Chapter 303

And so the meal began, and Kurt’s party was slightly surprised at the sight of the golden fried rice they had never seen before, but soon understood that Kurt had once again created a fascinating dish and quickly started eating.

However, among them, only one.

Only Lito hesitated, unable to easily lift his spoon.

If Lito had been more knowledgeable about the culture of the Eastern Continent, he might not have had any doubts, but to him, rice was just something he had seen a few times being eaten by merchants or travelers from the Eastern Continent at the port of Leila.

Thanks to that memory, he knew that rice wasn’t inedible, but even so, eating rice required a small amount of courage for Lito.

Gulp…

Lito’s internal struggle between the will to eat and the rejection of unfamiliar food didn’t last long.

Whoosh

Growl

The moment the warm steam and the savory aroma of the fried rice spread from the plate in front of him, his stomach reacted before his mind could even process the smell.

Lito, who had been increasingly worried since his father left for the sea, hadn’t been eating properly lately.

Just this morning, he had barely eaten breakfast.

But with the help of Kurt’s party, although not all his worries were resolved, the biggest burden in his heart was lifted, and he could relax.

With his tension eased, his stomach was now fiercely demanding the nutrients it had been deprived of, and it had been waiting for nearly an hour.

The aroma of fried rice hitting his stomach, which was acting like a unleashed dog.

The moment he smelled it, the word hesitation disappeared from Lito’s mind.

By the time he came to his senses, Lito had already unconsciously moved his hand and taken a big spoonful of fried rice.

Gulp

And then Lito swallowed saliva, the opposite of the dry mouth caused by the tension from the unfamiliar dish he had just swallowed, and immediately put the fried rice into his mouth.

.

.

.

Hah

Honestly, to Lito, rice didn’t seem like a particularly tasty dish.

After all, it wasn’t made by grinding grains into powder, but simply by steaming rice with water.

Just from that description, it was hard to grasp where the flavor was supposed to come from.

In fact, all the people from the Eastern Continent he had seen so far either sprinkled salt on their rice or ate it with other dishes, but never ate rice alone.

Rather, Lito couldn’t understand why people at the port ate rice if they were going to eat it with other dishes.

But

Chew chew

Chew chew

Chew…

“…!?”

‘Is this… the taste of rice?’

The moment Lito ate the crab fried rice.

Lito couldn’t understand the people of the Eastern Continent who ate rice in a different way.

‘People from the Eastern Continent eat rice alone and it’s this delicious, but they still eat it with other dishes? How extravagant is that!?’

The culinary culture of the Eastern Continent, where rice alone was enough, but they still ate it with side dishes.

Of course, such thoughts were possible because Lito didn’t know the difference between the fried rice he was eating and plain rice.

‘Rice is such a delicious food…!’

Each grain of rice, coated with oil and egg wash, shining in a beautiful golden color, wasn’t just beautiful on the outside.

The moment the rice entered his mouth, the oil-coated grains smoothly slid on his tongue, and at the same time, it wasn’t as greasy as it looked.

That was because the repeated stir-frying had evaporated the oil, making the coating unimaginably thin.

Thus, despite the glossy appearance from the oil, beyond the thin layer of oil that couldn’t be measured by the naked eye, the inside was perfectly fluffy.

Although it’s a story from Kurt’s past life, there’s a saying that to judge whether a Chinese restaurant is good or not, you should first order fried rice.

Because fried rice is a dish with a simple recipe and generally uses common ingredients, but at the same time, the stir-frying method can result in vastly different outcomes depending on the chef’s skill.

In that sense, the fried rice Kurt made had an extreme level of perfection that no one could easily imitate, truly a master’s skill.

And it wasn’t just that Kurt’s cooking skills were great.

Chew chew

“This, how can it be so savory…!”

The perfection of a dish is as important as the chef’s skill, but the ingredients used are also crucial.

Just as each grain of rice was thinly coated with oil, the taste and aroma of the three-legged fowl’s egg, evenly permeating each grain without clumping, amplified the savory flavor of the oil-coated rice several times over.

And after the overwhelming savory flavor of oil and egg felt at the first bite, the taste of the various ingredients in the fried rice began to show their presence.

The onions and carrots, finely chopped to the size of rice grains, were stir-fried in oil to a degree that even children could eat without rejection, adding a subtle sweetness unique to vegetables and a crispy texture to the otherwise plain fried rice.

But what shone the most was the crab meat, which played the lead role alongside the rice in the crab fried rice.

Fried rice, at its core, can be simple and savory with just eggs and oil, a taste that stays true to the basics.

But that also means it’s a modest taste, far from being flashy.

Of course, combined with Kurt’s cooking skills, it was a taste that could empty two or three bowls, but the moment the presence of crab meat began to show in the fried rice, the taste transcended to another level.

It wasn’t just about eating two or three bowls.

It was literally like drinking water.

The flesh of the ghost crab mixed between the rice grains exploded in the mouth with the unique brininess of seafood and the subtle sweetness unique to crab meat, which couldn’t be tasted in other seafood.

And that crab meat wasn’t ordinary.

It was crab meat that Kurt had cooked by combining the man-eating crab and bamboo snake’s bamboo shoots, realizing the synergy while tasting Drake’s crab soup.

The combination of the two ingredients not only neutralized each other’s toxins but also enhanced the flavor.

As a result, the flesh of the ghost crab, stir-fried in oil, retained a vivid taste and aroma that was not inferior to steamed snow crab, and the rice was filled with a clear bamboo aroma, as if the rice had been placed inside bamboo and then stir-fried.

The fluffy texture and savory taste of the fried rice.

The vivid and intense taste and aroma of snow crab that could only be felt in steamed crab.

The subtle and fragrant bamboo aroma felt in the rice, as if it were bamboo rice.

The trinity of flavors.

It was like the ultimate monster Lito had imagined while doodling to pass the time when his father left for the sea.

A monster created by combining all the strengths of various strong and cool monsters, a product of a child’s imagination.

A monster that could only come from the imagination of a young child.

This monster’s claws, that monster’s teeth, and another monster’s wings.

Like the self-made monster in his imagination, combining only the strengths of the cool monsters he knew.

Kurt’s cooking was like that, selectively taking only the strengths felt in various dishes.

The only difference was that what Lito imagined was a delusional existence that didn’t exist in reality, but Kurt had actually brought it to life.

Chew chew

Gulp

Hah!

Chew chew

In the face of the demonic charm of the crab fried rice, all Lito could do was to devour the fried rice like a traveler who had found an oasis in a desert, on the verge of dying from thirst.

His cheeks bulging.

Chewing and swallowing the rice to the point where it was doubtful if there was any left.

“It’s so… so delicious…!”

“…I’m glad you’re enjoying it, but you’ll get indigestion eating like that.”

Clatter

To the frantically eating Lito, Kurt handed over a soup he had brought from the kitchen.

It was a crab soup he had prepared in advance while cooking the rice, to be eaten with the fried rice.

Compared to the crab soup Drake had made before, it wasn’t as rich and had simplified ingredients, but the thin soup was even better when served with the main dish of fried rice.

Like the egg soup that comes with fried rice in Chinese restaurants, no matter how skillfully stir-fried, the oily aftertaste of fried rice, which is inherently greasy if eaten in large quantities, was cleanly washed away by the thin crab soup.

With the egg-added crab soup washing away the greasy oil filling his mouth, an infinite power to keep eating fried rice was completed.

At that moment, Lito realized.

‘Ah…. I can’t stop this.’

That he would continue eating the fried rice until his stomach was full and he couldn’t eat anymore, until he was on the verge of throwing up.