How to work efficiently in Cooking Simulator Cooking Simulator guide, tips

Last update: 04 July 2019

A collection of tips, tricks and additional information about the mechanics taking place in Cooking Simulator, allowing you to understand all issues and problems that may occur during your work in the kitchen.

Order of work and meal preparation

Okay, we're going to start working in the kitchen - great! But what now? How to cope with all activities as a cook? Now, it would be worthwhile to prepare well for this, because, as Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you give me 6 hours to cut down a tree - the first 4 I will spend on sharpening my axe." The proper preparation in Cooking Simulator is actually knowing the game mechanics to perfection if you want to achieve magnificent career as a chef.

But we'll start with how to manage things in the kitchen at all:

1. It is not strange or unrealistic that most of the mistakes and catastrophes (ending with the landing of food on the floor or plates thrown at the wall) result from a hurry. And you will get pissed off many times if you perform activities too fast and some of what you had on your plate will land on the ground. How to deal with this issue? Gold tip of the day: do it fast but don't hurry, maintain balance. In other words, you will lose more time and points by dealing with failures instead of simply doing things (more or less) calmly. Do not turn with your character too fast, especially when you buy and put ingredients for the dish on a plate. Do not move too fast. Everything will be fine.
2. If the recipe says you have to cut something and only then to season it (with salt, pepper, whatever) then be smarter and don't listen to it; for then the questions arise "How do you season 6 pieces of potato with 3 g of salt?"? Well, the only right way to solve the problem of even seasoning of sliced ingredients is to season the ingredients BEFORE cutting. As the developers themselves admit, it is the best and easiest way for the game mechanics to distribute the spice evenly on pieces of potato.
3. You poured too much oil in the pan? Don't be afraid! Just press E key aiming at the pan to "taste" (like soup) what kind of substance is on that pan - this action subtracts 1 ml of liquid. So you can do that unlimited number of times. For large containers \ other liquids (like soups) this is similar, although the portions are vanishing in higher quantity.
4. DO NOT RETURN FINISHED ORDERS UNTIL THERE IS A MINUTE LEFT ON THE METER after your reach day 5 and above. For one simple reason: after day 5, if you do not deal with the last guest in the restaurant, the delivery of the finished dish means that soon you will receive a new order. This means that it is worth to make a delay when you are still working, for example, on the other two dishes which are not ready yet. Wait as long as you can.
5. Not everything equally roasts / fries / or gets heated by cooking, because of its weight and size: note that a quarter kilo steak roasts more than one mushroom; and because of its poor arrangement in the frying pan (the ingredients lying on top of others roast slower).

How to deal with this issue?

1. Do not bake all food together in one pan. It is really better (over time and progress) to invest in two or three pots that you lay side by side on the cooking stove.
2. If necessary, lift this item (in a salad bowl; or by hands, if you have the 'gloves' perk) and put it back on the empty space in the pan using the "precise manipulation".
3. After frying, do not forget to pour out the old oil from the pan and pour the new one!

1. Stopwatches (a clock for measuring time) are a good way to keep track of food time. Although in time the sound of these little bastards will cause you a post-traumatic shock, it is advisable to use them when you are doing several things at once: that is, over time, practically always. Due to the fact that they can be set with an accuracy of 10 seconds, when many dishes need to be heated e.g. 45 seconds, it is a good habit to set a lower value (less time) than is needed for the actual finish of the frying or baking process - cause you need some time to react without ruining what you were doing when the stopwatch bell rang.

This applies to the topic of baking something in the oven, because without the ability of "Thermal Vision" we are not able to check the temperature without opening the door of the oven (which seems to have a negative impact on the speed of food preparation).

1. In case the customers complain to the fact that there was too much spice in the dish: either you operate on dirty plates and cutting boards or the system lost "fractions" of spices when you seasoned the item (usually on the edges of the dish). Sometimes even though the perfect seasoning and clean "utensils" the customer will still say that something was wrong - unfortunately, it is difficult to determine whether these are individual customer's thoughts or bugs, but in addition to cleaning, the solution is to use a 1 gram of a given spice less next time (which the customer argued about).
2. Do not forget to preheat the oven shortly before use.
3. Multitasking: do multiple things at the same time. Over time, there is no other way. Don't stand idly by and watch the meat burn nicely; start preparing the next ingredients for another dish you need to prepare. See the section below...