Chương 126: Higher Than Perfect Is Quiet

"Time! Everyone, stop!" Marcella's voice rang through the kitchen, carrying an authority beyond argument. The eight chefs set down their tools at once, stepped back, and waited for judgment to fall. The three judges began tasting, one station at a time. They started at station one, and after each dish they recorded something on the tablets in their hands, their faces without expression. The air in the kitchen was oppressive enough to make it hard to breathe. Soon the judges reached Ethan's station.

His dish, in appearance, was nearly identical to the original photo on the screen. The golden sheen of the fish, the body of the sauce, the size of the hazelnut crumble — all flawless. Retired champion Javier Castillo teased the flesh apart gently with a fork, glanced at the interior doneness, and nodded. Then he lifted a spoonful of sauce to his mouth.

"Mm…" He mused a moment.

"The degree of browning on the butter is extremely precise. Textbook Beurre Noisette." The anonymous Michelin inspector tasted too, and gave his verdict.

"The fish is cooked very well — perfectly translucent at the center. This is a very, very standard, technically flawless reproduction." At the words "technically flawless," a confident smile crossed Ethan's face. Next, the judges came to the Chicago competitor who'd been faulted for overcooking his sole. Javier pointed out the problem almost without mercy, and the poor man's face went white. Then they came to Kira Watanabe's station. Kira's dish looked equally flawless.

But when Javier cut into the flesh with his fork, his motion paused.

"Oh?" He gave a small, surprised sound.

"This texture… it's not quite the same." He studied the cut face of the flesh carefully, then forked up a small piece, put it in his mouth, closed his eyes, and tasted slowly.

"The texture of the fish is more… springy? And juicier," he said, a little puzzled.

"How did you do that? The heat looks about the same as Ethan's." Kira only answered calmly, "I used a different knife technique on the fish." The three judges exchanged a glance, as if discussing something. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Marcella spoke.

"Your version carries a very strong personal signature. In a reproduction round, that's hard to call a good thing. Our standard is fidelity to the original." Kira didn't argue, only bowed slightly. Watching from the side, Chris understood: Kira's extreme Japanese knife work had become a double-edged sword. It raised the quality of the dish — but it might also be judged as a "departure" from the theme. At last, the three judges came to Chris. His heart climbed into his throat.

His dish looked much like Ethan's — a French presentation as standard as standard could be. Javier again tasted the sauce first. He lifted a spoonful of brown butter and put it in his mouth. This time, his chewing slowed noticeably. He frowned, as if trying to identify something.

"Strange…" he murmured.

"Your butter — the color looks half a shade lighter than Alain Dumont's original." Something dropped in Chris's chest. He knew he'd done it. At the moment of pulling the pan off the heat, he'd gone one second earlier than the system advised. Because the aroma he'd smelled then told him: enough.

"Yes, I pulled it off the heat early," Chris answered honestly. Hearing that, Ethan and several competitors nearby put on the look of people watching a show. In a reproduction round, altering the original's color on your own was a cardinal sin. But Marcella's next words left everyone stunned. She, too, tasted that spoonful of sauce, then closed her eyes and lingered over it a long while.

"This butter…" she opened her eyes slowly and looked at Chris, a thread of inquiry in her gaze, "is quieter." Quieter? The word left everyone baffled. How could butter be quiet?

"Alain Dumont's brown butter has a very domineering aroma. The moment it hits your mouth, it rushes to tell you, 'I'm fragrant, I'm high-class.'" Marcella explained.

"But your version — the aroma releases slowly, layer by layer. It isn't aggressive. It guides your palate to discover its beauty on its own." The Michelin inspector, silent all this time, now spoke too, his voice hoarse and magnetic.

"I agree. This is a more sophisticated approach." He looked at Chris and added, "I believe that if Alain Dumont himself were here today and tasted your version, he might feel it's closer to what he originally meant to express than his own." The verdict landed like a bomb and went off in the kitchen. Closer to the essence of the original than the original itself? What towering praise. For the first time, the confidence on Ethan's face wavered. He looked at Chris, disbelief in his eyes.

He couldn't grasp how a faint difference in color could bring a verdict this worlds apart. Chris himself was a little dazed. He'd only made the judgment he thought most correct, on the instinct he'd learned at Le Château. He thought of Vincent's "quiet knife," of Philip's demonstration of "letting the fire remember the flavor." So these things weren't mysticism. They really could be tasted. After the day's contest ended, Marcella announced the day-one rankings before everyone.

"First place — a tie. Chris White, Ethan Cole."

"Third place, Kira Watanabe." Hearing it, Chris let out a long breath. A tie it was, but he knew that in the judges' hearts he'd beaten Ethan by half a move. What he'd won on wasn't technique. It was understanding. It was what had settled in him over those two months in Le Château's kitchen — from prep cook to saucier, through the dull, day-after-day grind. He glanced at Ethan, not far off. Ethan was watching him too, his eyes complicated.

Surprise, resentment — but more than anything, a reignited, fiercer will to fight. Chris knew that in tomorrow's creativity round, Ethan would counterattack with everything he had. And that Kira — though ranked only third — had left a deep impression with her near-magical knife work. This Selection was far harder than he'd imagined.