Original Air Date: October 25, 2017
Soma finally counters against Kuga's booth in the 4th day with some extra help.
This episode provides examples of:
- 11th-Hour Ranger: Ikumi and the Aldini brothers arrived in time for the dinner rush, giving Soma an extra boost to top Kuga.
- Adaptation Expansion:
- Konishi and Yuuya finally meet and hit it off quickly. This is also a joke about how both characters are voiced by the same person, Shinji Kawada.
- It's shown how Alice comes up with the idea that saves their booth from the red numbers. Jun is also looking how Akira is enjoying himself from afar.
- All Your Powers Combined: By Day 4 of the Festival, Soma's booth finally tops the Central Area rankings with the help of many of his friends on different aspects:
- Yuuya Tomita arrived with benches and tables for the extra customers, while Megumi's Regional Cuisine RS lent her lamps and decorations for the night.
- Subaru, using his perfect tracing, learned how to make the new dishes to match up with Soma and the fast pacing of the orders.
- Megumi's main contribution was the hosting and customer service.
- Ikumi, being familiar with the preparation of the buns, helped handling them at perfect cook timing.
- Isami handled the noodles while Takumi also helped Soma and Subaru at the woks.
- Early-Bird Cameo: While Alice and Ryou go for supplies, there's a glimpse of Rentarou Kusunoki glaring at them.
- Fatal Flaw: Soma realized after 3 days of observing that the main weakness of Kuga's booth was the inexperience in restaurant management, namely the hospitality. While Kuga's food was superior, the customers had to wait a long time in line while hungry, and then had to eat quickly and leave the tables immediately. With the weekend's extra-heavy crowd, Soma is finally able to poach clients from Kuga's line, while Megumi handles the service.
- Foreshadowing: At the start of Day 4, Kuga has more on his mind than fending off the challenge from Soma.Kuga: Only two more days left, Tsukasa-san.
- Friendly Rivalry: While still vitriolic around each other, it seems like Takumi has let go of his hatred for Subaru.
- Impossibly Delicious Food: The main attraction of Soma's booth that evened the grounds with Kuga's was his Time Fuse Mapo Curry Noodles, which consisted of the Yukihira-Style Mapo Tofu with noodles and a special meatball similar to Taiwan's "Lion Head stew". The twist? The meatball is filled with golden curry gelatin that mixes with the mapo tofu as soon as the meatball splits open. The smell alone is enough to attract the customers' attention.
- Method Acting: In-universe. Subaru needed to study Soma's cooking by getting into his character, namely going to 'Yukihira's' at nights and imitating Soma's mannerisms.
- Took a Level in Badass: By the time Soma improved the booth, his figure as a stray cat evolved into a full grown lion to match Kuga equally.
- Subaru notices that Takumi immediately matched Soma’s pace without preparation, while it took him an entire day of method acting to get acquainted with Soma’s speed.
