Cooking game

1. Press Start shift. Customers sit down at the counter, each with an order over their head.
2. Put the right cup, glass, plate or bowl on the tray, then add what the order shows.
3. Things with a flame cook first. Tap one to put it in a hot slot, and tap the slot when it says Ready.
4. Take it out in time: a slot that turns red burns its food. Tap a burnt slot to throw it away.
5. When the tray matches an order, its bubble turns green. Press Serve to hand it over.
6. A shift lasts 90 seconds. Earn a star to open the next city.

Each city has its own cafe, menu and kitchen. From Lisbon to Seoul, customers wait less, and the biggest dish has more on its tray. A star in one city opens the next.

The food of each city

• Lisbon cafes sell custard tarts, pastéis de nata, often with cinnamon on top.
• New York bagels are boiled in water before they are baked, which gives them a chewy crust.
• Crêpes are thin pancakes from Brittany, in the west of France. Stands sell them all over Paris.
• Mexico City tacos come on small corn tortillas, often with chopped onion and cilantro on top.
• Tokyo ramen is often curly noodles in a clear soy sauce broth.
• Bibimbap means mixed rice: rice, vegetables, an egg and chili paste that you mix at the table.

Food with a flame on its button goes to a hot slot first. Its bar fills while it cooks. When it says Ready, take it out: most food burns a few seconds later. Coffee never burns.

Each order pays a coin for each thing on its tray, and one more. An espresso, a cup and a coffee, pays 3 coins. A customer served at once adds a tip of 3 coins. The tip falls to 0 as their patience runs out. A customer who waits too long leaves and pays nothing.

The coins of one shift give 0 to 3 stars. Your best stars and your best coins for each city stay in this browser.

• Start the slow things first. Put the coffee or the croissant on, then lay out the tray while it cooks.
• Cook ahead. A free hot slot can make the next order while you serve this one.
• Serve the customer with the shortest bar first. The tip falls as they wait.
• The tray takes things in any order. Only the right things count.
• If you add the wrong thing, press the arrow button to take it off.

• Phone and tablet: tap the food, the hot slots, and Serve.
• Computer and Chromebook: the number keys press the food buttons in order. Q, W and E take from the hot slots.
• Enter or Space serves, and Backspace takes the last thing off the tray.
• The shift pauses when you switch tabs, and with the pause button or Escape.

This game is a short time management game: one counter, one 90-second shift. Other cooking games go bigger.

• Papa's games, by Flipline Studios: you run one restaurant, such as a pizzeria, and make each order in steps. They play in the browser and on phones.
• Cooking Fever, by Nordcurrent: a time management game on phones and PC, with many restaurants to open and upgrades to buy.
• Overcooked!, by Ghost Town Games: up to 4 players share one busy kitchen, on PC and consoles.
• Cooking Mama: you follow each step of a recipe in small games. It started on the Nintendo DS.

This page is not linked with these games or their makers. Want more food games here? Make pizzas to order in the pizza game, or play as a cat in the cat game.

LifeSim is a free life simulator on a 3D map of Earth. It has no cooking mini-game: you live the life around the job. Start as a barista in Lisbon or a ramen chef in Tokyo, and the people you meet remember you.

阅读盒子里的 chef and cooking simulator guide or the barista simulator guide to plan your life.