What should I do! If I choose the Clam Chowder, I’ll miss the Crab Meat Soup, and if I choose the Crab Meat Soup, the lingering taste of the Clam Chowder still haunts me! Which dish should I truly choose?”

“Oh… Black Tentacle! Why do you make us suffer through such a painful decision! Please, with your amorphous tentacles, guide us!”

Even beyond those three, the audience who came to watch the cooking duel all wore troubled expressions, unable to easily decide.

“Hmm… I think the Clam Chowder from the Inn ‘Red Shell’ will win this time.”

“What are you talking about? Isn’t the Crab Meat Soup from the Lowdrake Restaurant the tastier dish?”

“What? Are you saying we should betray the loyalty we owe to the Inn ‘Red Shell’ and choose the Crab Meat Soup?”

“Even if we owe them, the world of competition is cold and rational. I’m just saying which dish I found tastier.”

“Then we should choose the Clam Chowder!”

“No. The rich flavor of the snow crab and the refreshing aroma of bamboo in the Crab Meat Soup make it the more deserving choice. This flavor has a universal appeal that anyone, young or old, can appreciate!”

“What are you talking about? If we’re talking about complex flavors, the Clam Chowder with its briny clam taste and spicy kick should win! That spiciness pairs so well with alcohol!”

Even among those who had made up their minds, opinions were divided.

Soon, the venue became chaotic with people unable to decide, some arguing passionately for the dish they thought was tastier.

Both chefs had presented soups.

Soups that perfectly suited the seaside city with their inherent seafood flavors.

Though similar, the two dishes also had contrasting characteristics.

One was a Western-style soup based on butter and flour, while the other was an Eastern-style soup using eggs and mushrooms without butter or flour.

The Clam Chowder, with its rich and spicy flavor, and the Crab Meat Soup, with its light and refreshing aroma.

Their similarities and differences made it even harder to determine a winner.

“Kurt! Which dish did you find tastier?”

“Indeed, we’ve already made our decision, but I’m curious about Kurt’s evaluation.”

“Kurt! Which dish do you think will win?”

While I was deep in thought, the three of them, having already made their decisions, turned to me for my opinion.

“Which dish is tastier… These two soups share many similarities not just in being soups but also in their cooking methods.”

The Clam Chowder, which preserved the natural flavor of the ingredients by changing the detoxification method while cleaning the bomb clams, and the Crab Meat Soup, which combined seemingly incompatible ingredients to complement each other.

Technically speaking, Drake’s Crab Meat Soup deserved higher marks for its handling of monster ingredients.

The Innkeeper’s cleaning method preserved 100% of the ingredient’s flavor, but Drake’s cooking method not only extracted 100% of the flavor but also enhanced it beyond the original taste by combining ingredients.

Moreover, detoxifying one type of monster poison versus two types simultaneously.

The difficulty of the latter is self-evident.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Crab Meat Soup is superior to the Clam Chowder.

While the Crab Meat Soup used more advanced techniques in detoxifying monster poison, the Clam Chowder from the Inn ‘Red Shell’ excelled in pure flavor coordination.

The Clam Chowder didn’t have the flashy and innovative combinations of Drake’s Crab Meat Soup, but it had a history of refinement over three generations, continuously improving its taste.

The passion, or perhaps obsession, to perfect a single dish over time, even now, in this cooking duel, was humble yet meticulous in elevating the dish’s perfection.

In contrast, Drake’s Crab Meat Soup, while flawless in technique and cooking method, and with the surprising combination of Bamboo Snake’s bamboo shoots, Man-eating Crab, and crab meat…

Honestly, it still had room for improvement.

Adding the refreshing bamboo aroma to the warm, rich Crab Meat Soup was a good new attempt, but that was about it.

The rich, spicy flavor paired well with the palate, but the combination of crab meat and bamboo aroma didn’t quite hit the mark.

If it were me, I’d think of using rice instead of soup for the combination of monster bamboo shoots and crab meat.

Dishes like crab fried rice or crab shell bibimbap, where bamboo shoots are commonly used, and there’s already a dish called “Dae-tong-bap” that infuses rice with bamboo aroma, could mediate the flavors of crab and bamboo.

But the Crab Meat Soup lacked such a mediator, causing the flavors to feel disjointed.

Even if serving the Crab Meat Soup, adding crispy rice crusts like in nurungji-tang might have helped.

Ah.

Suddenly, I’m craving crab shell bibimbap.

Since only the legs were used in the Crab Meat Soup, maybe I should ask Drake for the body of the Man-eating Crab.

After hearing my explanation, they nodded in agreement.

“Indeed, the taste born from long tradition is not to be underestimated.”

“But the technique of combining monster ingredients for the Crab Meat Soup is equally impressive.”

“So… So, Kurt, which dish do you think will win?”

“To my taste, the Clam Chowder from the Inn ‘Red Shell’ was better. Cooking is ultimately about making food that suits one’s palate. No matter how advanced the technique, the final determinant of a dish’s success is its taste, not the technique used.”

“Then the Clam Chowder will win this round. Honestly, I also thought the Clam Chowder was tastier.”

“Hmm. So everyone is choosing the Clam Chowder…”

“Aw. But the Crab Meat Soup was also delicious…”

Karina nodded in agreement, while Serena muttered in disappointment.

It seems Karina favored the Clam Chowder, and Serena the Crab Meat Soup.

So, in our party, it’s 3 for Clam Chowder and 1 for Crab Meat Soup.

“Then it seems the Innkeeper’s dish will win!”

“No. That might not be the case.”

“Huh? But Kurt, you clearly…”

“This duel isn’t about which dish I found tastier, but which dish the audience chooses more. So, clearly…”

“Now! The judging time is over! Please reveal which dish you found tastier!”

Mari seemed to have a question, but her voice was drowned out by the announcement that the judging time had ended.

…

…

…

And so, the voting results were announced.

As previously discussed, Serena voted for the Crab Meat Soup, while the other three in Kurt’s party voted for the Clam Chowder from the Inn ‘Red Shell’.

However, the majority of the audience voted slightly more for the Crab Meat Soup from the Lowdrake Restaurant, resulting in a 45 to 55 ratio, and the cooking duel was won by the Lowdrake Restaurant’s Crab Meat Soup.