Author: yellowthundersnail

maxiesatanofficial:

Latest headcanon: As part of the fine tradition of puzzlecraft, monster fine dining (and occasionally less-than-fine but presentation-focused fare) often involves presenting the food itself as puzzles.

• Appetizers are traditionally “tactile” spatial puzzles e.g. mozzarella-stick Jenga towers or garlic knot puzzles. The process of neatly untangling them helping diners keep themselves occupied until the main course arrives.
• Locked sandwich platters containing parallel plates of ingredients, which are rotated in order to get everyone’s order in the proper configuration – like, “stacked lazy susans,” as it were – at which point they unlock. (Sure, you could specifically order things that share as few ingredients as possible, or only have one or two people get sandwiches, but that’d defeat the whole purpose.)
• Salad bars, frozen yogurt places, etc. having you choose a price before serving yourself, right alongside the size of your bowl or plate; you then carefully choose and mete out your toppings so that you actually reach that price. Hopefully you don’t mind switching out those boiled egg slices for an additional scoop of bacon bits.
• It’s not in and of itself a faux pas to say “instead of ordering, we’re going to give you a list of six entrees, a list of six sides, and a series of hints as to who wants which,” but you’d better be a really good tipper.
• Cakes, pizzas, etc. naturally use the old “cut X pieces with Y slices” standby quite a lot. Typically this is done by the chef/baker/server rather than left to the consumer, to ensure that the outcome is pleasingly asymmetrical without some pieces being ludicrously small. Another, more modern and significantly more labor-intensive option is the “edible jigsaw,” to be first assembled by the diners, then – once complete – disassembled and eaten.
• And, naturally, often the menu itself takes the form of a cipher, word scramble, crossword, rebus, etc.