I Got the Almighty Tongue - Chapter 183



Only Noblemtl

183 Copycat (5)

“Ginger. Are we okay?”

Jose asks with an anxious expression.

“I don’t know. I want to shoot Sarah right now. Every word she said was a lie.”

Ginger roughly unbuttons her apron and throws it away.

“What did I say to you?”

“He said he would soon become a sous chef. He said that if I started as a demi chef, he would keep me going. This restaurant will definitely do well, so branches will open up quickly and there will be lots of seats.”

She unbuttons her chef’s uniform roughly, as if she’s frustrated. It’s dirty, as if it hasn’t been washed for several days. There are traces of food all over it, and the sleeves are blackened.

Sniff sniff.

“The clothes smell. I need to take them and wash them.”

Ginger says with a frown.

“I was going to do that too, but I was too tired when I got home and didn’t want to do anything. I took it and brought it back.”

The two looked at each other and had the same thought. Things that they had taken for granted while in Segreto were completely different when they came out. From the small laundry to the work atmosphere, to the dormitory that was provided for free.

I was fooled by sweet talk that I could easily succeed, so I quit a good job.

Now I can’t go back and I can’t put my Segreto background on my resume. I’ll definitely call and check.

Jenny or the head chef won’t have anything nice to say about themselves.

They can’t change jobs and it’s hard to continue to stay here. But rather than reflecting on themselves for making the wrong choice, the two of them blamed Sarah for deceiving them with sweet words.

* * *

[Have you been to the new Sogno in Soho?]

└I saw it too when I was passing by. They were handing out coupons. How was it?

└It was okay to eat. It’s casual dining. It’s a four-course meal and the price is moderately expensive. The sauce was especially delicious.

└You got a Michelin star? What exactly does it mean to have a Michelin star?

└I guess it was opened by a chef who received a Michelin star. But if that’s the case, it’s disappointing. No matter how much I think about it, it wasn’t of that level of quality.

└Friends, if you go to Jaden’s blog you can get more information. I’ll link to the post.

[Another copycat in New York, Sogno

I love dining.

I am a person who has a great passion for cooking and restaurants and considers experiencing the highest level of food and service to be the greatest happiness in life.

The reason I’m starting this post in such a grand way is because I felt unbearable anger at a restaurant in Soho.

I don’t usually have high expectations for casual dining, so I rarely leave bad reviews. So I tend to turn a blind eye to their poor service and substandard ingredients.

But I can’t help but mention the originality of the food. Perhaps many New Yorkers have heard of the name Segreto, even if they have never been to the restaurant.

Having earned two Michelin stars in less than two years since opening, this restaurant has made a name for itself with its creative recipes.

Chef Shin Je-hee, the owner, is renowned for his exquisite taste, but those who know him well don’t define him by that alone. I can say with certainty that his true value lies in his endless creativity and the highest level of skill that implements it.

And Segreto is growing by leaps and bounds, operating on the essence of his dining philosophy. If you have friends who have yet to experience fine dining, this is a great place to have your first formal dinner.

Segreto will deliver everything you could ever want from fine dining.

Why did we end up in a strange place while talking about Sogno?

Eating there was a truly extraordinary experience, as all the dishes served were based on Segreto’s recipes.

I hope you don’t think my tongue is wrong. I’ve been to every two-star or higher dining establishment in New York and I’m pretty good at mainland European dining, too.

I may not have an absolute sense of taste, but I have the knowledge and sensitivity to tell the difference between a genuine product and a fake.

It was hard to find anything in Sogno’s food that wasn’t a copy of Segreto’s, from appetizers to salads, pastas and mains. But if they had done a good job of copying, I wouldn’t be so upset right now.

The feeling I got from their cooking was a terrible insult. I was truly angry at Sogno’s atrocities, taking apart the dish I loved and putting it together to make an unidentifiable Frankenstein.

Their behavior is not only a lack of respect for the original, but also an act of destruction of the original.

If someone eats their dish and says, ‘Huh? This is exactly the same as what they sell at Segreto?’, then those who hear that story will judge that even the original dish is of the same standard.

As time goes by, there are fewer and fewer restaurants worth going to. Even in restaurants, it is common to see canned food and retort food, and fine dining that does not use processed food is as rare as a hen’s teeth.

As a long-time Segreto regular and food lover, I would like to sound the alarm for them.

Even if you try to hide it, everyone who needs to know knows. And they will pay the price.

I end this article with the hope that their shallow capitalism, which says that the process doesn’t matter as long as the result is good, will not become an obstacle for chefs who work hard and sweat.

└It’s not just me who feels that way. Hayden’s review is trustworthy.

└I’m an industry insider, and I heard that several employees left Segreto. I can see where they went by reading this article.

└Ahhh! I finally understand what ‘Michelin star cuisine’ really means.

└ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ That’s definitely true.

└I am a regular who has tried all the courses at Segreto, although not as much as Hayden. I didn’t know what the unpleasantness I felt at Sogno was, but after reading this article, it became clear. Thank you for the great article.

└The customer base doesn’t overlap anyway, right? So it doesn’t matter?

└Read the article properly. This is a form of defamation. It ruins the image.

└Just because they’re diners doesn’t mean they can always go to expensive places. Sogno used that strategy because he was aiming for that. It’s just that Segreto sells dishes that can’t be easily copied.

└If you are curious about how Segreto cooks, watch this video. It is a documentary about Segreto Seoul, and it follows the same policy as the New York headquarters. (Link)

└I watched the whole long video while sitting down. If you can definitely follow this, it would be first-class dining in itself.

Sogno’s appeal to consumers was intertwined with America’s (at least outwardly) moral sensibility.

If the food and service were great, there might still be customers, but perhaps due to the difficulty of cost management, the quality is also declining over time.

Soon the time will come when they will have to make a decision.

* * *

The new year of 2013 has arrived.

I had secretly aimed to be the youngest and fastest Michelin 3-star restaurant, but I guess that was too greedy. Even Chef Marco Pierre White’s Harvey’s, which holds the record for the shortest time to 3 stars, took over 6 years to achieve.

There are many goals for this year. It is the year that Hundred Dishes is planned to launch in Korea, and we are also ready to expand to all major cities in the eastern part of the country.

We also plan to begin full-scale investment and promotion through dramas and movies.

Gyaaaah.

Phew.

I could hear the children bickering and fighting all the way upstairs. I hurried downstairs to check on the children.

Now that they are two years old, the children are old enough to communicate, albeit briefly.

“Daddy.”

Joohee is holding Noah, who is crying. It looks like Yuna is bullying him again.

The sight of Noah in his mother’s arms with a runny nose and a dazed expression makes me laugh.

“I have to do it, Dad.”

Joohee tries to correct Noah’s pronunciation.

“Daddy?”

“dad.”

“Daddy.”

“ah.”

“ah.”

“bar.”

“bar.”

“dad.”

“Daddy.”

“What should I do! You’re so cute.”

Joohee hugs Noah and showers him with kisses. Noah pushes his mother away, seemingly annoyed.

“Yuna. Come to daddy.”

I want my children to grow up bilingual, so I use English at home as much as possible.

Yuna approaches, hesitant, as if she realized she did something wrong.

Yuna already has extraordinary beauty, perhaps because she resembles Joohee. With her fair skin, fresh expression, and cute facial features, she has a face that you can look at all day without getting tired of it, as long as she doesn’t do anything ugly.

“Is it you who made him cry?

Nod.

“Why did you do that?”

Sniff sniff.

Yuna pretends to cry as if she’s trying to take the initiative.

“It doesn’t work.”

Tch.

Did you just say “tsk”?

“Come here.”

Yuna comes to me and hugs me.

“What if Noah grows taller and stronger than Yuna later? Then he might bully Yuna? So you have to be nice to him.”

I said this while holding Yuna and patting her back.

Dori dori.

Yuna shakes her head with an arrogant expression as if to say that it can’t be true.

I don’t scold Noah too much because I know that Yuna cherishes him.

After a fierce battle with the kids, I took a nap. It was peaceful to see the kids sleeping together so peacefully.

We sat on the terrace drinking coffee while the housekeeper, Marianna, watched the children.

“The course has been getting a lot of attention lately. People around me are saying it’s delicious.”

The heat of Extreme Taste has not yet died down. I gave the hard-working staff a long vacation over the end of the year and the beginning of the new year.

“I wonder what you think?”

“What are you talking about? It’s the best. It was really delicious. Korea is still like that?”

Joohee still stops by Segreto whenever she has time and eats at her own table. Joohee’s table has never had another guest sit at it.

“Yeah. It takes time to apply the menu to Korea. I’m thinking about exchanging staff. I think it would be good to change the environment for applicants and have them interact with each other.”

This is an idea that was concretized during the interview. There would be many benefits to rotating employees before they fall into mannerism.

“There will be a lot of chefs who want to come to New York, because working at the main branch will give them a lot of experience.”

Joohee nods as if it’s a good idea.

“Even without that, it’s an attractive city.”

“That’s right. There are already quite a few people on our staff who have contracted the New York disease.”

Revello’s staff also work between New York and Korea.

“New York disease?”

“You know what? ‘Can I really breathe in a city other than New York?’ That kind of thing.”

Joohee acts with a serious face. It’s so funny that I laugh.

“Hahaha. What is that?”

“New Yorkers basically have this sense of superiority that they live at the center of the world. They get caught up in that.”

The United States is rife with regionalism, but New York stands out among them.

“I think I know. But I think I’m getting sick of it now, after more than 10 years.”

“Once you get the New York disease, you get homesick when you return to a country that isn’t your hometown. They say you suddenly start crying.”

“Why are you crying?”

“It was raining in Korea, and everyone was holding umbrellas. When I saw that, I remembered the time I was in New York, wearing only a hoodie (a top with a hood), and then pulling my hood up and walking around like nothing was wrong, and I cried.”

It’s amazing that you can love a city so much. No, is it that you love yourself for being a part of that city?

“He is a New Yorker with a more sincere heart than anyone else.”

“It’s definitely a magical city. Kids whose hometown is Manhattan, don’t you think they’re growing up strangely?”

“Hahaha. That’s an interesting imagination. Let’s leave it up to the kids to decide what to do.”

I enjoyed an afternoon with Joohee, laughing happily.

And it was not long after the new year that Eden came to see me again.