Heaven's Senses

XXVIII

~~~~~Hikari~~~~~

I didn't pay much attention to Mimasaka, since all he could do was copy my dish. Little did he know, however, that I had an ace up my sleeve. Something that would send each judge on a rollercoaster of chaos with how delicious my stew would be. Nevertheless, I kept an ear and an eye out as he finished his dish and walked up to the stage.

"We will now begin the taste testing with Subaru Mimasaka's beef stew." Dojima said as he presented his dish.

"Go ahead." He said, "Time to eat up."

The pink haired judge, Sonoko Kikuchi, smiled at the presentation, since the beef was perfectly arranged to show off every strip of meat there was in the stew.

"So for your garnish, you chose to use smoked bacon, mushrooms, and onion glace." She said, "Incidentely, glace mans frozen in French, did you know that already? Anyway, I think their glistening sheen gives your dish a delightful little--"

She was cut off when judge Tsunozaki kicked her chair to make the woman be quiet.

"Shut up and eat already will you?!" She shouted and so the tasting began. They all took a nervous bite of the dish, and from the satisfied looks on their faces, I could tell that my opinions about the dish were right.

The ox tail is a good piece of the dish, since it would melt on the tongue and give the stew more flavor when combined with the subtle sweetness of the white miso. Not to mention that the scent of the mestique from the bacon gives a rounding punch to the throat.

"I feel like my tongue is going to melt right off my body."

"This is unbelievable!"

Mimasaka looked over at me with a smirk, thinking that he had already beaten me.

"I read all your moves, even being impromptu, that's the reason for this added bacon." He gloated, "I let it age in my special brine for the last five days. Then, to add insult to injury, I left it out in the wind, letting it dry for a full day before smoking it for five full hours. That's how I was able to make it so flavorful, because I spent all that time on it."

"That's true enough." Dojima said with a mouth full of stew, "Rather than muddling the impact of the beef, the umami of this slow prepared pork takes to a whole other dimension. The time and effort this took to prepare is palpable. It has a refined power, the exact opposite of impromptu cooking."

"It's just like heaven! So soft, so tender." Chef Inui grinned.

"This flavor goes way beyond just a simple copy." Chef Mizuhara added.

"This is like shooting sparks as meat battles meat, wrestling against each other in the ring. It's a deadlock of deliciousness, rippling through a body of blossoming doom. The beef and pork combine in a mouth-watering explosion!" Dojima said and the crowd cheered loudly, shouting their praise for the judges' opinions on the stew.

Mimasaka laughed like a crazed madman, thinking that he had this round in the palm of his hands, but I wasn't gonna let some second-hand dish stealing chef take my or my brother's knives from me. I glanced up at the stands, seeing Takumi and Isami standing by the entrance. Takumi looked like all hope was lost, that this round was over and done with, but this was far from over. Not until all their senses were rattled beyond recognition.

"Looks like you had the wrong idea there, Hikari." Mimasaka said, "You trusted in blind inspiration to make a dish right on the spot. Mark my words, girl, it's nothing more than your brain being at a standstill. When it comes to cooking, the devil is always in the details. Whoever preps the most will always win the most. You can come with as many tricks as you want to, Hikari, but it's always pointless. Pointless! Utterly pointless! You should burn this day into memory, for it will be the last dish you ever serve in your life, Hikari Yukihira."