Food, Glorious Food!

I like to eat, I like to eat a lot. I also like to cook and spend hours looking through recipe books for the perfect dish. Finding games with a food theme always gets me excited, before I became rather obsessed with table top games I played Nintendo's Cooking Mama and Cake Mania to death. The Food Network channel would be on constantly, and whether it was Nigella Lawson cooking up a calorific treat or Adam Richman taking on insane food challenges, I would be consumed by it for a spell. So I was pleased to find many games that tantalise the taste buds and allow you to get creative without making a mess in the kitchen or ruining your appetite. Here is my list of food themed games that I have enjoyed.

1. Fish Cook

This is a Euro-style game about top chefs in Paris competing to have the best recipes by earning the most money and prestige. It is a game of strategy and dice rolling. The dice rolls determine the amount of ingredients available in the markets and players must choose which items to buy in order to make their desired dishes. You must choose wisely, as once an ingredient is out of stock then that round is over and you must cook up your dishes to earn money. There are three rounds, you may cook up as many of your recipes as you can after the market phase is over, and perhaps even steal a recipe from an opponent in the process. This is a really fun game, the dice rolls gave the luck element but you can use your initiative to make sure you gather the vital ingredients.

2. Sushi Dice

I have already gone into detail about the excellent game of Sushi Dice here. Frantic dice rolling to match the ingredients on the cards and frenzied bell ringing which alerts the neighbours that you either have a very unresponsive servant or you are, in fact, just playing Sushi Dice.

3. Fungi/Morels   

This beautifully illustrated card game is all about gathering delectable mushrooms and frying them in the woods by moonlight. As a set collecting game for two players, you must forage the forest for mushrooms using tools or aides that you acquire though the deck. The mushrooms have two values; what they sell for and what they are worth if you cook them. You may cook three or more of the same kind at a time, and the rarer the mushroom, the more value it has. Adding butter or cider to the sizzling pan of mushrooms increases your points, and adds to the flavour. Whoever has the highest points at the end of the game is the champion forager.

4. Just Desserts

Now this card game just makes me hungry for desserts, I have a real sweet tooth anyway so it is hard to play this without raiding the kitchen afterwards. Players must serve customers at a cafe, they must be the best waiter there by serving up what the customers crave. You can combine card symbols in your hand to win over customers, unless you have their favourite dish in your hand which not only gets you their card but you get a tip (which is drawing an extra dessert card, very handy). To win, you must have three customers in a matching colour or five customers in different colours. This set collecting game is delicious to look at, and each card is unique. I need more dessert games!

5. Sushi Go!

Another sushi game. Sushi is tasty and aesthetically pleasing, and these sushi morsels are as cute as buttons! The setting for this card drafting game is a fast food sushi restaurant, where dishes zoom by on a conveyor belt and you have to grab the best combination that you can. Players choose a card from their hand and pass the cards over to another player, collecting sets that will win them the most points. Combining wasabi with nigiri triples the value of the nigiri, so wasabi is a sough-after card. Also, keep an eye out for pudding, as whoever finishes the game with the most pudding gets bonus points and whoever has the least gets penalised. Sushi Go is very enjoyable and simple to play. There are three rounds of the game, and I am sure you will want to go again and again. 

6. Elevenses

Such an elegant looking game! But beware; elegant socialites hosting morning tea can be highly conniving. In Elevenses, you are creating the perfect spread of sandwiches, biscuits, cakes and tea. Each player starts with eleven morning tea cards, and each card has a point value and special action. For instance, the Tea card has a value of 1 (the teaspoon icon in the right is the value) and the special action states 'Choose a player, flip one of tablecloth cards valued 2 - 9 face-down' Ouch! The special actions on the cards make things interesting as cards are passed back and forth, flipped over, peeked at and stolen. The round ends when a player plays the Elevenses card. Whoever has the most points is rewarded two sugar cubes and the others get one, rounds then continue until someone wins by getting seven sugar cubes. That is a lot of sugar! 

7. Lord of the Fries

This game looks quite different from the last eatery-based game. Welcome to Friedeys, a fast-food establishment where your server is a decaying zombie, but at least he is wearing the appropriate diner attire complete with the classic cap. One can only hope that he has gained the basic food hygiene certificate. This game is really simple to play and extremely fun. Players choose orders from the menu, either through dice rolls or by picking something they think their opponent will struggle to make, and try to make the order with cards from their hand. When one player plays their last card then the round is over, points are totalled and any leftover cards in hand are worth minus points. There are four rounds of menu madness, and you may still feel peckish at the end. 

8. Fishfry

This is one of my favourite filler games, it is very quick to play but it has lots of replayability. Fishfry is a dice rolling game that consists of five custom dice. Players may roll the dice up to three times, trying to catch the largest fish to fry. You must roll a head and a tail to score points, and various sized fishy body bits to add to the score. If you roll a small panfish then you may not re-roll that and it counts as one point. If you roll five panfish then you shout 'FISHFRY!', you have fried up all your fish and instantly win. Mini Fishfry tournaments happen at my place regularly, usually before Dino Hunt Dice, whenever the mood for constant rolling and re-rolling hits.

So that is my list of foodie games. Are there any food themed games that you enjoy playing? I would love to hear about them.

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx