Full Bellies and Wallets: Gilda's Budget Gourmet

     Living large and living it up are...decidedly expensive goals, especially when you're one of four pets. Don't get me wrong, I adore my siblings more than anything, but there will always be disagreements and issues with living in a big family. I respect both 'Wock Till You Drop' and 'Twisted Roses' as musicians, but I'm not the kind of fan of them that my sister is...and, well, my sister happens to be a Glowing Korbat so bedroom arrangements have been awkward as it is.

     This extends to food as well. Things from the Lost Desert, Meridell and the Haunted Woods may be rather cheap, but it does get rather samey eventually. There comes a time when you've had one weird overripe tomato too many. At least I do. My brothers aren't picky in that respect. Less time on food, more time on adventure.

     Of course, rather than complaining, I went looking for something that could satisfy the distinguished pet's palate while not breaking your bank(good heavens, that would be frightening!). A Neopoint saved is a Neopoint earned, after all.

     Terms of the List

     As you no doubt know, a 'gourmet' food has a rarity between 90 and 99. Jellies and omelettes don't quite count here, I'm afraid, and neither do things like non-whole cakes, non-whole pizzas, things obtained from games...essentially, you have to be able to buy it at a store. Not that you'll often be able to. These rarer foods are typically quite prized and thus rather quickly snapped up!

     As a rule, the average(calculated through a minimum of 3 Shop Wizard searches) prices of the list should be below 15,000 NP...and indeed, you'd be hard pressed to find something too high above 10,000, as excessively high jumps in price(20,000 when the average is around 3,000) were kept out of calculations for a better estimation.

     The list, of course, doesn't list all of your frugal options, and a brief list of other contenders will be found at the end to give you more ideas, but even then, you'd be hard pressed to list all the deals one could find with a bit of smart shopping.

     The First Contenders

     1. Galaxy Energy Drink

     Rarity: 91 (Very Rare)

     Min: 648

     Max: 6,830

     Average: 2,058

     Description: This interesting little drink contained in some sort of scientific container that appears to contain an entire galaxy(specifically a spiral galaxy) floating in the middle of space. Given the cold of the void of space, the drink remains at a nice chilly 3 Kelvin at all times. Fun fact, the word 'galaxy' comes from a word that means 'milky', like the Milky Way!

     Gilda's Take: There's a nice variety of flavors in Galaxy Energy. A bit of spicy star flavor, a smattering of white dwarves(nice and mild), neutron stars and black holes(rather strong, tasting a bit of neutrons), and it's all complimented by a complex mix of cosmic dust flavors. Most of the drink is dark matter, which has a very strong taste that stands apart from everything else. Even so, I'd say it pulls everything together.

     Final Comments:

     This drink left a bit of a...Hawking radiation aftertaste in my mouth, but you know, if you're drinking black holes, you're certainly eating light.

     2. Tyrannian Goulash

     Rarity: 93 (Very Rare)

     Min: 1,000

     Max: 7,734

     Average: 2,070

     Description: Cuts of tough Tyrannian dinosaur meat simmered on low heat for hours in bone-stock in an authentic Tyrannian stone bowl. Bones included.

     Gilda's Take: Tyrannian cuisine is given a rather bad reputation. It's often considered tough, heavily salted and extremely simple. Well, 'simple' doesn't mean anything about quality. After long hours simmering in its own gravy, even the toughest steak will become juicy and tender, and that is the secret of the Tyrannian Goulash. With every bite, the meat just falls apart in your mouth to reveal the flavor it was hiding, a savory flavor that mixes well with the mild, slightly salty bone broth and a variety of local vegetables whose names I can't pronounce.

     My Tyrannian has always been bad.

     Final Comments: A goulash is a stew, and stews are often considered something low-brow, but what do you think a ratatouille is? A pot-au-feu? A bouillabaisse? There's nothing wrong with making everyday ingredients(even 'cheap' ones) into something amazing.

     3. Deluxe Water Pizza

     Rarity: 97 (Ultra Rare)

     Min: 1,295

     Max: 7,069

     Average: 2,913

     Description: Hand-tossed pizza dough baked in an authentic brick pizza oven, smothered in water that has been thickened to a jelly-like consistency in place of sauce.

     Gilda's Take: The first bite gave me a mouthful of rather inoffensive blue water jelly and surprisingly firm crust. The jelly unfortunately got old by the end of the second slice. It's not bad, there's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing much to it!

     Final Comments: If you don't mind relatively bland food, this is fine...assuming you only want a few slices. It's an amusing novelty but it gets old very quickly.

     4. Banana Achyfi

     Rarity: 90 (Very Rare)

     Min: 895

     Max: 8,567

     Average: 3,355

     Description: The biggest competitor to NeoCola is Achyfi, the drink that blends root extracts and 'sparkling' water mixed with extracts of Sassafrass roots and sarsaparilla vines. Contains artificial flavoring.

     Gilda's Take: It tastes more like candy than a fruit. I can't help but feel this tastes better as a lollypop than in a drink form. Also, I narrowly avoided getting sprayed in the face by it. Apparently shooting at it with a cork from a cork gun tends to shake it up a bit.

     Final Comments: Not the best flavor of Achyfi I've ever had(for the record, my favorite is coconut-gooseberry), but it's not that bad. I wouldn't exactly recommend it since it has that weird fake banana taste, but if you had to?

          5. Space Fungus Sundae

     Rarity: 92 (Very Rare)

     Min: 452

     Max: 8,836

     Average: 3,363

     Description: Generous portions of berry ice cream drizzled with chocolate details, garnished with pineapple ring and cherry 'eyeballs', wafer cookies and topped with a helping of caviar.

     Gilda's Take: Suprisingly, this is really nice. A nice healthy berry ice cream helps offset the white chocolate 'tentacles' and white chocolate drizzle, and the pineapple slices add a bit of a citrus kick. And then there's the caviar...in this case, a nice, cheaper and sustainable form of caviar! A hint of salt works well when eaten with the overpowering sugary taste.

     Final Comments: This is nearly a pound of sundae, so it's best shared with a friend. If you're not a fan of rich desserts, you probably aren't going to enjoy this.

     6. Space Rock Soup

     Rarity: 96 (Ultra Rare)

     Min: 1,337

     Max: 9,263

     Average: 3,724

     Description: Molten, piping-hot space-rock soup served in a hollowed-out meteorite that effectively keeps the dish warm.

     Gilda's Take: Space rocks are high-mineral snacks that are gaining a widespread popularity in the local Space Station, and the Space Rock soup hollows one out and fills it with a nice...seemingly tomato-based soup. I can't quite identify the main flavor here, though I do get hints of onions, Obliteratoes, perhaps some Space Fungus and a touch of whatever else grows out in space, bathed in the solar radiation.

     Final Comments: Nice and hot for those cold Space Station...well, how DO you figure out day and night out there? It's mostly a nice protein-rich broth, so it lacks in meat or fiber and thus is best paired with a nice sandwich. Grilled Gruncheese perhaps. I can't help but think it'd be better with some vegetables, made into a nice space gumbo instead.

          7. Fruit and Vegetable Hand Roll

     Rarity: 93 (Very Rare)

     Min: 956

     Max: 12,096

     Average: 4,049

     Description: Rice seasoned with vinegar, salt and sugar and arranged with pickled bluchard root and an array of in-season sweet fruits before being rolled into a thin sheet of dried seaweed(called 'nori' by locals).

     Gilda's Take: Bluchard root and white rice are normally thought of as bland foods, but that's simply if you don't know how to prepare them. Pickling the root in vinegar gives it a nice tangy, salty sort of taste that mixes quite well with the sweetness of the fruits and the hints of flavor in the rice. The 'cone' of nori here is a nice savory flavor that's distinctive of seaweed.

     Final Comments: Nori and vinegar-pickled foods are a bit of an acquired taste. Being an aquatic pet, I'm more than eager to see it used in a novel way, but for a picky pet, the idea of eating seaweed might seem weird.

     8. Chokato Crepe

     Rarity: 96 (Ultra Rare)

     Min: 1,283

     Max: 10,000

     Average: 4,399

     Description: A fresh wheat flour crepe sucree('sweet crepe'), slightly sweetened and filled with Chokato, both whole and pureed, then topped with a Chokato-based thick cream.

     Gilda's Take: If you can't get your hands on whole, fully-grown Mystery Island Chokato(they can be massive), this allows you to appreciate the refined taste. There's a hint of a sweet chocolate flavor mixed in with a rather mildly acidic tomato taste.

     That may put you off, but I assure you, it works, adding a bit of 'zing' to the sweet taste(you'll notice that it seems sweet and salty typically work extremely well together), and when taken all together, the slight 'veggie' taste brings to mind dark chocolate. Then you have the cream. Rich on its own, but more than welcome in a much more rich, refined dessert.

     Final Comments: A bit of a splurge at times, but more than worth it for a high-class cafe treat with a proper tropical twist. Pair this with a rather simple coffee drink or perhaps an Earl Grey tea...and for the fashion conscious, don't forget a dashing mustache or a lacy parasol for the full effect! Ooh la la!

     9. Jellyfish Sundae

     Rarity: 96 (Very Rare)

     Min: 2,791

     Max: 11,600

     Average: 6,723

     Description: Live edible jellyfish marinated in cold milk and mixed with a fruit salad, then topped with fresh vanilla ice cream.

     Gilda's Take: As it turns out, some jellyfish are entirely suitable for consumption. Desalted, they're low in calories and contain hardly any fat, since they're basically 95% water. This...usually assumes that the jellyfish aren't alive when you eat them. These...are. The vanilla ice cream and fruits are delightful, but the annoyed, slightly squishy jellyfish and their tentacles ruin it a bit. I don't care if it is low-fat, getting stung by a jellyfish is painful.

     Final Comments: Your dessert should not, under any circumstances, be slapping you in the face with stinging tentacles! This left me with a prickly, itchy and painful rash on my face and the inside of my mouth. We had to wash my mouth out(and wash my face) with vinegar and hot water.

     10. Snailcorn Parfait

     Rarity: 96 (Very Rare)

     Min: 4,317

     Max: 10,808

     Average: 7,054

     Description: A layer of snail slime-ice cream mix sandwiched between two layers of chilled creamed corn and topped with a single fresh pond snail.

     Gilda's Take: Although the smell of pond scum was overpowering and the snail was trying to escape its parfait-glass prison, we decided to give this an attempt. I'm surprised I didn't get sick. I could see my brothers sick with sympathy nausea! My younger sister Angel didn't want any part of it either, and she's from the Haunted Woods!

     It didn't make her sick, though.

     Final Comments: GUUUHROOSSS! If you have to eat snails, stick with some nice buttery escargot, or even a Snail Cream Cone!

     I did not eat the snail. He has been returned to his home in the pond.

          Honorable Mentions

     As mentioned, the list of good values is impossible to copy down here, but rather than leave you with a mere ten items, we've got a list of foods discovered after the first ten that may be worth a look.

     Chocolate Bearog Claw

     r90 (Very Rare)

     Min Price ~500

     Max Price: ~9000 NP

     A sweet pastry combining almond paste, raisin-filled dough and a rather delightful drizzle of sweet chocolate. Like a doughnut, but in an absolutely precious shape.

     Chocolate Cherry Bundt Cake

     r90 (Very Rare)

     Min Price: ~350

     Max Price: ~4,000

     This dessert originates in a mountain range known for a delicious cherry juice with a distinctive tart cherry flavor, which is quite notably reflected in this cake. The tart flavor contrasts well to the layers of decadent chocolate sponge cake, sweet fluffy cream and chocolate glaze. This variation doesn't have the usual chocolate shavings, but it's a lovely, heavenly little thing nonetheless.

     Honey Blossom

     r99(Super Rare)

     Min Price: ~1,000

     Max Price: ~5,000

     It's an ugly, warty little plant with dry-looking red leaves and almost no scent. Despite this, the leaves are softer than rose petals and taste like the sweetest Buzz Honey you've ever had. The center of the blossom is a nice juicy morsel to finish up with. It's also a flower, so it packs far fewer calories than your typical sweet treats. It also has medicinal purposes when compounded and extracted.

     Triple Tier Space Faerie Cake

     r90 (Very Rare)

     Min Price: ~790

     Max Price: ~8,000

     Three tiers of soft, fluffy sponge cake iced with a luminous, shimmery blue icing and topped with sparkly red icing, echoing the Space Faerie's usual outfit, and topped with sugary 'wings' to complete the look. If that wasn't good enough, it's sprinkled with candy moons, planets and stars to emulate a lovely night sky.

     Molten Frosting Cake Slice

     r91 (Very Rare)

     Min Price: ~300

     Max Price: ~4,600

     Mm, we haven't had any morsels from Moltara yet! This cake isn't made of obsidian...at least, not 100% obsidian. Felsic lava(molten obsidian) mixed with dark chocolate and cocoa powder, then topped with a sort of lava-sugar frosting that helps keep the obsidian layers nice and hot so they stay moist. Don't wait until this one cools, if you value your teeth!

     DIShonorable Mentions

     Of course, there are some bargains that you might be better missing out on...

     Onion Cola

     r93 (Very Rare)

     Min Price: ~1,900

     Max Price: ~9,500

     When you open the can tab, you're immediately hit with a powerful whiff of onion that knocks you off your feet. A single sip is...even worse. The taste is even stronger. It's unbearably cloying. You have to take a lengthy bubble bath just to get rid of the smell.

     Korbat Wing Soup

     r91 (Very Rare)

     Min Price: ~3,440

     Max Price: ~8,000

     I will admit, this one doesn't sit well with me for personal reasons. It's hard to enjoy something like this while your younger sister's in the room. A trio of Korbat wings(in different colors), de-boned, and mixed in a brew with fruits. It's...creative?

     Evil Blancmange

     r99 (Super Rare)

     Min Price: ~1,000

     Max Price: ~4,444

     A 'Blancmange' is a fancy, sweet and delicate little dessert made from milk and sugar thickened with gelatin or moss extracts, flavored with almonds, moulded and then served chilled. The only similarity this version has to the actual dish is in the shape and texture. It's fishy, salty and covered in spines...and really, it's a sea anemone.

     Nutritional Block

     r96 (Ultra Rare)

     Min Price: ~3,199

     Max Price: ~5,009

     I'm not exactly sure what this nearly solid block is made out of. I expected tofu, but this thing is about as hard as a rock. It is equally as tasteless, though, and the sheer size of it means that clearly the stuff it's made of can't be that nutritious, if you have to eat an entire block of it for your daily vitamins! Stick with a multivitamin...

     Crunchy Bone Sandwich

     r97 (Ultra Rare)

     Min Price: ~4,393

     Max Price: ~7,499

     Fresh, warm and fluffy slices of homemade bread with just a hint of melted butter...and then you had to ruin it with a big, dry, dusty bone! The bone is so fragile it breaks on your first bite, and that's not something you want. If you aren't careful with this, it might seriously hurt your mouth. There aren't any condiments or toppings here to break up the monotony. No meat, no lettuce, no tomato, not even a bit of cream cheese!

     Final Thoughts

     Of course, the best way for you to find any sort of good deal is to go looking. If you think you've found a low price, keep an eye on it. Don't pass the price up if you can't find anything smaller. Sometimes you might get 'sniped'...someone might steal the deal right from under your nose if you're not quick about it.

     As for the Gourmet Club, there are hundreds of possible qualifying dishes for you to choose from, and many can get quite pricey...but you can get an easy start on your membership with our humble little list. Get chuffing, everyone!

     As for me? I'm going to look for some Bloat-B-Gone...and perhaps ask my siblings if they'll help me tackle these leftovers. Hey, I never said there weren't advantages to a big family!