JJBA OCT #8 R1M7 Quality Deliberations

Judge Hiroyuki Sakai (Cleverruse)

LLC controls both the kitchen and the serving area with frightening efficiency, giving what I think is the slightly better overall restaurant experience between the two offerings. However, there are one or two hiccups to address:

Firstly, I do love the consideration of food sensitivities in the dish selection and prep work. It’s a good bit of detail that exemplifies the thought put into the overall plan. The dishes on offer are varied as well as cohesive as a dinner plan (gonna give the benefit of the doubt and say the team denatures the Lionfish spines before serving, completely doable with an oven and a bit of time), and are dictated to the team LLC manages to recruit throughout well enough to not bring into question their throughput. EoY is used thoroughly in the kitchen area, aiming to turn the whole thing into an AI-assisted affair to maximize efficiency. The banter between Cass and MM is a delight to read and gives a good throughline to the back end work of the strat.

While I do like that as an application of Cassidy’s ability, it does lead into the major problem I have with the strat as a whole: EoY doesn’t just limit itself to roboticizing the kitchen and its processes, it reaches itself out to the serving area as well in the form of the team’s primary interference plays, as well as listening devices on each customer’s table, manually controlled plates to further assist with preventing sabotage, infesting cameras for surveillance, all in addition to taking over most appliances and even the tools and gloves in the kitchen in order to manually control prep work. Given that MM is stuck to 2 bars of Wifi and therefore B Pre, they are stretching themselves ***paper*** thin being a part of every element of the dining experience. Focusing their effort on running a monstrously tight kitchen would sell the strategy a little better, as is I think Cass and especially MM are going to be overwhelmed with all the information coming and going through the both of them which I can see resulting in mistakes and inefficiencies. Not a complete dealbreaker, but something I think holds the strat back from entering the higher numbers.

Meanwhile, Solomon runs an honestly fantastic service. I don’t have a lot of notes here other than I love the examples given of specific conversations the preacher uses to convert patrons to workers, as well as offering the Guilty Pleasure dishes for an enhanced experience (although this technically further strains his teammate). With enough employees he starts directing followers into even more involved service roles like greeters that attract the nicer clientele to make their time making them happy all the easier. Giving Solomon more to do with regards to performing and preventing sabotage might have been a boon to the overall strat; with the sheer number of staff at his disposal they themselves could have made it extremely difficult for the enemy team to get away with anything and free up attention from MM to focus on their main duty.

Between the two I have no doubt they have the edge when it comes to the customer experience, but with how thin EoY is spread over every aspect of the plan, I can’t solidly place the team in the other metrics. LLC’s efforts toward interference I would say are marginally more effective than their enemies’ (big fan of the speaker play, nothing more awkward at a restaurant than overhearing an argument from back of house), though again it all relies on MM’s thinly spread attention. They certainly make a great argument for the most customers served, but MM being overloaded with all its responsibilities could hamper that and the cooking itself quite badly. Hardly a dealbreaker, though, I can confidently give the strat a solid Eight!

BBP focuses on more minutia than their enemies do in their strat, bringing attention to individual dishes and the prep process while not sacrificing the focus on the bigger picture. It’s something the Iron Chef fan in me is extremely happy to read, especially when combined with very solid characterization in both Evelyn and Lacquer.

At the risk of embarrassing myself, I really don’t have much to say at all here. Evelyn applies their ability in a culinary context so smoothly and with such creativity that I could swear she was intended to be a chef from the start. She commands the kitchen with the aforementioned focus on details such as counter assignment, staggering prep work realistically to account for cook and assemble time, and even plating. A big standout here is the insistence of her leaving the work area at slower times to do a walk around the service floor, something I really like for a couple reasons. Firstly, it allows her kit to be used to intercept sabotage and perform a little of her own, and second elevates the customer experience by giving a personal interaction with the head chef. It’s a simple idea but does wonders for the overall plan.

Lacquer, meanwhile, is probably the single standout of the entire match for me. I was nervous as to how the team would handle their exponential cloning and how confusing or over-reaching it could end up being, but I am thoroughly impressed with how it was all communicated and handled logistically throughout the strat. Separating the Fakes and DFakes into ‘units’ really helped in this regard, as well as keeping the intent behind each individual very simple and purely purpose-driven. DFakes are relegated to extremely monotonous, time-consuming tasks like retrieving ingredients and handing out menus while proper Fakes handle anything more complex. I absolutely adore the characterization on display for the puppet, giving it a clear sense of personality and an earnest care toward the customer experience despite a complete lack of speech or expression. Service pathing is similarly simple yet effective, allowing an absolute conveyer belt of Lacquers to serve at a machine-like pace.

The only nitpick I can think of is that the sabotage on display is a bit on the weak side (relying on the busy Evelyn to mess up some tables and spraying some fish water on open dishes), but the purity of their kitchen management shines largely without the need for underhanded tactics. Effort from Lacquer in preventing their own dishes from being messed with is effective enough that I think they can go ahead mostly as stated, with the offering of free dishes as compensation making up for any shortfalls well enough. The enemy might have a slight edge in the customer service, but I have no doubt BBP has the technical execution on lock. Fantastic showing! Nine.

Judge Chen Kenichi (Rocket)

The cooking match is a staple of the tourney at this point. A mixture of logistics, research, and creativity it invites the kind of obtuse creative thinking that we want to see out of a JJBA tournament. This match has met that expectation and more as both teams have put forward excellent work!

Starting with LLC I think that you guys play an incredibly intelligent and pragmatic game. As far as your menu goes I think it brings a decent amount of variety while also making good use of your special ingredients. Put frankly, your sections that focus on food preparation are simple and effective. There are only so many ways that one can cut an onion, and as far as the technical aspect of the cooking portion of this match you pass with flying colors. However I think what truly makes your strategy soar to new heights is your incredibly thorough consideration of the human half of the match.

I have worked in food service. I have had to deal with impatient customers during a dinner rush and I have had to work with customers when certain ingredients have been low or missing. Put simply, I think that you do an excellent job of considering the needs of the customers, maintaining morale within your own crew, and creating a dining experience that is exceptional.

The final portion of this match is the logistical side of things, and while I think that you do overtax Cassidy and MM’s precision a decent amount throughout the match, I think that your overall plan for keeping the restaurant running through the long haul of the match is all solid. With a little more prioritization, I think that this gripe could have been mitigated, but even with this imperfection I am still very pleased with how you manage your time and resources.

Overall I think that a high 8/10 is fair here. I waffled a bit between that and a 9 but I do think your overtaxing of Cassidy and MM’s precision is pervasive enough as to keep you from that echelon.

Moving on to BBP I will say that the variety of dishes you offer is exceptional! Your menu is built out in a way that builds a variety of flavors and cultural influences that provides a deeper sense of meal diversity than offering lots of food. I think that you do a good enough job of being relatively simple to make dishes, though your focus on lots of purees and sauces may tax some of your kitchen equipment.

Beyond that I think that your kitchen logistics are similarly excellent. Breaking tasks down by type and having different prepped components go well into multiple dishes all serve you well, and similar to your opponents I think that you might have a slow down at some point but overall have made a comprehensive plan that is likely to go off without a hitch. Finally, your service is great. It might not reach the heights of your opponent but I am confident that your diners will have a great experience.

Beyond that I think that we have an incredibly entertaining, well formatted, and readable strategy that highlights the characters within in some really fun and unique ways. Beyond being tactically sound it also veers into that mythical realm we aim for in a tournament called “good fiction”. For all of these reasons, I believe that a low 9/10 is fair here, justified by an incredibly strong and fun core game plan augmented by excellent character writing and superior formatting to make an incredibly high quality and digestible strategy!

Judge Masaharu Morimoto (Stream)

LLC

A very elegantly written strategy, I think you separate out and attack the different aspects of providing quality restaurant service quite well, and put care into each of these steps.

The menu was well thought out and creative, I liked the thought put into addressing food sensitivities, as well as the care put into making sure that your dishes could be produced in an efficient manner, particularly with the appetizers. Easily overlooked aspects such as proper sanitization and efficient cleanup are all addressed quite well, and MM was put to good use to turn the kitchen into a well oiled machine.

You put Solomon’s charisma to good use in managing the dining room and ensuring that any hiccups in the service were handled properly, and things such as the guilty pleasure served as a really fun way to add some variety and flair to your service.

I share the other judges’ concerns with the overstretching of MM’s precision at points, but I think it’s a testament to the overall quality of the strategy that this didn’t ding you quite as much as it could have. I think that you have a very solid foundation and address the core requirements for carrying out the restaurant service well that I think it’s fine if things don’t end up shaking out quite as efficiently as stated.

Overall, I’m going to give this an 8/10!

BBP

I’m also going to praise BBP’s attention to detail, as I thought every aspect of their service, from the menus to the mise en place in the kitchen, was very meticulously planned. It can be easy to get too in the weeds with this kind of thing, but I didn’t feel like you went to unnecessary details of preparation, your positioning, how you use each part of each ingredient, all very good.

The diversity of your menu with its international focus, while still keeping relatively interoperable ingredients and simple prep, provides a great amount of variety while also remaining cohesive. You also did a good job of accounting for things like dietary choices and food sensitivities in your menu design.

Lacquer and Evelyn both handled their respective positions excellently. Tasks were split in a very efficient manner, and I’ll echo my fellow judge that, while I think Lacquer overextending itself and distributing its many clones in a confusing manner was a potential issue, the execution on that front ended up being quality, clear, and logistically sound. Evelyn also applied her skillset very well here, not only in the general food prep and management, but in pretty creative aspects such as designing the menu.

Overall, I think this is a very solid strategy that executed on the premise of the match in an exemplary way. 9/10!