Once again it is time to gorge ourselves upon another round of tasty builds from Bio-Cup 2021. The theme for Round 3 was “Meal Time”. The remaining nine “top-chefs” were tasked with serving up a three-course meal in the sub-themes of Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. As always, it was up to the builders to decide how literally they would take their inspiration from the assigned themes, while creating a signature dish that would impress the judges. So whose cuisine would reign supreme, and who would be chopped?

Breakfast

“>HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS” by Yannick Godts - [Finalist]

Yanni’s “DinerBot3000” pretty much sums up the 24-hour diner experience for me in one complete package; after a late night out on the town, or during a long cross-country road trip, a diner’s shiny chrome exteriors and 50’s retro neon signs make for a welcome beacon for the weary. Once inside, you sit down at a table that’s perpetually sticky from syrup and order up some breakfast food (no matter the time of day, otherwise you are doing it wrong). While waiting for your food, you eventually glance into that dark abyss beyond the counter that they call “the kitchen.”

Woah. It’s a mess of metal grills, skillets, grease traps, and vent hoods—“You mean my food is coming from in THERE?!”—Just as you begin to have second thoughts, your food is placed before you and it looks absolutely glorious! You pick up that one janky-looking fork with the prongs bent out of recognition and dig in… and then all becomes right in the world.

“Bed in Breakfast” by lache - [Chopped]

“Kawaii!” (可愛い ) - Lache took inspiration from the song Asleep Among Endives (アンディーヴと眠って) by Aoba Ichiko and built a “bed in breakfast.” I imagine that this cute little pup laying sunny-side-up is actually a sausage that was cut into shape for a cute breakfast bento. If so, Lache has stepped up the bento game beyond mere tako sausages (a.k.a. those ubiquitous octopus wieners) - “Itadakimasu" (頂きます).

“Nakki” by buttloaf_builds - [Cho(m)pped]

There is a quotation attributed to Otto von Bismarck that goes, “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.” You say you want to watch anyway? Well, suit yourself. Of the two, I personally would recommend watching Buttloaf’s “Nakki” make sausage over watching dysfunctional legislative assemblies on television. At least I can recognize the sausage that is coming out the other end of the Nakki.

Lunch

“The Picnic” by Toddrick (B.D.) - [Finalist]

Having “Meal Time” be the source of inspiration was never going to be a picnic for Round 3... and yet these next two builders decided to make a picnic out of it anyway. B.D. shows us that despite the recent delusions of billionaire wanna-be-astronauts, life is no picnic up in outer space. Take the case of the Earth’s “twin planet” Venus. The Venus Flytrap on Earth is a plant known to spread out its toothy leaves to make an inviting place for a fly to land on - then SNAP! However on Venus, they do things slightly differently by spreading out a gingham picnic blanket with a wonderful picnic set upon it. Who knew?

“Picnic Raider” by VelociJACKtor - [Chopped]

Back here on Earth, VelociJACKtor tells a different tale. It appears that all of the GMO and growth hormones prevalent in our food supply have finally caught up with us, resulting in gargantuan flying hornets roaming the skies. This one here looks jacked-up, with its aggressive posture and all those barbs running up its legs. It looks like it has staked yet another claim on the picnic grounds… Skewer-or-Die!!!

“Turbochef 9000” by Alex Mertens - [Chopped]

It would be interesting to see a head-to-head battle between Alex Merten’s “Turbochef 9000”, and Yanni’s earlier “DinerBot3000”. On the one hand, DinerBot3000 has breakfast food (yum!). On the other hand, Turbochef 9000 has six of them—hands that is, with one hidden from view in back. I heard that Alex took his inspiration from time working in drive-thru food service, which explains the inclusion of all those arms.

Restaurant managers are always having to step up during the lunch rush and fill in wherever needed; taking food orders, taking payments, prepping and packaging the food, pouring drinks, signing for food deliveries and supplies, cleaning the dining area, unclogging the toilets again… whew... Working the weekday lunch-rush is not for the faint of heart, and Turbochef must have been built with a heart of steel. You’re my hero, Turbochef 9000!

Dinner

“Date Night” by Djokson - [Finalist]

There is a lesson here in Djokson’s “Preying” Mantis “Date Night” about creature/character building; always start with the head. Having followed his building process through the years, I’ve learned that more often than not the head is the starting point for Djokson’s character builds. He also has a gift of using unique parts so perfectly that their usage seems so obvious in hindsight… but c’mon, using minifig arms in Scala shoes for eyes? Who else would ever think of doing something like that? … If I did have to offer one critique, however, it would have been to include some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

“Shrimp Fried Rice” by alex_mocs - [Chopped]

If anyone is looking for the next big meme on the interwebs, or in the corporate boardrooms, look no further than a “shrimp frying shrimp fried rice”—or has this already been a meme? I honestly can’t keep track of it all. I usually just rely on Tommy’s pal Ocher Jelly to get me up to date on all the old memes I have missed through the years. I see no “shrimp frying shrimp fried rice” in his back catalog, so let’s just proceed, shall we?

In the corporate world, executive managers always like to talk about their company’s “special sauce”—it’s that “special something” that gives their company a unique competitive advantage over their competitors. In the case of Alex_mocs’ shrimp chef, its “special sauce” is basking in all of the cooking ingredients, and in doing so it adds in its own briny, bottom-feeding shrimp sweat (or so I imagine)… Maybe that Otto Von Bismarck quote about making sausages applies to making shrimp fried rice too. Now I’m not so sure I want to dig any further into this big pile of ingredients to see what else is in there. All I can say is that this would be one of those rare cases of when to say “Yes!” to MSG.

“Fishan & Chippy” by Ryan Z. - [Chopped]

Ryan Z.’s Fishan and Chippy remind me of those transforming food toys that came in McDonald’s Happy Meals back in the 1980s. Perhaps if Arthur Treacher’s had thought up that idea first, and came up with a decent kid’s meals of their own using Fishan and Chippy, they wouldn’t have contracted from eight hundred USA restaurants in the late 1970’s down to only three today. It’s toys like these that kids loved to play with, mainly because they could be snarky to their parents and say “Look mom, look! Look!… I’m playing with my food!”

Hungry for More?

It’s not often that you see Bionicle builders creating food out of constraction parts, let alone willingly. In fact, out of the 149 eliminated participants eligible to compete in the “Redemption Round”, only two builders dared to cook up a meal-themed build. Those other 147 builders must be some real slackers … or perhaps they still haven’t cleansed their palates of the bitter taste of defeat… Anyway, here is a salute to two valiant builders who not only stepped up to build something in the third Redemption Round but also served up two dishes that actually look good enough to eat.

“Surf-n-Turf Kebab with a side of Couscous” by DanielBrickSon

“Fried Egg” by Matt Goldberg

And with that, we’re now down to the finals! Just three builders remain in the quest to hold the Bio-Cup aloft; Djokson, Toddrick (B.D.), and Yannick Godts. While we are waiting for their final builds to be posted by August 11th, why not reminisce over all of the prior entries of this year Bio-Cup, either in the Flickr photo pool or in our round-ups of Round 1 and Round 2. Until next time - “Bon Appétit”