Manhwa / Bizarre Restaurant

Bizarre Restaurant (Gwesik Restaurant or 괴식식당) is a 2022 fantasy Manhwa written by Shin Hyun Beom and Mezzed K and illustrated by Jaera.

Contains the following tropes:

• All That Glitters: The gimmick to most "Bizarre Food" is that it doesn't look anything out of the ordinary to four of the five senses but once you actually eat it, it's multiple war crimes committed on your tastebuds. Seungwoo even uses his superb cooking skills to hide its true nature including the equally awful characteristic smell Tera's food usually has. Kwak is a prime example of the trope, looking so appetising that it makes anyone's mouth water and constantly sparkles in the light but to those who actually tried it, a death sentence seems more favorable than taking another bite.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: Unlike his father, Seungwoo never mentions his mother, not even once, which can either mean that he grew up with a single parent or doesn't think the best of her.
• Ambiguously Gay: Dalsoo admires Seungwoo's looks and physique to a degree that can't be passed off as Even the Guys Want Him with Taeshik telling him "I respect your tastes but please remember the reason we're here", implying his sexuality. Aside from that incident, Dalsoo doesn't have any camp traits and is still determined to shut Suengwoo's restaurant down somehow.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Seungwoo has three god titles representing his achievements: The God of Swords (From attaining the highest level as a swordmaster), The God of Victory (From defeating the Demon Lord and never losing in battle) and The God of... Bizarre Cuisine (That one's pretty self-explanatory).
• Bait-and-Switch: Right before the power outage in chapter 17, Seungwoo was watching a movie that seems straight out of a romance drama when it took an unexpected turn:
  [The two leads stand in the middle of a romantic winter landscape]
  Woman: What do I know? I...For 200 years, I waited for you!
  Man: [Holds the woman's hand] For the past 200 years, I've searched for you. To say this to you...
  [Suddenly the man's soft expression turns serious and grim as he brandishes a knife]
  Man: I'll kill you. My parents' enemy.
  Seungwoo: [Drops popcorn] WAIT, WHAT?!
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Seungwoo occasionally reminisces over his father who was no longer with him. He deeply misses and has nothing but good memories of him and was the one who inspired him to cook meals both delicious and bizarre.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Seungwoo ordered a "pudding slime" from his former party member Renato in chapter 7 and kept it inside the newly dug-out basement of his restaurant. It made its first and only appearance in chapter 35, having slowly grown and producing pudding from eating leftovers.
• Epic Fail: The thirty-five hunters who tried the "Bizarre Food Challenge" have bitten off more than they can chew, literally.
  • They dismissed the first-level dish kwak as an easy win, especially the endurance specialist, but the pancake proved to be more of a battle than any S-rank monster could give. Unsurprisingly, none of the hunters made it more than a quarter of the way through the pancake before collapsing into a comatose-like state. Kwak 1, Hunters 0.
  • They later did a second attempt the next day but this time fully prepared such as wearing winter coats stuffed with heat packs for the winter spirits and chugging down hot sauce to numb their tastebuds. This did absolutely nothing and in fact, only made the hunters way more miserable than the last time as the kwak was physically and systematically attacking them on the inside. Kwak 2, Hunters 0.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Franchberk Baby Food may sound like the least intimidating of the Tera dishes but its effects of increasing one's vigor to quickly develop their fighting spirit are devastating. A few of these meatballs transformed the mild-mannered, Friend to All Children, fluffy polar bear Pero into a ferocious, instinct-driven, battle-junkie that uruks were meant to strive as. And this was supposed to be fed to young children in Tera.
• Good is Not Nice: Renato is the most virtuous of Seungwoo's party and didn't ask for anything upon defeating the demon lord since going on an adventure with their friends was enough of a reward. That said, they take being good and doing the right thing very seriously such that once they detect the slightest bit of evil in a person, they enact accordingly and live out their title as the god of resurrection and punishment. This is how Baek's trip in Tera was cut short by Renato's patron slicing off his head with a scythe.
• Hot Sauce Drinking: One of the tactics the hunters employ for the Bizarre Food Challenge as they each chugged down a bottle in an effort to numb their tastebuds and bypass the Kwak's awful taste. Alas, all the hot sauce did was burned their stomachs which further hampered their progress of eating the kwak if they didn't drink it.
• Implausible Hair Color: Euha is the only human in the series to have blue hair contrasting everyone else's natural hair colour. It seems that she has inherited it from her unseen mom.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Seo Taeji's combat specialization although we have yet to see this in action.
• Masochist's Meal: Basically every single dish in Tera where they value Power-Up Food over actual good food and any ingredient there is deadly in its own right. When Seungwoo opened a restaurant back on Earth, he carries over the cuisine as his specialty called "Bizarre Food" and using his skills as a Supreme Chef, "improves" the dishes by making them look and smell heavenly but its taste has undergone the deepest depths of hell. What's worst is that after getting past the taste, there's the matter of the body suffering intense physical and systematic changes that may or may not kill the consumer.
  • Reus Steak comes from the elder red dragon, Keil Reus, who ruled over his kind for thousands of years and served as the demon king's right-hand man so he wouldn't be someone else's dinner without a fight. Despite being long dead and butchered, the steak started screaming bloody murder while frying which Seungwoo passed off as nothing to a concerned Baek. It becomes more foreboding as Baek found it impossible to cut through its impenetrable flesh and when he finally took a bite, an uncontrollable fire spew from his mouth and knocked him unconscious for an entire hour. That was the power of a 3-star dish and the first course of more "Bizarre Food" yet to be served.
  • Kwak, a crispy scallion pancake reminiscent of pajeon and gözleme, was previously underestimated as the first level of the "Bizarre Food Challenge" but as of now, only two people (Min and Taeji) have passed. Instead of potato starch, Seungwoo uses Ent starch containing enough poison to render anyone half-dead, replaces regular scallions with winter spirits which enshroud a persistent chill of sub-zero temperatures and is mixed with lukewarm water to give a gross, mushy texture. The first challenger who specializes in mental and physical endurance couldn't stomach more than one bite before passing out and the remaining thirty-four hunters were left in a similar nauseous, comatose state. This is not even at its fullest potential as Seungwoo adjusts the three-star dish to a low one-star since he wants to run a restaurant, not a funeral home.
  • Lake Skygazer's Destruction is the devious successor to Ragnarok with enough potential to be a six-star dish. The fish itself is known as "fishermen's worst nightmare" for its dirt-like taste and texture, pungent odor lasting hours on end and numerous small bones to choke on. Once Seungwoo works his (dark) magic, the dish manages to kill a Blob Monster said to be an interdimensional bio-weapon that consumed its home planet.
• Non-Indicative Name: Bizarre Restaurant isn't the name of Seungwoo's restaurant but it's derived from a Portmanteau of the Warrior's Restaurant (The actual name) serving up "Bizarre Food" (Tera's cuisine).
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Seungwoo shortens Naiobi's name to "Nabi" and has been called that ever since.
• Only One Who Likes Spam: The people of Tera are the only ones able to truly enjoy and appreciate their own cuisine despite it being declared the worst, most intolerable food in the entire multiverse.
• Our Gods Are Different: Gods are either born as one, such as the Goddess Gaia, or humans who earned it through leveling up which Seungwoo and Renato did. Once a person reaches level 99, they gain a title and powers related to their achievements and then earn their second title at level 199. Seungwoo is an unusual case given that he has three titles at level 256 which he didn't know about until he went back to the pantheon.
• Power Fist: Unlike their 87 equipment brethren, a pair of shy magic gauntlets picked Nabi to be their owner instead of Seungwoo who was elated to have his very own weapon. Nabi takes great care of it with routine polishing and maintenance.
• Power Levels: The food in Tera is ranked by the number of red stars in which the more stars a dish has, the higher status effects the consumer receives but it is also directly proportional to how horrible the taste is and the likelihood of death. The star tiers are listed down as followed:
  • 1-star: The level at which most hunters on Earth can tolerate. Such dishes include clam chowder (The current lowest tier since it actually tastes good) and kwak (Adjusted from three stars for the Bizarre Food Challenge).
• Sadist: As a Supreme Chef, he could make Tera's cuisine delicious and still keep the power-ups but where's the fun in that? Since he had to endure Tera's cuisine firsthand for 40 years straight in order to recieve the power-ups, why should anyone else take the easy way out and plus, it gives him the excuse to watch unfortunate challengers suffer.
• Shout-Out:
  • After finishing the porridge for the first time, Min slumps over his chair akin to the famous pose from Tomorrow's Joe.
  • One of the female customers admiring Pero the polar bear Uruk wonders if he likes Coca-Cola, referencing the soft-drink company's animal mascots.
• Slow and Steady Wins the Race: The trick to eating Kwak is to take small but manageable bites and make full use of the thirty-minute time limit rather than swallowing it whole due to the small portion size as most would do and fail. Seungwoo hinted at the beginning of the challenge that quantity doesn't matter but only Seo Taeji figures it out as he puts it best in his analogy:
  Seo Taeji: Instead of food, let's think of this like an attack. My defense is 3 and let's suppose the Kwak's attack power is 100. Is it better to get hit at full power once and receive 97 damage right away... or is it better to split it and get hit ten times over a period?
• Soup Is Medicine: Seungwoo's porridge he whipped up for Min has the properties of a high-level Healing Potion but tastes nastier than any medicine known to mankind which is on-brand of being a Bizarre Food. Min is extremely grateful, however, as the porridge let him regain his original strength and cured him of all his aliments.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In chapter 17, a rogue gangster with electricity powers attempts to absorb a nearby power plant of its energy to defeat Min but doesn't take into account that his body wasn't built to withstand that much electricity. As such, Min didn't need to fight him since the gangster ended up short-circuiting himself and caused a minor power outage in part of the city.
  • Chapter 37 reveals the hunters' determination in completing Bizarre Food Challenge led to most of them being half-dead and even taking sick leave because of overdoing it and not knowing when to fold. The lack of manpower and efficiency was serious enough for The Order higher-ups to deploy armed forces for the perceived threat of Seungwoo harming the hunters when in fact it was their own doing.
• Tempting Fate: Those who underestimate the "Bizarre Food Challenge" or say Seungwoo's cooking doesn't look too bad will shortly end up looking like they need the ER.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Seungwoo's pudding slime makes its appearance in chapter 35 after being alluded to 28 chapters prior. Unfortunately, it was assimilated in the same chapter by Formula Zero in a failed attempt to regain their former mass and become the new pudding slime in its place.