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Psychotic Weasel
Jun 24, 2004

Bang! You're dead.
Well, now both goons and the Don have proven that money can't buy good taste...

Speaking of buying things, I'm going to vote NO on closing for lunch. The modern organized criminal doesn't care about rules and traditions, we're just here to make money. Killing people is a bonus at this point.

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SergZpartan
Jun 20, 2008
NO on closing for lunch, how are we supposed to launder money for the mob if we're closed?
(Plus its fun seeing you smash the games goalposts so hard)

habeasdorkus
Nov 3, 2013

Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.
A question I've been wondering, why only two seats per table? I think you explained this in part earlier, that it makes more money, but is that because the game has almost all of the customers come in ones and twos rather than having parties of three or more?

Sick Ness Monster
Dec 25, 2016
Yes - we need to keep doing our part to make sure La Cosa Nostra looks and acts exactly like a mob front to ensure that it remains free of suspicion due to being too obvious.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


No to closing. We cook with c.r.e.a.m.

Little Abigail
Jul 21, 2011



College Slice

Zanzibar Ham posted:

No - if we cut on the Don's profits we might end up getting the VIP seat in our own restaurant.

This is a great point. No for me as well.

Xun
Apr 25, 2010

No to closing, as many people as possible need to see our excellent decor

Haifisch
Nov 13, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender
No. People need to see our floating horse statues.

It's not just me, right? They definitely look like they're levitating off the ground.

e:

"Let's just dole out 3/4ths of an egg every time someone orders this. That sounds about right."

Haifisch fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jul 18, 2018

habeasdorkus
Nov 3, 2013

Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.

Haifisch posted:

No. People need to see our floating horse statues.

It's not just me, right? They definitely look like they're levitating off the ground.

e:

"Let's just dole out 3/4ths of an egg every time someone orders this. That sounds about right."

They do look like they're floating. That's one of my favorite things about them.

As to the gondola, I think we can split the difference and call it the Goondola of Damocles. Second most dangerous table in the restaurant!

Jack2142
Jul 17, 2014

Shitposting in Seattle

Haifisch posted:

No. People need to see our floating horse statues.

It's not just me, right? They definitely look like they're levitating off the ground.

e:

"Let's just dole out 3/4ths of an egg every time someone orders this. That sounds about right."

I still can't get over the fact seafood quiche is a dessert wtf?

Nondevor
Jun 1, 2011





catposting

Haifisch posted:

No. People need to see our floating horse statues.

It's not just me, right? They definitely look like they're levitating off the ground.

e:

"Let's just dole out 3/4ths of an egg every time someone orders this. That sounds about right."

I agree with the floating horses thing from above, but from eye-level...



I can definitely see how these statues can be intimidating when it looks like they’re about to trample you at any moment. Or if someone “accidentally” shoves a statue on top of you.

Haifisch
Nov 13, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender

Now I know Italy's definition of pizza is different from America's, but really? Salmon and sour cream spread on a crust, with some basil sprinkled on top? Can we get some pizza rules???

Psychotic Weasel
Jun 24, 2004

Bang! You're dead.

Haifisch posted:

Now I know Italy's definition of pizza is different from America's, but really? Salmon and sour cream spread on a crust, with some basil sprinkled on top? Can we get some pizza rules???

There's also 'Italian seasoning' on it which I'm pretty confident no authentic Italian chef would be caught dead using. It makes me wonder why people give Hawaiian pizza such a hard time when a culinary atrocity like salmon pizza exists... fortunately with only 10 tablespoons of flour (roughly ~80g or 1/4 of a cup) this is probably also the world's smallest pizza.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
Armand's also paying a buck per liter of water. What the hell kind of water is this?

Aesculus
Mar 22, 2013

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Armand's also paying a buck per liter of water. What the hell kind of water is this?

Wow, I just noticed that. Water doesn't even have a quality rating so it can't be special five star melted snow, it's just plain tap water.

e: there isn't even any yeast or baking powder to make the pizza dough rise, it's just the word's toughest, most awful pizza :negative:

Jack2142
Jul 17, 2014

Shitposting in Seattle

Someone should do a show like binging with babish, but instead of terrible TV recipes terrible Kitchen Empire recipes.

Mraagvpeine
Nov 4, 2014

I won this avatar on a technicality this thick.
I noticed a measurement called "ea" in the recipes. What exactly is that measuring?

Nondevor
Jun 1, 2011





catposting

Mraagvpeine posted:

I noticed a measurement called "ea" in the recipes. What exactly is that measuring?

Each (per serving). Like in some of the desserts they mention things like .50 egg and .50 egg yolk ea.

Wouldn’t .50 egg just be the egg whites at that point?

Jack2142
Jul 17, 2014

Shitposting in Seattle

Nondevor posted:

Each (per serving). Like in some of the desserts they mention things like .50 egg and .50 egg yolk ea.

Wouldn’t .50 egg just be the egg whites at that point?

Generally for desserts you use egg whites for a lot of things.

Nondevor
Jun 1, 2011





catposting

Jack2142 posted:

Generally for desserts you use egg whites for a lot of things.

I know that, but I’m just saying it’s lazy of them to specify the yolk in the recipe but just leave egg whites as .50 or .75 egg :v: (along with many other things in these recipe cards)

Added Space
Jul 13, 2012

Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!
Presumably you're making larger batches. 3 eggs per quiche, 3/4 per serving.

Enchanted Hat
Aug 18, 2013

Defeated in Diplomacy under suspicious circumstances

habeasdorkus posted:

A question I've been wondering, why only two seats per table? I think you explained this in part earlier, that it makes more money, but is that because the game has almost all of the customers come in ones and twos rather than having parties of three or more?

Yeah, that's exactly it. Parties of three or four people are really rare, and when they do arrive, chances are that the receptionist has already allocated the large four-person table to a regular party of one or two guests because the other tables were full.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Armand's also paying a buck per liter of water. What the hell kind of water is this?

I'm thinking the game designers were too lazy to look up the price of tap water and just looked at the price of mineral water from the supermarket. It's an Evian pizza.

Pharohman777
Jan 14, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
We already have Cinnamon Challenge: The Crepe; so I wonder if there is an ice bucket challenge recipie

Dire Chinchilla
Mar 27, 2013
One of the best things about this game is that it's Omnifood that's supposed to be evil, yet it's Armand that's running around doing business with mafia, getting unprofessionally friendly with a food critic and stealing the best chefs from other restaurants.

Also, I've finished this game 2 days ago and it's magical all the way to the end :allears: I wish it was longer.

CVE
Jan 27, 2012
Likewise NO on the vote. We are a 24/7 money laundering, death-dealing fine-dining establishment. Consider it an offer from the Don. You wouldn't refuse him, right? And he said to make the restaurant rake in the dough.

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Haifisch posted:

Can we get some pizza rules???

Now you know better than that.

Jack2142 posted:

Someone should do a show like binging with babish, but instead of terrible TV recipes terrible Kitchen Empire recipes.

I would love to, but I'm concerned that the resulting dishes would either be inedible or even completely uncookable.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
I'm gonna go with No, stay open for lunch, but leave the lighting down dim 24/7 to provide the right ambiance.

paragon1
Nov 22, 2010

FULL COMMUNISM NOW
I like to think of la cosa nostra as a room full of blucifers.

DariusLikewise
Oct 4, 2008

You wore that on Halloween?
When does the Restaurant Empire GOTY edition come out?

Enchanted Hat
Aug 18, 2013

Defeated in Diplomacy under suspicious circumstances

Dire Chinchilla posted:

One of the best things about this game is that it's Omnifood that's supposed to be evil, yet it's Armand that's running around doing business with mafia, getting unprofessionally friendly with a food critic and stealing the best chefs from other restaurants.

Also, I've finished this game 2 days ago and it's magical all the way to the end :allears: I wish it was longer.

Have you played the Restaurant Empire 2 campaign? RE1 is great and all, but I've played half a dozen episodes of RE2, and the plot suddenly introduces some really dark dramatic elements, and I genuinely have no idea where the story is going. If you have the Steam version with RE2, definitely check it out.

habeasdorkus
Nov 3, 2013

Royalty is a continuous shitposting motion.
Bonjour, Monsigneur Lebouef. Your uncle has asked me to proffer some suggestions as a menu consultant for Treize à Table. Please find my suggestions below. All prices are in single digits, as that makes people think the locale is classier.

Treize à Table


Soupes
Pea Soup with Creme Fraiche..................6
Award Winning!
Creamy Potato Soup.................................7
Indolent!
Cream of Red Bell Pepper Soup...............7
Hearty!

Hors D'oeuvres
Stuffed Spider Crab.................................22
With Caviar and Squid!
Fried Duck Liver with Asparagus Tips....18
Luxurious!
Artichoke Crepes with Langoustines.....13
A taste of Breton!

Plats Principaux
Gratineed Chicken in Cream Sauce.......17
With harcots verts, onion, and potato!
Roast Leg of Lamb.................................17
With Rosemary!
Armand's Award Winning Torte.............18
Eggplant, Zucchini, Red Pepper, and Parmesan!
Fish Wellington.......................................18
Crispy and soft!
Mixed Casserole of Pork........................21
The famous original!
Honeyed Duck........................................22
Sweet and Succulent!

Le Boeufs
Beef Daube.............................................20
Award Winning!
Provencal Rib Steak...............................24
with Spring Vegetables!

Le Rêve Patissere
Mango Fans..............................................6
With Passionfruit and Vanilla Ice Cream!
Crepes Marcie..........................................7
With Cinnamon upon request!
Fruit Gratin with Almonds.....................10
Decadent!
Seafood Quiche.....................................11
Like a second dinner!

Vin et Autres
Vin Rouge..............................................12
Vin Blanc...............................................16
Café.........................................................3
Thé..........................................................3
Eau Minérale...........................................2

Lastly, while I am no seating savant, may I suggest that you keep Treize à Table at 13 tables? Preferably with some for larger parties.

Merci beaucoup.

habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jul 18, 2018

Zanzibar Ham
Mar 17, 2009

You giving me the cold shoulder? How cruel.


Grimey Drawer
I think I found one of the people who wrote down the game's recipes.

Mikl
Nov 8, 2009

Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!
No, we do our business in broad daylight and the cops don't dare touch us.

Enchanted Hat
Aug 18, 2013

Defeated in Diplomacy under suspicious circumstances
Episode 8: The secret of the French spaghetti



Good one, Armand. I read the article. I think you made a good impression with Secondo.

He was raving about the restaurant afterwards – especially the food!

I've got something else to tell you. You know the financial district here in Rome, right? I bought a restaurant there. Great potential. All those banking yuppies need a place to eat, right?

Sure, I guess.

Trust me on this one, Armand. We've got a gold mine on our hands.

What kind of restaurant is it?

Ah, I almost forgot to tell you. It's a French one. You know those bankers – have to eat *imported*. But this one's right up your alley. The only caveat is that you might have to rearrange the furniture a bit – it's already jam-packed as it is, and your waiters may have a hard time delivering the courses on time.

What do you want me to do?

Run it. Get it back in shape. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. The books even reported solid earnings – I checked before buying. Just hire staff and get it running again.

When do you expect to see results?

I don't know, Armand. This should be easy stuff for you by now. I'll tell you what: I'm off to Los Angeles this month. When I come back, I'll check up on your progress.

All right, I'll be going now. See you soon.

Take care, Armand. And take it easy. You've earned a break. French is your mettle. You'll find that you have a very easy time getting it to start operating.

And have a good trip, Don. I'll see you soon.

Bye, Armand.


I like how they turn the bad pathfinding into a story feature. Waiters are unable to find their way around the furniture? That's not a bug, it's a feature!



Anyway, we have a new restaurant! This is Le Palourde Chantante, or "The Singing Clam". I think it should have been "La Palourde Chantante", but the Don's not a native French speaker, so we'll give him a break.



This is the inside of our new restaurant. What, uh… what were they even going for here? Why the weird, tiny partitions? Why are there only five tables? My urge to optimise is SCREAMING at me! :argh:

Before we get started, Uncle Michel wants a word with us.



Hello, Armand. Nice of you to come.

Hi, uncle. What do you want to talk to me about?

Well, your performance so far has been fantastic! In fact, the financial sector has agreed to raise your credit limit.

Uncle, that's great news!

THE FINANCIAL SECTOR HAS UPGRADED YOUR ASSET RATING, AND HAS AGREED TO INCREASE YOUR LOAN LIMIT! YOU CAN USE THE BANK LOAN OPTION IN THE REPORTS INTERFACE.

Thanks for the info, uncle! I guess I'll be off to take out a loan!

Good luck, Armand. You're doing stupendously. If you continue like this, I'm sure it won't be long before they upgrade your credit rating again!


"The financial sector" called Armand's uncle and told him that they've increased his nephew's credit limit? Do we have any banker goons who can confirm whether this is normal procedure?



We can take out a loan of up to $1.4 million now. I have never tried doing it, because first of all, there's nothing to spend the money on, and secondly, we're already ROLLING in cash that we can't even spend. Now if Uncle Michel could dial up the financial sector and ask them if they have any shady offshore investment funds that we could park our huge excess profits in, that'd be something, but alas.



This mission is very simple. We have to increase our average restaurant rating to 3.5 stars, win another Italian cooking contest and increase the monthly profits of Le Palourde Chantante to $25,000 a month (not shown here, the goal screen can only show two objectives at a time for some reason).



We're already well on our way towards fulfilling the restaurant rating objectives. Mostly thanks to our incredibly good service rating, Treize à Table is already at 3.5 stars, and La Cosa Nostra is at 4. If our new restaurant weren't dragging us down, we'd be done already.

This is the rating screen for Treize à Table. The rating is based on the food quality, the service quality and how pleasant the restaurant environment is. The rating is then reduced based on how high your prices are and how many complaints you get. Treize à Table gets a ton of complaints, mostly because of our very limited drinks menu, so this'll drag our rating down significantly by the end of the month.



The restaurant's environment rating is subdivided into the quality of the decoration (which is excellent because of all our fine art), the comfort of the table sets (poor – we picked the cheapest, most awful table sets available) and the quality of the exterior and the view. This rating is terrible, so let's fix it!



The game allows us to add certain small, tasteful embellishments to our restaurant's façade. Naturally, it's important not to go overboard.



Let's build a giant gothic clock tower!



I bought every single embellishment I could, and our exterior and view rating is now at a near-perfect 97%. Much better!



While I'm in Treize à Table, I update the menu based on the requests from the thread and reluctantly cut the number of tables down to thirteen!

As for the suggestions to the restaurant's pricing, I'm going to retain dictatorial control over menu prices, as they're my main way of manipulating our restaurants' profits and quality ratings. Also, I don't want to wake up next to a marble horse head once our profits start to dip.



I also stop by La Cosa Nostra. After intense discussion in the thread, it was ultimately decided not to close the restaurant for lunch. However, as a compromise, I've had the light level lowered in order to give the restaurant that proper mafia ambience (thus convincing federal investigators that this cannot be a mafia front, because it'd be too obvious).



And presto!



Of course, La Cosa Nostra could also use an exterior overhaul. Its exterior and view rating is only at 25%, which is even worse than Treize à Table's.



It makes sense that the restaurant has a poor exterior and view rating. La Cosa Nostra doesn't really have a view of anything particularly interesting (La Cosa Nostra at the top left of the picture).

So let's redo the façade!



Remember: the key here is tasteful restraint.



Perfect. I buy everything and bump the exterior and view rating to a clean 100%.



I finally head over to our new restaurant, Le Palourde Chantante. Because it's currently such a travesty, I delete absolutely everything and start over. Look at all this space. They couldn't fit more than FIVE tables in here?



I temporarily outfit it the boring, optimal way. Twenty of the most expensive tables, efficient menu and a sad lack of giant pointless decorations. I'm counting on you guys to help me ruin this!



I also transfer Thierry and Stefano from La Cosa Nostra to run the kitchen. Thierry is surprisingly good at French mains and soups, so he'll make a good head chef.



I open the restaurant and watch it operate. I notice that the restaurant has a problem: we don't get a lot of customers. Even during dinner, the busiest time of day, we get around 40%-50% occupancy. I'm a little concerned about the restaurant's profitability.



We get the month's results for Le Palourde Chantante. Although it looks dire, the loss of $37,529 includes $50,000 spent on staff training and $20,000 spent on a liquor license. Once we stop the staff training we should meet the $25,000 profit target, but this restaurant isn't going to be as ridiculously profitable as Treize à Table and La Cosa Nostra.



Wow! That was some great food! In fact, that was some of the best regional French fare I've had in a long while – even better than in my native Liguria…


We suddenly get a visitor! While I'm happy to get a guest who doesn't want to insult our food and then ask for thousands of dollars, I'm not sure you can call Ligurian cuisine "regional French fare".

I must thank you for such a rewarding meal!

So… What's so special or different about Ligurian fare?

It's no secret that Liguria is home to superb fishing along the Italian coastline. Our soils are ideally suited for horticulture cultivation.

And you already know that chefs can only create magnificence with great ingredients. Those are the keys to Ligurian culinary prowess.


At this point the game forces us to hire this guy. I guess I can have him cook his Ligurian "regional French fare" at La Cosa Nostra.

You seem like a knowledgeable and reasonable chef. Would you like to work with me?

Well, if your restaurant prepares their recipes as well as that last dish I tried, then of course! I could benefit from working in a restaurant that holds their food in such high regard.

So – you will join my team of soon-to-be-renowned chefs?

Of course! I'll report right away!

NICCOLO SHOULD BE WORKING IN YOUR KITCHEN EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY!

… AND THROUGH HIRING NICCOLO, YOU HAVE GAINED KNOWLEDGE OF THE SECRET LIGURIAN SPAGHETTI WITH ARTICHOKES RECIPE – A RARE CLASSIC! NOW ALL YOU NEED ARE THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS TO PREPARE THIS DELICACY!



With Niccolo, we get his top secret Ligurian spaghetti. The picture looks pretty uninspiring, but it's actually a really high-quality recipe. The profitability is poor, but the quality is amazing. A good recipe. Speaking of high-quality recipes, we still need to go and win the Italian cooking contest!



Three rounds: an Italian recipe, an Italian appetizer and green pea ravioli. What's convenient about this contest is that we can enter with two chefs. Now, to someone playing this game in good faith, that means you can enter with two chefs whose skills complement each other, increasing your chance of victory. For me, it means I can drag Thierry along while Mario Corleone wins it on his own. That way, Thierry's reputation will go up, which should hopefully attract more customers to Le Palourde Chantante.



It's the usual suspects, but they've brought backup this time. Here, Giuseppe Caroni has brought along Marco Penelli, a chef with a much less interesting outfit. They will be making ribbon pasta with mussels and zucchini.



Meanwhile, Leonardo Varesi is entering with Pietro Brunotti. They're making prawns with fried snow peas – one of our classics!



We could crush them with the unstoppable force of Mario's guilt-free cappuccino sundae, but I decide to try out our new Ligurian spathetti. Mario hasn't trained with this recipe, but he's very good at Italian appetizers, so I think we should be all right.



Oh, we won that round really easily. For some reason, the game takes a while before it ramps up the difficulty of the cooking contests.



For round two, both the opposing teams are making cold spaghetti salad. Come on, guys, that doesn't even sound nice.



Like a new Caesar, we alone rule over the Italian cooking circuit.

Neither Mario nor Thierry know how to prepare the last dish properly, the green pea ravioli. But at this point, who is left to oppose us?



I only now notice that one of the rival teams is named "Roman Imperial Chefs". drat it, you guys stole my gimmick!



We win pasta Napolitana! It's bad. Terrible rating, terrible profitability. A bad recipe.



I go back and beat the cooking contest again, and we win the recipe for arugula ravioli with tomato pancetta butter. Wow. This recipe is ridiculous. It is, by a wide margin, the best recipe we've seen so far. I'm adding it to the menu of La Cosa Nostra immediately, and I have Mario start practicing. A good recipe.



At the end of the day, we win the scenario! Le Palourde Chantante ended up with a profit of around $39,000, which is unimpressive but sufficient.

This was a pretty straightforward mission, but the next mission is going to shake things up a little. For one, we're setting up yet another new restaurant, but more interestingly, we're meeting an important new character - one that I'm sure the game will treat with dignity and respect!




New restaurant, new décor! We already voted on French décor for Treize à Table, but this is a chance for us to try something a bit different if we want. The pictures above show the options for the walls, floor and tables. Note that this time I have divided the tables by quality. The top row of tables (A through F) are quality tables that shouldn't bother our guests. Tables G through K are terrible, uncomfortable tables – we can pick those, but we're going to get a LOT of complaints.

Thread poll: what décor should we have in Le Palourde Chantante?

Vote on wall, floor and table design. For example, to vote for wall type C, floor type D and table type B, vote "CDB". The winning combination will be whatever has the most votes when I play the next mission.

We also need some art! We've already had some people in the thread make cool edits to the French paintings – if you want to contribute, please edit the texture files below and post the edited image in the thread!


Leraika
Jun 14, 2015

Luckily, I *did* save your old avatar. Fucked around and found out indeed.
BAB and I'll edit more pictures later.

Aesculus
Mar 22, 2013

Leraika posted:

BAB and I'll edit more pictures later.

I was thinking EDB to make our restaurant a standard diner but this one is so much more awful and clases so terribly that I'll go with BAB as well.


Enchanted Hat posted:

"The financial sector" called Armand's uncle and told him that they've increased his nephew's credit limit? Do we have any banker goons who can confirm whether this is normal procedure?

If you're being scammed, yes.

Haifisch
Nov 13, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender
I'm sticking with the classic diner combo of EDB.

Zanzibar Ham
Mar 17, 2009

You giving me the cold shoulder? How cruel.


Grimey Drawer
EDF! EDF!

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

That can't be ravioli made from scratch, can it? 10 tablespoons of flour is about 1% of the amount of flour needed to make 10 ravioli of decent size.

Also EDF.

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Added Space
Jul 13, 2012

Free Markets
Free People

Curse you Hayard-Gunnes!
EDB for maximum checkerboard.

Also, obviously, the "Singing Clam" should have a full seafood menu. Including that horrible quiche dessert.

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