How I Learned to Love the Food Truck and Stop Worrying: Tips For CSD3

Here are some helpful tips I have for CSD3

Menu Management

1. Make sure you know the dishes before you buy them. When you are choosing items for the menu, right click an item and you get a window open up with the choice to practice. If you haven't done a dish before, practice making the dish before you decide to buy the dish.

2. Make sure to balance out your menu. It may be prompting to have dishes with very high difficulty as they tend to bring in more money, however, they also tend to be harder to make (except for the calzone which is somehow rated 5). Harder means more stages and often more hotkeys you need to memorize and thus larger margins of error.

3. Prioritize can be served directly without having to add finishing touches. Dishes like hamburgers may seem easy enough with not that many hotkeys and the hotkeys being easy enough to memorize, but if you let them stack up, they can still cause you to make mistakes if you try to finish the whole bunch of them before they expire.

4. If you need more money, HS food is almost always better than SO foods. Due to the way orders are done in this game, you always get more orders at the holding station foods rather than special orders. A 4 point in pizza by the slice will almost always get more orders (and more money) than a 4 point in beef wellington.

Between Stops

1. Prioritize on SO food as opposed to HS food between stops as the special orders can occupy the prep stations when you arrive at the stops. If you aren't done with the Holding Station food for the stop yet, you can use this window to finish them up. Since the special orders that are finished will be put in a hotbox/coldbox, their customers will wait a bit longer. If you focus on HS food instead of SO food between stops, you will be pressed to finish the special orders quickly since the HS food orders can't come in until you deal with all the special orders.

2. Manage your holding stations carefully. Sometimes, even with all your holding stations you may not be able to have enough of them to hold all the food required for that stop. This should be a good enough reason for you to bring along some HS optional food. Just in case the customers are running out of patience and you don't have a holding station to spare, these food will allow you to cook them at a prep station and satisfy the customer.

During Stops

1. Use the Ctrl (serve all) hotkey wisely. The serve all hotkey may be very satisfying to use, but if you need some time to either cook more food in the holding station or to add finishing touches to food so they can be served, go easy on them. Once you hit Ctrl, all available orders will be served which means new orders (ones you may not be prepared for) will come in. The prudent way to handle this is to finish up the orders that needs finishing before hitting the Ctrl hotkey. For example, you have 7 prep stations, you need to finish 3 burgers but there are 4 gumbos ready to be served. You should prioritize on finishing all the burgers before serving the gumbos since if you keep hitting the serve all hotkey, the gumbos will be served and you will potentially get more burgers that you have to manually finish.

2. Customers will get extra patience bars if you have the food they want in your holding stations. There is a tip for this in the tips section of the game (6th one I believe) that tells you about it. You generally get 3 patience bars if this happens. After the first one runs out, the second one will have a yellow tint to it, the third one will have a red tint to it. You have to watch out to make sure you catch the order before it runs out. Think of this as a breather. You don't have to panic when it looks like it is about to run out, make sure you get the order in hand right first. However, you should keep in mind that in later levels, sometimes the patience bar starts out as at the second or third one (it has a modifier that says impatient customers or crazy customers).

Confusion Ingredients

Here are a few confusion buttons that you should keep in mind when you play. These are ingredients that generally does not use their initial as their button (I dub them common confusion ingredients)

1. E for Pesto
2. K for Chicken
3. R for Parmesan
4. R for Broccoli
5. U for Sausage
6. N for just about any type of Onion
7. I for Chives
8. I for Pineapples
9. V for Olives (usually appears in Italian themed recipes)
10. E for Sesame (usually appears in Asian themed recipes)
11. A for Black Beans (usually appears in Mexican themed recipes)
12. L for Blueberries
13. Z for Mozzarella
14. L for Cilantro (usually appears in Asian themed recipes)
15. H for Shrimp

Beware, not all recipes follow this at all times and there are other confusion ingredients but they aren't as common (which means you can remember them on a by recipe basis).

Shooting for Levels and Achievements

If you are looking to complete a particularly tough level:

1. Throw in more prep stations. More prep stations can shave points off of your menu, allowing you to put in less points in your overall menu.

2. Practice the foods. If there is a particular dish that you are prone to make mistakes on, practice it some more until you can make it without looking at the keybindings and your keyboard. The muscle memory will be very helpful.

3. Try different combinations for menus. If there is a food that is so nasty that you just can't do, swap it out for a different one that you can do better. You might have to shift some points here and there but try different combinations.


If you are looking to beat the "perfect day on x route day x" achievements:

1. Reduce the prep station amount to minimum since you have to reach a certain amount of points for the achievement anyways. Less prep station means less juggling at the same time.

2. Practice. Practice. Practice. There is honestly no other trick to this. Most of the achievements have a very limited window for you to set up your menu since they require a pretty high amount of points. Make sure you practice the foods on your menu so you get through the day without making mistakes.

Recommended High Rank Dishes (and tips for them)

Here are some easier dishes in my opinion, they are chosen normally because either they have relatively low amount of button presses or because they have little to no major confusing terms (for example, ham is generally represented by H but in King Potato, it is represented by A)

Rank 5:
1. Calzone. Calzone is probably the easiest rank 5 out there. It doesn't require finishing touches and it has only two stages, both stages have no confusing terms. Generally, each calzone takes about 5-6 button presses altogether.
2. Hot Lattes and Iced Lattes. These two have a prep and finish stage. The tricky issue here is that they are fairly quick to cook and burn, which means individual orders shouldn't be an issue in general, however, if you have a lot of holding stations, rethink this. A few keywords here to memorize is I for cinnamon, A for caramel and T for Two percent milk.
3. King Potato. This one is a bit debatable, the issue here is king potatoes are HS orders, which means you can get a lot of them in one go. The good thing about this recipe is that it has very few variants and not a whole lot of confusing terms (the major one here is A for ham, most of the time ham is represented by H).
4. Pasta. Just like the latte group, this one cooks a bit too quickly, but otherwise there is only one major confusing term, (fettuccini and fusilli represented by F and S respectively).
5. Sushi. Sushi is a good HS food, as long as you get your rejuvenator and food cloner. Without these two, sushi will be too much of a hassle since it comes in servings of two, the customers are quick to leave and it requires a bit of button mashing. With fully upgraded rejuvenator and cloner, they come in servings of 8 and they refresh very well. There are no confusing terms for sushi, but you have to mash the cut button 9 times to finish.
6. Roulade. This one is kinda like sushi, but it is a special order dish. The prep phase is easy, two variants, PLV for vanilla dough and PLC for chocolate dough. The cooking phase isn't too short, which is good. There are two things to remember for roulades, M for Lemon Meringue and L for Blueberries. I mentioned the blueberry bit for the confusion ingredients so the special one here is M for lemon meringue.
7. Pizza (and pizza by the slice on rank 4). While pizzas do have three pages of buttons before the cooking starts, it is relatively easy. There are a few confusion ingredients, but nothing out of the ordinary that I mentioned in the last segment of the guide.
8. Tamales. This one is kinda like a chore. It doesn't have a lot of ingredients, but you have to do them repetitively without making a mistake. As long as you remember r for spicy pork and s for spicy chicken, you are good to go.
9. Bibimbap: While it can be complicated and scary initially, the bibimbap is actually good to have on the menu. They can occupy the slot up for a nice long time once you get them cooking. They also have 4 variations. You only have to worry about 2 things, garlic beef/tofu and raw egg/fried egg. The rest of the ingredients remain the same all the time.

Rank 4:
1. Beef Wellington. Probably the easiest 4 out there. Only two variants. The regular beef wellington, which is PDBWS Space US and the prosciutto beef wellington, which is PVRWS Space US. Just watch the blue rare and rare wellingtons so they don't overcook (shouldn't be too hard with autoserve).
2. Breakfast Burritos. Two stage cooking, initial phase has Z for chorizo eggs and T for chorizo potatoes. The second phase is also pretty easy, aside from the previous confusion ingredients, the second page is just sauce and W+F to wrap and foil. They are a bit quick to burn though.
3. Omelette. Omelettes don't have a lot of variants, the ingredients aren't too hard to memorize either. One cooking phase so it is easier to manage a whole lot of them.
4. Pies and (pies by the slice on rank 3). Not a whole lot of variants. One cooking phase.

Most of the stuff on rank 3 and below are easy enough that doesn't need an intro.

Truck Upgrades!

There are multiple types of truck upgrades. Here I will try and help you figure out which one works out the best for you!

The utility rating is based on how much easier will the upgrade make your level and the income rating will be based on how much more income can it help you get.

1. Prep Station Upgrades: You technically won't NEED this unless you get to the point where the game specifies how many prep stations you need for the level, but they are in the way to every other major upgrade.
Utility Rating: -1/5 since more prep stations means you get more special orders. If you are not ready, more prep stations can overwhelm you, causing you to not get a perfect rating.

2. Holding Station Upgrades: This is much more helpful compared to prep stations, more holding stations means you can just cook more HS food without worrying about them half way through. They are also in the way of every other major upgrade, so it is pretty much mandatory,
Utility Rating: 5/5

3. Heat Lamps: Helpful for most dishes but not mandatory. However, there are also some dishes such as medoviks and brownies that stay fresh for only a very short period. These are the only ones you really need heat lamps for. However, for some of the trails that have longer drive times, this can still come in fairly handy to keep the food fresh.
Utility Rating: 3/5

4. Cooking Time Regulator: A nice QoL upgrade but only necessary for very few dishes. It works mostly when you are doing a lot of special orders that requires finishing touches (for example, the latte dishes). These can help you manage your juggle better but otherwise it is pretty pointless since you can just mash the Auto-Serve when you are ready.
Utility Rating: 3/5 for levels that requires you to juggle around foods that require preparations before serving. 0/5 otherwise.

5. Special System Analyzer: This gives you more patience for Special Orders when you arrive at a stop so it can be very helpful, especially when you have a lot of Prep Stations. Overall this is a good upgrade that you should put a priority on, especially when you feel like you don't have enough time to complete SO foods.
Utility Rating: 5/5

6. Aroma Blower: This will grant you easier access to the delicious bonus. The upgrade means you will get more money when you complete the level. It doesn't help with your completion at all.
Utility Rating: 0/5

7. Rejuvenator: This upgrade will refresh your HS foods and also add more servings to the foods when you complete a stop. When fully upgraded, this will fully refresh your dish, meaning that it will look just like when you finished cooking it. This is particularly useful on the harder to prepare HS foods, such as sushi and tamales. Once you beef out the serving cloner, the rejuvenator and the heat lamp, you can significantly reduce the time you spend making HS foods and focus much more on the special orders.
Utility Rating: 5/5

8. Serving Cloner: This upgrade will increase max servings for your HS foods. This is the magic upgrade that will turn sushi actually viable. Normally, sushi come in servings of 2, which means if you are planning to take it, you have to keep on making new sushi when the truck is stopping. Once you max out this upgrade, you get a whooping 8 servings of sushi for every sushi you make, that is 400% the original number. Once you beef out the serving cloner, the rejuvenator and the heat lamp, you can significantly reduce the time you spend making HS foods and focus much more on the special orders.
Utility Rating: 5/5

9. Food Truck Reinforcements: This upgrade will block out the food truck attacks that comes with the various levels. Not particularly helpful once you get to the point where you can buy this upgrade since you will have a full set of 8 holding stations and pretty much everything else but it can be quite neat. Not to mention, with the metro central update, there is a new food van attack that causes your HS food to lose freshness very quickly.
Utility Rating: 3/5

Modifiers and How to Handle Them

There are a few potential modifiers in each level that will add another layer of gameplay during stops:

Impatient/Crazy Customers:
Modifier:
Impatient customers start their patience bar at the yellow bar while crazy customers start their patience bar at the red bar. Originally if you have a certain food in your HS, the customers will give you three strikes should their patience bar run out. With impatient customers, it will be a two strike out and crazy customers, it will be a one strike out.
Tips:
-Pick insta-serve HS foods. HS foods like soup and whatnot that will not require further steps before serving is your best friend. Imagine having a whole bunch of King Potatoes that are all on the red bar and is counting down, it would be extremely hard to finish that day without making a single mistake. On the other hand, if you have a whole bunch of soup that can be instantly served, all you have to do is to smash that auto-serve button.
-If you can, pick HS foods that take longer to cook. Soups are a generally good go-to for these. Their cooking window is quite long, which allows you to either finish up some of your unfinished special orders or allow you to prepare more HS food to serve.
-Prepare them beforehand. Remember when I said put priority on SO foods? This shouldn't be the case for crazy customers. You want your HS foods ready before your SO food goes out since if the HS customers come out .

VIP Customers:
Modifier:
You will get so called VIP customers during your stop. Normally, you get all your SO orders before the stop, but VIP customers will want their SO order in the middle of your stop.
Tips:
-Pick easy foods for your SO slots. By the time you get VIP customers in Houston, you should already know what food do you do well. Pick the ones you feel that are easy.
-Pick insta-serve HS foods if you can. While this isn't mandatory, it helps to reduce your load. If you have a whole bunch of HS food that requires additional steps to finish, you will likely have to juggle around a lot. More juggle = more room for mistakes.

Food Truck Attacks:
Modifier:
A food truck will come along and put out a debilitating attack that will disable part of your food truck, be it UI elements or a holding station.
Tips:
-Only one tip for this, get the reinforcement upgrades so they can't hit you with those attacks. Otherwise, you'd have to plan ahead for the attack.

Additional Prep Stations
Modifier:
You will be forced to use additional prep stations, which means more orders and more juggling.
Tips:
-More prep stations means you can put less points into your menu, so if you are struggling with your menu, keep this in mind.
-Honestly, by the time you get this modifier, you should be comfortable handling a few more prep stations.

How to handle No Autoserve?

In Mobile, AL, you will be introduced to an interesting new menu set, No Autoserve. If you previously leaned heavily on Autoserve, this will be a change of pace for you as none of the HS foods for these levels will allow you to just mash the autoserve button.

The trick for No Autoserve is in the menu. For these levels, put more weight into the SO foods as opposed to the autoserve foods. Ideally, you want all your autoserve foods to be as easy as possible since you will have to handle a lot of them and making them complicated will definitely cause troubles for you. You also want no variations on your dish so you can run past them without having to read the specifics.

Good examples:
Biscuits and gravy: Always BG key combo
Dango: Always GWP key combo

However, you have to keep in mind that in some levels, you will have to pick no autoserve foods with higher point values. You then have to pick out the ones you are familiar with.

Tips for the Iron Chef Speedway (ICS)

The Iron Chef Speedway is the final location in the game, the difference between ICS and the other levels lies within that the ICS will disable your defense upgrades, which means all the food truck attacks will hurt now.

Here are some tips that will help you manage the Iron Chef Speedway:
1. I suggest getting all the upgrades except for the defenses on the food truck before going for the ICS. You might have to grind some previous levels (the endurance levels will be your friend).
2. If you know a ram attack that will destroy your HS foods is going to come up, focus on the special order foods until the attack is over. One of the levels will have a ram attack every other stop, in this case, you want to plan ahead and leave the holding stations until the original HS foods are destroyed so you don't waste time on it.
3. If you get hit with the sniper attack, consider finishing SO foods first then work on the HS foods , especially if you have the ones that loose their freshness quickly such as brownies or sushi, you don't want the food to before you can serve.
4. If your cooking timer is destroyed, you can always rely on audio and visual cue to help you figure out what's going on. If a food tab is blinking white after a bling sound, that means it is ready to be processed and served. If you see black smoke on the tab, it means it is about to be burnt so pick it up ASAP.
5. Feel free to pause the game to give your mind and your fingers a break if you think it is necessary. I sometimes feel a bit burnt out after going through 2-3 stops
6. Average stops will have about 30 or so orders, I personally suggest putting more weight onto special order foods. However, towards the end, you will get higher and higher point requirements so this tip can only carry you so far before becoming obsolete.
7. If you feel like you are having trouble, you can always get a friend to help you in local co-op. 2 chefs will make a lot of the levels more bearable.

Videos for Specific Level Achievements

These videos can give you an idea on how to best assemble your menu for these perfect day achievements.
I Don't Need Tutorials

Silly Soups

Oh No

Da New Foodz

Pour One Out for Crazy Dave

Obese Jake's INSANE Challenge

Bowls of Sadness

Never Give Up

Easy Peasy

Lemon Squeezy

Proof of Completion (for now)

[wereduck]

For anyone who doesn't know, you can change the keybinds in practise mode so if you're really not clicking with a default keybind you can change it to one that makes more sense for you.

(I found sushi easier than tamales myself. To each their own!)

[GiantSloth]

In a world where Wok Dish Chicken and Tamales exist, putting sushi as an easy five makes me wonder if you actually played the game.

[bamee1234]

A nice tip for anyone that still plays. Change hotkeys for foods that doesn't have any variations to A-S-D-F-J-K-L-; or anything that fits you. Foods like sisig, tiramisu, ratatouille can be painful with the default ones.

[the_mr_me]

Is there a mod that highlights which key to press in an ingredient so you don't have to memorize them?

[Fifty+&Shady]

Thank you for making this guide, and sharing it here. Very much appreciated.

[gfcjyb]

哇竟然是中文用户——我的CSD3全食物分析指南马上写好啦，届时欢迎前往指正！

[The Mogician]

@gfcjyb 你他娘真是个天才

[gfcjyb]

(And as a Chinese player I find those Wok dishes super easy since I can use their Chinese initials as keys, like F for honey (fengmi), Z for teriyaki (zhaoshao), T for sweet/sour (tiansuan or tangcu) etc. XD)

[gfcjyb]

Well I've got to say remapping the keys to your comfort is reeeeally important - since I came all the way from CSD1, I have changed all the single-recipe-two-key dishes (like crab leg) to ↓+S, three-key (like grilled octupus) to ←↓→, four-key to ←↓→S, five-key (like onigiri) to ←↓→SL - yep that's the fresh fish from CSD1! You can also change some mappings to the old familiar ones that we've done in CSD1, like escargot to TTTTTTS and tiramisu to PSCRPSCR! Also I have changed all the dunk button to ↓, and some must-add steps (like putting the chicken breast) to arrow buttons as well. You can also use arrows for the bread of burgers (breakfast sandwich, subs), which will allow you to use more ingredients' initials.

[The Mogician]

@Balyan Glad to be of help!