Glorious, glorious Rindo-Senpai!
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Glorious, glorious Rindo-Senpai!
Episode 10
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That's an interesting concept re: unevenness. I didn't know that existed and always thought uniformity was inherently superior.
It's actually a very common thing in cooking and eating. For example, I don't mix the condiments in my pho directly to the bowl. I add small bits to the soup spoon and savor a different set of flavors each time, combining different condiments in each spoonful of broth. I also eat congee in stages. First I eat it plain, then I mix in the raw egg and eat, then I add chili sauce and eat, then I add lime or other seasonings and eat, finishing with a completely different tasting dish from what I started with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Buffalobiian
That's also why a lot of dishes incorporate pickles and whatnot as palate cleansers. Monotony (what you call uniformity) is a problem in cuisine. You want variety, not more of the same thing. Consistency is paramount only when it comes to two or more servings of the same dish, not the flavors of one dish.
Episode 11:
I lost all respect for this show when the grand villainous plot was revealed. Eradicating food for the masses..? Clearly the mangaka knows nothing about human society, much less the restaurant business. Has he even seen a McDonald's before..?
These "grand" developments are ridiculous. This show was far better then it tried to contain its ambitions with school-setting common sense...
Episode 12:
And so ends this season. Overall I found it much better than the previous season, though early on I didn't think it would be so. Also glad the the secrets have finally been revealed.
I agree with your observations shinta, but with the context of what we learned in last episode, it's at least more palatable of an ambition... we'll have more to learn though.
WTF IT'S OVER???
I enjoyed this 10x more than the tournament stuff. Erina going dere is great, and I like Tsukasa's character. He's a pretty unique take for the final boss. Handsome, talented, yet cute and clumsy.
I really hope there is no redemption story for Erina's dad... I miss the days when villains were... well... villains.
They split this with a cour off (Fate style). More episodes in April, I'm hearing.
Season 3 just began. Overall a nice little episode to begin the season.
In contrast to MhA, Shokugeki has no time or desire to recap what is going on in the story so far, and I would say it actually doesn't matter in this story; all of the elements of the conflict are properly re-iterated in this episode: "Central don't like us so we're gonna have a showdown". It really feels like it never ceased airing for 4 months; impressive.
Episode 14
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Giving someone crap ingredients is a shit way to go about the exam. I thought they'd simply fail you if you didn't cook according to the recipe, but they're actually going out of their way to rig the exam.
At least we get Erina Sensei.
Erina Sensei is hot.
Its funny that, even though poor ingredients were rigged for the rebels, the lackey examiners still have enough pride in cooking (apparently) to pass the dishes on the merit of them still being 'very good'. It goes back to vesting in the idea of evil chefs. If simply expelling these students were the end goal (and it is), simply lying about the quality of the food would be the simplest method to do so, as there is no read remediation against a subjective judgment. Eizen had the right idea; he gave it up too soon after it failed once.
Third episode was boring (glad it was rushed through). Next one looks a bit more entertaining.
Episode 17:
Finally, Souma beats that stuck up diva.
Meh, I try not to think too hard about this.
In the end you're tasting flavour, which was about equal. You can't actually tell how hard someone tried to come up with something, or how many times they failed before finding the right combination. Hayama did it within minutes while Souma took days, but without the story you can't "taste" it from the food. The only give-away would be the rarity or exoticness of the actual ingredient.
Interestingly some of the other crew "lost". Now Souma would have to do a Shokugeki of sorts to rescue them. Having the Alice and Slavic guy lose comes as a bit of a surprise. They must have been up against the Elite 10 as well. Having the Elites as a benchmark for an exam is ridiculous in its own right.
Isn't this exactly what gave it away and decided the victory? He chose a specific type of honey to match the bear meat, which indicates the amount of effort he made vs. just selecting any honey (or any thyme, or any juniper berry, in Hayama's case). Even if you have a good idea about matching ingredients, you still have to test them first.Quote:
Originally Posted by Buffalobiian
Well they didn't show our rebels with Rindou so I guess the next ep will be about them since those two weren't shown as losers.
But how would you know that the special honey was something Souma specifically sought out, as opposed to having it lying around?Quote:
Originally Posted by shinta|hikari
On the flip side, how did they know Hayama didn't actually think about all sorts of combinations before settling on "normal" spices being the most effective?
It relies on the story, rather than the taste. Also, a flaw here is that Hayama's dish could well have used special thyme etc - but no one else would know that because they don't have superhuman noses.
Because normal spices/ingredients are easily on hand. Special ingredients generally take more time to seek out and test, especially because the likelihood of you having used it before is small. There might be exceptions to this rule, but that's all it is, an exception.
Souma had very little ingredients on hand, and this is known to the judges. Stumbling onto a certain honey that matches the bear meat perfectly due to pure luck is possible but improbable. When you use something so specific and it works that well, it's most likely intentional. The judge merely judged that to be the case from what he knew of the situation.
Hayama could've used a special thyme (he didn't), but then the judge should be able to see through that. Nakiris are Nakiris for a reason. Hayama is still a level below the people judging them, since he is still a student.
Basically, it was clear from the resulting dish that Hayama didn't really put his best onto the plate. He could've done more, but he lacked the respect towards Souma and the desire to please loliprof to do so. That's why he lost. They tied in taste, but he disappointed the judges.
I like how SnS never lost sight of the fact that cooking could/should be a fun and expressive endeavor. It may not be always viable pragmatically, but the audience gets more out of being inspired to want to make their own tasty food than by the "true gourmet" that central is proposing: pre-measured, rote recipes created by a committee who meet the director's standards. The most first world of distinctions, for sure, but it has remained a constant theme and I appreciate that.
This match seemed to boil down to "who wanted someone to enjoy their food more" manifesting as a superior eating experience. Souma didn't just source a honey that went with the meat, he said he was glad that the Nakiri noticed it, because it was intentional. It was a part of the craftsmanship of his dish, and he wanted that to play into their enjoyment of it. Hyama was satisfied making a dish with a complex spice/flavor only his sense of smell could create; it was about the self satisfaction of being the best at something in your own little world. And he was so good at it that he almost won with it, still.