Eat to level up! Let's Play Adventure Bar Story!

[Classic]

What are you talking about Brent? His cooking knowledge is making this LP so much better. Did you see the way R^2 suffered for his knowledge of food? But in a way that is mild and funny instead of severe and heartbreaking?

[nosimpleway]

Mild and funny, like a cooking LP, rather than tragic and heartbreaking, like my cooking career.

[Classic]

That- that is the joke.
But when you put it like that, it makes it really obvious that I'm being a tremendous asshole. :-(

[nosimpleway]

Fred learns how to throw rocks back at dryads.


Oh yes wonderful that'll be a really helpful skill in the frozen cave.


I am vaguely uncomfortable.


The game's difficulty is a little uneven. I can either hang around in the forest for ages, grinding out the drops from monsters there, or I can go get massacred in the new cave that's available. I did the former! That left me with lots of Pork (common drops from the most common enemies) and Smoke Wood (common drops from dryads) to work with. We're gonna level up by stuffing ourselves full of bacon!




Looks like I didn't get a battle screenshot, but the crab enemies in this cave are called "Club". Not Crab. Club.


Siela can summon chunks of the stuff and throw them at monsters, but when it comes to using it as an ingredient, you've got to find it lying on the ground like everything else.


And this is how I left the cave. Alfine's only at full health because she can easily get mobbed and beaten to death in a single fight, before getting a chance to move, so I have to heal to full after running from each battle.

[nosimpleway]

Oh, and now that I have some seaweed, I can finally wrap my riceballs in a bit of nori and check off that recipe that's been on my list since the beginning of the game...


...oh. Um.


Of course it fucking is.




You can tell the game's Japanese when there's only one sauce to put on everything but there's a million different kinds of onigiri.








And then... the game crashed!

[nosimpleway]

So after restarting and finding myself back in the cave, I go a different direction and find a new spear for Fred.


I think after getting this skill I died on the way out of the cave, so I may need to get it again.

So after returning home and finding my ingredient stock a little different, I make most of the stuff from before the crash, and:











The game crash wasn't all bad. I went through kind of a lot of money and ingredients trying to figure out the one secret ingredient that makes all those "Royal" beverages, and having to restart means I got all my beans and miscellaneous flavorings back.

[nosimpleway]

Minor breakthrough this morning. Scrolling through Fred's shop looking for some flavoring for coffee and tea I may have missed, I am reminded he sells jars and barrels. To save a bunch of largely-redundant screenshots, variations on this recipe allow Apple Jam, Marmalade, Cherry Jam, and Plum Jam. Grape Jam is not in the game.


Barrels unlock a few things that have been puzzling me, too. Swapping out the prime ingredient makes Wine, Plum Wine, Sake, Vodka, and Kumis. Fermented milk? Oh wait, if I do it in a jar instead of a barrel, I bet...


Yep.


All this unlocked the hint recipes for Meat Bait -- a barrel full of half-rotted chicken, beef, or pork -- if I ever want to run into more monsters than usual.


I expected a bunch of hint recipes for cocktails and wine sauces and stuff, but the only new recipe to make is this one. Oh well.

[nosimpleway]

Do-It-Yourself Ingredients:
Mayonnaise, Ketchup, Coffee Beans, Flour, Bread, Bread Crumbs, Pasta, Udon, Pie Dough, Pizza Dough, Butter, Cheese, Fresh Creme, Yogurt, G. Chicken, G. Pork, G. Beef, Ham, Bacon, Sausage, Stock, Creme Sauce

Consumable Items:
Meat Bait: Chicken, Beef, or Pork
Bombs: Spike, Spike+, Poison, Blind, Silence

Edible Food:
Salted Vegetables: Cabbage, Cucumber, Beets, Napa, Daikon
Honeyed Lemon
Pickles: Beets, Squid, Cucumbers, Seaweed
Riceballs: Plain, Miso, Plum, Seaweed, Shrimp
Sushi (squid)
Cucumber Stick
Vegie Sticks
Sliced Apple
Sliced Sausage
Dried Herring
Salads: Lettuce, Daikon, Tomato, Caesar
Parfait: Mocha, Strabry, Melon, Chestnt, Yogurt, Green Tea
Risotto: Bean, Chestnut, Chicken
Porchetta
Onion Soup
Bean Soup
Edamame
Pork Curry
_____ in Creme Sauce: Beets, Mushroom, Chicken, Pork, Beef, Tung
J-J-Jam: Strawberry, Apple, Marmalade, Cherry, Plum
It Is Jelloy: Strawberry, Grape, Orange, Peach
Teas: Green, Milk, Iced, Apple, Lemon
Scrambled Egg variations 1 and 2
Ham & Egg
Bacon & Egg
Omelet
Cheese Omelet
Crispy Bacon
Grilled Sausage
Cheesy Eggplant
Stuffed Greens
Mushroom & Soy
Patties: Pork, Beef, Cheese
Grilled: Herring, Riceballs, Tung, Ham
Fried Rice
Butter Rice
Pepperoncino
Hot Cake
Juice: Tomato, Strawberry, Apple, Grape, Orange, Cherry, Melon, Peach
Coffee: Black, au Le, Cappuccino, Iced, Ice au Le
Butter Potato
Cheese & Tomato
Oven Apple
Cookies
Pies: Apple, Cherry, Peach, Lemon, Meat, Mille-feuille
Gratin
Shortcake
Raison Bread
Mont Blanc
Creme Caramel
Fried Pork
Fried Beef
Tempura: Eggplant, Potato, Onion, Shrimp, Squid
Doughnut Bread
Booze: Wine, Beer, Sake, Vodka, Plum Wine, Kumis

Hint Recipes:
Caprese
Tomato, _____, _____, _____, Knife

Tempura Bowl
Rice, Shrimp, _____, _____, Pot

Stuffed Cabbage
Cabbage, _____, _____, Pot

Pork Potato
Pork, Potato, _____, _____, _____

Steamed Chicken
Egg, _____, _____, Pineshroom, _____

Corn Soup
Corn, _____, Butter, Salt, Pot
I've tried Stock for a clear soup and both Milk and Potato to make a corn chowder. I don't know.

Vegie Curry
_____, Yellow Spice, _____, _____, Pot

Royal Tea, Royal Milk Tea, Royal Lemon Tea, Royal Apple Tea, and Royal Coffee continue to elude me.

Spanish Omelet: 107 EXP, $550
Egg, Ketchup, _____, _____, Frying Pan

Pepper Steak: 40 EXP, $250
_____, _____, Salt, Frying Pan
It's not Green Pepper or Black Pepper or Red Spice.

Grilled Squid:
Squid, _____, _____
Probably Salt and Frying Pan, but I was out of squid by this point.

Squid Okonomi:
Squid, Egg, _____, _____, _____
Okonomiyaki is a savory Japanese pancake sort of thing, cooked on a griddle top. Hotcakes call for Flour, Milk, and Honey, so I bet if I leave out the Honey, I can make Okonomiyaki.

Udon Stir Fry: 72 EXP, $390
Udon, _____, _____, _____, Frying Pan

Shrimp Doria: 175 EXP, $750
Shrimp, _____, Creme Sauce, Cheese, _____

Cheese Cake: 75 EXP, $390
Cheese, _____, _____, _____, Oven

French Fries: 55 EXP, $340
Potato, _____, _____

Fried Chicken: 91 EXP, $490
Chicken, _____, Salt, _____, _____

Doughnut: 37 EXP, $210
_____, Sugar, _____, Olive Oil, Fryer

For Sale:
Gelatin
Vegie Sandwich
Eggsalad Sand
Ham Sandwich
Potato Salad
Chicken Salad
Beef Carpaccio
Plain Udon
Miso Soup 1
Carrot Soup
Smoked Egg
Vegie Stir Fry
Napolitan
Bolognese
Vegie Juice
Pizza
Carrot Bread
Pork Croquette

Miso
Iced Tomatoes
Soy Brothers
Mushroom Salad
Mushroom Rice 1
Pork Miso Soup
Pot-au-Feu
Minestrone
Hot Milk
German Potato
Carbonara
Roast Chicken

[Blossom]

Corn Soup
Corn, _____, Butter, Salt, Pot
I've tried Stock for a clear soup and both Milk and Potato to make a corn chowder. I don't know.

Try an egg. They do that there.

[Romosome]

Are you absolutely sure you tried those with the corn soup recipe already?

[nosimpleway]

I was up until I read that.

[nosimpleway]

We get an earth-elemental attack out of someone with enough INT to use one, and Siela gets another buff spell, this time for evasion.


Made it to the tunnel boss, too.


And here I learned two things. 1) A few stat buffs will make a party member nigh-invulnerable, a juggernaut of unstoppable destruction. 2) That's why stat buffs wear off like status ailments do, rather than lasting until the end of the battle. Right about the time I took this screenshot, the defense buffs Siela cast with Air Shield started wearing off.


The Goliath was a much easier fight than the mandrake thing in the forest, overall.


So we'll head to Silkreef... tomorrow.




Back at the restaurant, two patrons are getting a bit unruly.


Kamerina sends Siela off to look at whatever's cooking, then goes Shun Goku Satsu on the two men who were causing a scene. Once Siela gets back they've, ahem, passed out from drinking too much.

...what the hell?

[nosimpleway]

There's also a fisherman who walks by and gives directions to Lar.


The monsters are stronger than they were in the cave, but they no longer get a free first hit. And they drop black pepper sometimes, so I've got that going for me, which is nice. Fred learns another cold-elemental skill from fighting monsters who resist that sort of thing. Way to go, Fred.

(That's why Alfine is in the party rather than Alter, her basic Fireball spell can completely wreck any monster she hits.)


This big guy is probably the same as the Bull monster from the forest: big enough to encounter solo, probably has a rare drop worth a lot of money.


If Fireball didn't oneshot every monster in the last two dungeons, Hell Fire might be necessary.


Silkreef is a surprisingly short dungeon. We'll go to Lar... tomorrow.

[nosimpleway]

A little dog told me to try this recipe with Milk again. I could have sworn that didn't work the first time...


I think they're going for "jar of vision-impairing octopus ink", since the recipe also works with squid. But I like to imagine it's a jar with an angry live octopus stuck inside, who upon his release wraps his tentacles around the target's face and won't let go.


If a jar stuffed with spiny chestnuts is a little grenade, then a barrel stuffed with chestnuts must be a giant bomb. This is the logic I used to arrive at this conclusion.








More hint recipes with logical conclusions.

[nosimpleway]

We run into the fisherman who gave us directions from Silkreef again. Hi Mr.! Don't forget you can only level up by eating food!


Sneaking into the back room of the general store lets us steal some of the owner's stuff.


Having not used Alter yet, I don't know what "Start Drunk" entails. Given that the stat boosts of the item are pretty lackluster at this point in the game, I can only assume it's an added benefit and not a hindrance. Maybe he's like how I always imagined Gen from SaGa Frontier, a guy who's adjusted so much to being intoxicated that he actually gets worse at things while sober.


That island on the world map east of Lar, with the big "you haven't unlocked this area yet" icon on it? That's Fire Island.


Teaches Cider and Bourbon Whiskey, and would teach Sake if I hadn't worked it out already. All alcohol recipes so far have been one ingredient plus barrel plus fermenter, and the history of humanity has been a series of experiments to see what stuff can possibly be fermented into booze and drunk. I've done grapes, wheat, apples, corn, rice, potatoes, plums, and milk so far. What am I missing? Cactus?


(Hint recipes unlocked)


You can go through the cave or the reef and get seafood ingredients for free, or go to Lar and buy them. Much like the fields and forests let you collect what Ostenlien sells you. Anyway, we've got truckloads of fish to do something with, and a few hint recipes to work around.


I'll save the dozens of screenshots and just tell you: the Sushi recipe can be swapped out for Herring, Mackerel, Flatfish, Seabream, Tuna, Shrimp, Scallop, Squid, Octopus, Salmon, and Eggs. Each of those can be made with or without Green Spice (which is wasabi, clearly).


That would have been helpful before I finished the cave dungeon... although I should probably go back and make sure I looted all the treasures out of it.


Lots of guesswork. Who would have thought you steam chicken in seaweed broth rather than regular water?

Sea Broth is not the ingredient in Royal Tea, by the way.


The Pork Curry is Onion + Potato as secondary ingredients, so I figured it was just a matter of figuring out which other vegetable went in the first slot. I was right. Doing that unlocked a hint for Chicken Curry, which in turn unlocked Beef Curry; neither recipe will surprise you.


I was on a roll with the Potato + Onion thing.






You son of a bitch Pork is not steak I have never been angrier.

[nosimpleway]

Alter tells us some bad news: someone in town is sowing terrible rumors about us.


Three guesses who it might be.


Big experimentation days typically mean lower profits, since most of the stuff I come up with doesn't cost as much as my big sellers. No Porchetta on the menu means I don't even break 5k.


I did make sure to keep some Porchetta on hand to enter into the contest on day 20, after all.


Unfortunately, my Sales of is not enough to go up another rank.


Melons cost as much as the Black Pepper I got last time, but aren't used in as many recipes.


Going through to Lar unlocks the ability for traveling merchants to show up in Cassel every five days, so if I need some seafood I don't need to make a day trip for it. In this case, restocking on fish means I can get the recipes for Roast Sea Bream, Pickled Tuna, and Grilled Squid done.


The peddler also sells Beast Traps, which I set up alongside my seeds in the Ostenlien farm. We'll see what happens, I assume I get some meat along with the vegetables I grow.

[nosimpleway]

Romosome this fried chicken is really driving me nuts though, we should brainstorm.
Romosome I am pretty sure it requires lard, since I seem to remember the hint recipe lit up when I first got lard.
Romosome that would narrow it down to chicken, salt, lard, and one unknown
Romosome I should attempt other spices, I think flour is ruled out
nosimpleway Chicken + Salt + _____ + _____ + either fryer or frying pan
Romosome it's gotta be frying pan, just by virtue of recipe groupings.
Romosome yeah I meant fryer
Romosome would you ever use breadcrumbs for fried chicken?
Romosome I don't even know. It's always just batter, isn't it?
nosimpleway The Japanese might, since panko is a kind of breadcrumbs.
nosimpleway I'd rather use cornmeal.
Romosome and right, it might not be southern fried chicken.
Romosome It might be karaage.
nosimpleway That's my guess.
nosimpleway Karaage is marinated in soy sauce and dredged in potato starch, as I recall.
Guest53151 It's where you park your car.
Romosome and fried in oil
nosimpleway Oh, I got it!
nosimpleway It's Western-style.
Romosome fuck
Romosome hang on
Romosome oh, and would you mind a hint about Something You Missed?
nosimpleway You're on the right track. It's a fat to fry in and a coating to dredge in.
nosimpleway Or you can wait for the Google Photos backup to fire, and I'll update the LP.
Romosome hee
Romosome well I'm guessing
Romosome what!
Romosome well fuck, I guess we just completed a cycle of karma there
Romosome because I could have sworn I tried that already.
nosimpleway It's startlingly intuitive!
Romosome I know right?


You fry chicken.

[nosimpleway]

See, a couple plates of Porchetta and Gratin and my sales are back up around 8k.

Oh, I forgot to go back to Lar and take notes of all the ingredients and recipes for sale at the shop...


...who the fuck is Sean?


Sea Broth is pretty clearly missing the word "weed", given how the recipes use it, so I figure it's made like chicken stock.


Excuse me gelatin was traditionally made by boiling calves' hooves, not pigs. (Also, there's no water in this recipe, which threw me.)


One off the sale list.


Bean + Jar + Fermenter didn't work. Bean + Barrel + Fermenter didn't work. At this point I have a standard go-to for when a recipe doesn't work but logically should.


Well thanks I guess I should have talked to you a couple days ago before I figured that out myself.


...Salted... Plums...?


Salted Plums. And he says they pair well with Beer, so let's give that a shot on the menu today. Come to think of it, the description for Edamame says it pairs with Beer, too.


With that in mind, I still have to go visit a location today. I go to... the forest! For a couple reasons. The monsters are easy so my skills don't develop much, but for all the fuss and bother about getting seafood, none of the recipes I've made out of fish and seaweed can compare to the ones I've made of meat in either EXP output or sale price. Tung Creme is my top-selling item that's available, and it seems pretty likely to remain thus until I can find Garuda Eggs to replace it with Chicken Risotto. Porchetta is easier to make and sells for nearly as much, and Gratin often backs it up. Not a single one of those requires fish. Unless Caviar or Shark Fin Soup turn out to be massively profitable, the past several days' work of getting to that dumb port city were pretty much wasted.

In the forest, I find that Fred can Steal some earlygame armor off of the goblins while I wait for bulls to show up. Those sell for a pretty decent price! And dryads are carrying pricey Mana Potions I can lift off from them. Between salable items, useful restoratives, and tasty meat products, why would I go anywhere else but the forest?

[nosimpleway]

As we're getting ready to close, Alter is the only one left in the dining room until Fred and Alfine drop by.




...and there's a new guest, too!


Siela gives her dinner, because the way to making a successful restaurant is by feeding vagrants who break into your stock room.


A bit of interrogation leads to her spilling her entire backstory.


So Siela figures she can make an honest worker out of the filthy hobo thief.


Another party member! And since I just figured out how to make Steal useful, her status as a thief might well come in handy when I'm returning to a dungeon and don't need Alfine's firepower.

[nosimpleway]

I got a combo! It's not the one Alter told me about, but eh.


We sold out of Edamame and Beer, and might have sold out of Salted Plums if I had enough Beer to pair with them. Thankfully I also had some Tung Creme and Porchetta to make up for the sales -- at $230 a glass I'd need a lot of Beer to make up for one Tung Creme -- but if I can find combos of stuff that's more expensive, I might not even need Porchetta anymore.

Oh god damn it that's the trick, isn't it. Sushi combos. That's why fish are valuable.


Lidia gets to work in the kitchen on the next day, giving a few helpful hints about how monsters behave. If a monster uses the Berserk skill -- I've seen it plenty of times -- it raises its stats, heals itself, and hits extra-hard. But then it drops extra loot after the battle, so there's an upside to it. She also tells me that how a monster is defeated determines what loot it drops. If I can figure out how to get bulls to drop more Tung I'll really be in business.


She also drops a hint about Pork Risotto, which somehow never occurred to me to try. Given that Chicken Risotto requires a rare Garuda Egg, I probably would have assumed Pork Risotto demands a Blessed Hamhock of the rare Erymanthian Boar.


Cleaning up some of the sale recipe lists, if I can. This requires a lot of guesswork in a lot of cases, which is why those lists are still so long. Uselessly consuming items in experiments until you stumble across the right answer! It's Fun(tm)!


Okay look I was just fucking around I don't


...it decreases Satiety. You get less full from drinking this stuff. That's... probably useful for powerleveling, I suppose.


Making Cabbage Juice unlocked a Hint Recipe for Lettuce Juice. Okay game, you win, tables are turned, now you're fucking with me.