Food Wars volume 8 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 Time for some culinairy reading again, as I dove into the next volume of Food wars! a series I`m really enjoying as a hobby cook.

Because it also features most of the recipies, and as those are often asian inspired dishes, give a good insight on the cuisine.

Soma and Akira reach the height of their little side-feud, as they both need to present their dishes in the preliminaries.  Akira presents a sort or soup croutee, using a very rare spice unavailable in Japan, only to disclose to the jury that he actually cultivates it at the school grounds as part of miss Shiomi's spice course.  This puts him on top of the rankings, as it is Soma's turn to present his dish.

He comes forth with... an omelette. However, it is filled with a risotto and tied together with his family's recipy of mango chutney, that wows the judges for it's strong flavours.  His ends up in second place, but the judges actually break out in a verbal fight about which dish is actually suited the most for the said assignment.  With a tie-breaker eminent for the two placed in fourth now, the last contender, a big brutish looking boy, actually shuffles them out of the ranking, and making the 8 finalists known.

Celebrating the end of the preliminaries, Soma and Megumi join Isshiki on his request for a business trip.  It turns out this business is a cooking school for small children, and he needs help as a teacher twisted her ankle.  Between the two of them, they manage to grab the attention of the kids and teach them to make some simple recipies, but this fun break from reality soon ends as the quarter finals are drawing near.

Soma, having to cook in the theme of a bento box, faces non other then molecular cooking genius Alice Nakiri.  In his typical style, he goes for the cheapest, most common bento, the seaweed variant.  Alice composes, using her science skills, a complex sushi bento that wows the judges, but yet when Soma presents his box, the subtle yet simple dish seems to sway the judges, but we will need to wait for volume 9 to find out if it is actually enough, as the judges include the headmaster, who is also Alice's grandfather.  But the headmaster is also the one person that, to his own satisfaction, notices Soma is the only chef present not phased by Alice's modern skills.

There is also a sidestory about Erina's summer vacation, as she goes to a swimming park together with her cousing Alice for some good fun at the end of the volume.  But this was another fun read for certain, and slowly I`ll be expanding on the series and find out more on how it progresses.

And I guess I`m going to give the anime a shot soon as well...