I Only Baked Bread, but I Was Mistaken for the Best - Chapter 83

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 83. A Delicious Meal (1)
“Let me introduce her properly. She’s Hani, the main vocalist of Favor.”
“Ah… Favor….”
I’d heard of them.
About the group called Favor.
If even someone like me, who has absolutely no interest in celebrities and the entertainment industry, knows about them, they must be an incredibly successful group.
“Um… you really don’t know them?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy baking bread that… haha….”
“Oh! No, it’s fine. I’m just embarrassed….”
Chae-eun puts the hat back on that she’d taken off for no reason, her face flushing red.
I suppose I’d feel the same way.
She’s a celebrity so recognizable that she has to wear a hat, sunglasses, and a mask just to come here without being spotted, yet the person in front of her doesn’t recognize her at all.
She’s probably thinking to herself, ‘Am I really not that famous?’
“Still, our group is pretty well-known, isn’t it…?”
Just as I thought.
I was wondering how to turn around the atmosphere that kept growing gloomy.
“Owner! We have all the inventory… huh? Chae-eun unnie?”
“Huh? Haeryang? You work here?”
“Yeah. For a little while now…. But unnie, why did you come here?”
“Do you two know each other?”
Haeryang, who had returned after checking the inventory in the back, was greeting Chae-eun as if they knew each other.
Surprisingly, Chae-eun accepted the greeting as if it were the most natural thing.
“Yes. My younger sister went to school with Haeryang.”
“That’s right. So that’s how we ended up knowing each other.”
How could something end with just “that’s how we ended up knowing each other”?
A member of Korea’s top idol group and the younger sister of Korea’s top guild master happen to be school classmates.
“What a coincidence.”
“You could say that. So unnie, did you come to buy bread?”
“Yeah. I came to buy some bread and also to suggest a broadcast appearance. But….”
“Ah. The owner wouldn’t have known who you are. That’s just how the owner is.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. He’s just not interested in those things.”
At Haeryang’s words, Chae-eun lets out a relieved sigh.
Was it really that important to her?
Judging by the way she mutters to herself, “I suppose I can excuse it since I’m on hiatus, but not knowing Favor was a little hurtful,” it seems to be.
This is a bit unfair.
I didn’t completely not know them.
If she played their hit song, I probably would have sung along? Probably?
“Anyway, so about that broadcast you mentioned….”
“We do have our own YouTube channel, but what I’m talking about is a TV broadcast. Have you heard of a program called ‘A Delicious Meal’?”
“Ah, I know about that show.”
Delicious Dining Road.
It was a cable broadcast rather than a terrestrial one, but since it was food-related, I’d seen it a few times before.
Each episode featured a different food theme, and the concept was traveling across the country eating at various restaurants.
The regular celebrity cast members were famous for eating deliciously and with genuine enthusiasm.
Of course, the real reason it became famous was….
“The hidden gem restaurants recommended by the guest stars are truly the best.”
Unlike other restaurant introduction programs, Delicious Dining Road was famous for evaluating the guest’s restaurant recommendations without any sugar-coating.
If it’s delicious, they say it’s delicious.
If it’s not delicious, they say it’s not delicious.
Because the cast members were sincere about eating, viewers could trust their evaluations.
“I’m appearing as a guest on the show this time, and the writer asked me for restaurant recommendations.”
“Ah, of course they would.”
“But I don’t know any good restaurants….”
“What?”
Wouldn’t most celebrities know quite a few good restaurants?
“My palate is really unsophisticated, so I eat pretty much anything well….”
“Ah….”
“I’ve been to fine dining places, but the portions are small and expensive, so at that price I’d rather eat kalguksu. My taste is really dull….”
Now I understood.
There were people like this.
Blessed people who could say “it’s pretty good” no matter where they ate.
People like this who could eat happily no matter what food they had didn’t have any place they could call a favorite restaurant.
Because everything tasted decent and delicious wherever they went, so what reason would they have to pick a favorite?
“But there’s one place I actually enjoy eating at….”
“Where is that?”
“Here.”
“What?”
“Here. Your bakery. The show’s concept this time is a tour of alley bakeries, I heard.”
So that’s why she asked about the broadcast earlier.
Thinking about how much Pumpernickel Chae-eun had bought from us over time, she was undoubtedly our most loyal customer.
No one else had purchased more than her.
What owner wouldn’t want to grant the request of such a loyal customer?
“Sure. I’ll do the broadcast.”
“Really? Thank you so much, but… you really need to think this through. The show’s concept is to say it’s not delicious if it’s not delicious… if something goes wrong, your bakery could….”
“Don’t worry about the taste.”
Even back when business was terrible, when I was struggling with unpaid rent and no living expenses, I had one source of pride.
That the bread I made would be absolutely exceptional in taste.

“So don’t worry and just connect me with them.”
“Ah… Yes! I understand! And….”
“Is there something else you need?”
“No… well… I’m coming here anyway….”
Chae-eun, who had been hesitating, held up one finger and spoke.
“I’d like to order 100 pumpernickels….”
“I’ve been curious for a while now—you don’t just eat bread instead of rice, do you?”
“….”
“Really?”
“I eat with the members! I definitely don’t eat it all by myself!”
Since she was a customer, I decided to believe her as the Owner should.
“But you’re sure it’ll be fine, right? The bread here was really, really delicious….”
“Don’t worry. As I mentioned before….”
I wrote down 100 pumpernickels alongside Chae-eun’s name in the ledger and answered.
“There’s no way bread I made could taste bad.”
* * *
“It tastes terrible.”
The words were spat out bluntly as the bread was dropped onto the table with a thud.
As an eerie silence fell over the filming set, thick cream oozed from the bread that had been thrown to the ground.
“My goodness. It tastes that bad?”
“Ah, senior. Still, you shouldn’t put it down like that.”
Kim Ho-jeong, a veteran host in his twentieth year, and Jo Mi-hyeon, a comedian who took eating seriously, tried to stop him, but it was useless.
Not for this man who had just thrown the bread away.
“If you’re going to call it a cream bread, you should at least make it taste decent.”
His eyes were sharp and piercing.
Having tasted so much, the flesh clung to him naturally.
Yet through consistent exercise, he maintained a solid, imposing physique.
Han Young-gu, a chef with fifteen years of experience who had gained fame and appeared on numerous broadcasts, was angry.
“Look at this. Look at this.”
As he picked up the bread he’d thrown, cream streamed out continuously.
But the texture looked decidedly off.
“See this? When making cream, if you use too much plant-based whipped cream instead of animal-based heavy cream, you get this kind of texture.”
“But different shops pursue different flavors, so that could happen, right?”
“That’s only an excuse if there’s flavor to back it up. The ratio is way off. It doesn’t melt smoothly, and there’s an excessive greasy feel that lingers, plus the first taste is too sweet and the aftertaste is unpleasant. And what about the bread itself?”
Young-gu tore the bread apart with his hands.
Pieces of bread fell away, ragged and torn.
He tore off a piece of bread without cream, put it in his mouth, and chewed before shaking his head.
“It’s dry and tough. When it’s like this, the already greasy cream just sits on top, making it feel even heavier.”
“Hmm… it did feel a bit hard.”
“The older the bread is, the more it develops this feeling. Well, if that’s not it, then the fermentation wasn’t done properly, which means the skill is lacking. And did they dump vanilla essence in here? Why is it so overwhelming?”
There was no politeness to be found, but that didn’t make his words any less true.
I was certain that Ho-jeong and Mi-hyeon, who were also present here, shared the same thoughts.
After all, they were all cast members of “Delicious Meal Road” who ate with genuine sincerity.
Of course, the one guest squeezed in among them was not.
‘Are they really broadcasting like this?’
Chae-eun, startled by how things were unfolding, could only stare with wide eyes.
A hiatus caused by countless malicious comments.
And thanks to a successful diet timed with Faber’s comeback stage, she had agreed to appear on “Delicious Meal Road” for promotional purposes.
She had shown herself eating well before, and it was supposedly to directly confront the diet controversy or something like that.
‘My agency said that since I seem to be managing myself well these days, I should just enjoy myself and eat whatever I want… but.’
Seeing the tense atmosphere, it was clearly not an atmosphere to enjoy, so I found myself just fidgeting with the bread in front of me.
“Come on. You still have to eat. Young-gu, right?”
“No, I really don’t want to eat this… Can’t I eat factory-made bread? It’s not like I’m insisting on eating some master baker’s bread.”
“Tsk. You lost the bet earlier. So you have to eat it! Senior!”
“Ugh! No! You just said it was bland and stale, and even Hani can’t eat it, so how am I supposed to eat this! Right! Hani!”
“Huh! Ah… eh?”
“See how flustered Hani is! Just eat it! Look at this chef acting all high and mighty! Bite!”
“Ugh! Gulp gulp!”
Truly the demeanor of a veteran broadcaster with twenty years of experience.
Ho-jeong skillfully steered what could have become a serious situation into something ridiculous.
And Mi-hyeon and Young-gu, riding that wave, wrapped up the conversation.
In the end, Young-gu, who had stuffed his mouth full of the very bread he’d been cursing, finally spoke.
“Phew. Isn’t this supposed to be a famous bakery?”
“Of course it’s a lie.”
“Huh?”
“This is the bakery of someone who asked for help.”
“What! Then you should have said so! I went way too hard thinking this went viral and became famous!”
“This is our concept. Haha!”
Ho-jeong was right.
“Delicious Meal Road” doesn’t only visit famous restaurants.
It’s a mix of famous restaurants and establishments requesting help.
And only the host, Ho-jeong, knows their true identities.
When a famous restaurant appears, we simply enjoy the meal, but when it’s a bakery requesting help, the broadcast’s content is providing feedback and consulting to assist them.
“Well… they used good ingredients here. The Owner seemed sincere about it. If he masters just a few techniques, the taste will improve significantly.”
“It’s too late to salvage it, senior.”
“I think so too. Don’t you, Chae-eun?”
“Ah… aha ha…”
“Look. Chae-eun is all nervous. What are you going to do, Young-gu?”
“No! Ho-jeong! This is because you tricked me, so why are you doing this!”
The two bickering back and forth.
Chae-eun was aware of it to some extent.
No matter how much they pursued authentic entertainment, there was always a certain degree of scripting involved.
Which meant that this too was a kind of skit mixed with acting, delivered with more exaggerated energy than usual.
But even so, she couldn’t help but feel tense.
Because….
“So, anyway, where should we head to next? Mi-hyeon, will you tell us?”
“Yes! The next destination for our delicious food journey is right here!”
The screen filled with images of a three-leaf clover.
As the camera zoomed out following the three-leaf clover drawn on the wall, various appetizing-looking breads came into view.
And adorning the final moments of the footage was an adorable cat.
“Trèfle de bonheur! The Happiness Clover Bakery! This is the bakery that Hani loves the most, isn’t it?”
“Ah! Yes! That’s right!”
The place they would visit next was none other than the restaurant Chae-eun had personally recommended.
It was Seung-hyun’s Bread Shop.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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