Boiled red snapper is layered with coconut core, clam jelly, and various herbs including coconut vinegar, which add flavor to the dish. The taste is very Asian, but it is a striking dish with a layered flavor. The herbs are so intricate and complex that it is difficult to analyze, but what is amazing is that the umami of the main red snapper meat stands out without compromising its texture.

Is it as delicious as a meeting between a sewing machine and an umbrella?

Next, Chef Kawate's "Peanut Seaweed" is a bavarois made from raw peanuts topped with lemon cream and oil. The yellow represents sunflower petals. This shows the depth of the chef's exploration of vegetables, which he has been devoted to recently. This alone is an innovative new taste experience.

However, when eaten with the seaweed salad that comes with it, the rich vegetable extract is suddenly supplemented with the aroma and texture of the sea, deepening the flavor. Without a doubt, adding seaweed makes the dish more original, and more than anything, it doubles the deliciousness. This kind of idea and technique of surprising you with flavor is probably Chef Kawate's true forte.

Although it is not like the line from the long poem by French poet Lautreamont, "As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table," we are moved by the encounter of two ingredients that we could never have imagined. Of course, the encounters that Chef Kawate creates are probably inevitable, not coincidental.

Chef Ton's "Beetroot" (top image) is boiled prawns topped with beets arranged like flower petals. The presentation is artistic. The heart of the dish is the rich taste of the prawns and the sourness of the beets, but the stingray broth is mixed with chili, tamarind and onion, stimulating the taste buds from all sides of your mouth. His origins as a land of herbs are evident everywhere. That being said, it's at a level that makes you want to call him a "herb magician". It's really fascinating.

A bold attempt at tuna, the last obstacle in French cuisine

Among the many surprises, the most astonishing dish of the day was Chef Kawate's "Tuna Leek," a bold attempt at tuna, an ingredient said to be the last demon in French cuisine.

The chef explains, "It's not Tom Yum Kung, it's Tong Yum Kung (laughs)." Tong is French for tuna. I'm amazed that he came up with such a pun and combination of ingredients. It's made with shrimp and prawns, consommé with spices, and tuna muscle and white onions in a nabe style. It also contains ginger and lemongrass.

What a surprise! The taste was surprising, reminiscent of Tom Yum Kung, with boiled tuna that was half raw inside and permeated with spices, making it incredibly delicious. "It's all made using French techniques," he said, but it's a dish of unknown nationality - French + Thai + Japanese. The soup is infused with the tastes of shrimp, tuna, white onion, and a number of herbs. I was shocked by the flavors and tastes of Japan and Thailand. I gleefully drank it down to the last drop. This was a kind of "meeting between a sewing machine and an umbrella," and I thought it was a masterpiece by the chef. I hope it becomes a regular dish.

The fifth competition is the ideal form of collaboration

The main course was red grouper, followed by "beef" that the two created together. It was beef from Satoyama beef that was raised completely on pasture. The meat was marinated in homemade salt koji, with a black truffle sandwiched in the middle and wrapped in a lotus leaf. On the plate, the red wine sauce on the left of the meat was Chef Kawate's, and on the right was a sauce made of pumpkin puree topped with sesame seeds, dried fish, and powdered Japanese pepper, which was Chef Ton's.

The meat is perfectly cooked and has a faint lotus aroma, and the fat is very light. It is really fun to taste it with two different sauces, a traditional French one and a rather Asian one. Or rather, with two sauces that are so different in style, it's almost like eating two different dishes.

For dessert, we had "Black Rice Mango," an adaptation of the traditional Thai black rice and mango (Khao Niaw Mamuang), and "Paris Brest." We thoroughly enjoyed both.

I won't go into details, but I was also extremely impressed by the wines that were paired with each dish.

Apparently, this was the fifth time the two have collaborated. Though they know each other well, the exchange of jabs between them seemed like a serious contest. At times they complemented each other's flavors, at other times they stimulated each other; it was a once-in-a-lifetime, exquisite experience that felt like the ideal form of collaboration.