Restaurant City Strategy Guide - Trading Basics

At first Restaurant City seems pretty basic and straightforward. You have these dishes that need ingredients, and those ingredients have star ratings. If you go to a friend's restaurant and they have an ingredient with three stars unlocked, you can trade for it immediately with anything three stars or better. Pretty simple right?

But that is not where it ends. Contrary to what you may believe, the star rating is not an ingredient's actual value. Some ingredients are used in more dishes, and thus become more rare. Pretty as they are, the stars are worthless. Rarity is what determines the value of an ingredient.

In this Restaurant City strategy guide on trading basics you will learn the true value of each ingredient (and thus how to trade effectively), as well as how to maximize the coins you spend on ingredients, and how and where to get more free ingredients.

Be sure to add me on Facebook to not only get your free ingredient and trade with me (look for me in level 32), but also to keep up to date on all my latest strategy guides on Restaurant City and other games. Once you add me, keep your eyes peeled for links to the Restaurant City strategy guides to Starters, Main Dishes, Desserts, and Drinks, which rank each dish according to how difficult it will be to complete.

Also coming soon are the Weekly Trading Guides, including updated supply and demand information so you will know which dish is easiest to finish that particular week - and links to profiles of people who have the ingredients you want. Last but certainly not least, if you're running low on coins but really want to make your restaurant pretty, send me a message about the Restaurant City Wholesale Stuff Weekly Guides in development now. That said - let's get cooking!

Cook Smart, Not Hard

Sure you can buy ingredients with RC Cash - but do you really want to buy 2,590 ingredients to finish out the game? There are 74 dishes in Restaurant City, and all but one use 3 ingredients (the odd one out uses 4) for all 10 levels of that dish. At 9 RC Cash per ingredient, that's pretty costly.

You're much better off getting as many free ingredients as you can and buying from the Restaurant City marketplace (the one that costs coins, not RC Cash) in an extremely intelligent and strategic manner. Don't worry about buying the exact ingredients you want. Be more concerned with the cost in coins and rarity. You will end up spending a lot more money than you need to any other way.

I'm sure you know by now the three ways to get free ingredients. There is the daily free ingredient from Restaurant City, and the ingredient you get if you answer the daily quiz correctly. The third and final way to get free ingredients is to visit a new neighbor for the first time.

The good news for that daily quiz - there is a cheat sheet. The bad news - it isn't short. I recommend opening that page in a second window before opening the quiz and using the find function (ctrl+f) on a word in the question you think is key and unique to that question (like "gooseberry" for the question "What is Chinese gooseberry called in ancient time?").

For the new neighbor free ingredient, obviously you want to add lots and lots of random strangers. Fortunately there are thousands of other Restaurant City players with the same idea - and they publish links to their profiles everywhere.

You can find them on the Restaurant City Facebook profile wall (just click to see comments by fans only), in the comments on the Restaurant City Facebook photo albums, and all over the Restaurant City forums. Another fantastic place to look for new neighbors is in the Restaurant City Market Facebook application - which is very useful for trading, obviously, but more on that later.

You can also gain more ingredients by gardening, but of the 12 random ingredients you can get by gardening only 4 are really worth anything. Even though it may cost more than 2,000 coins to buy an ingredient from the Restaurant City marketplace, I don't personally see the value in gardening outside of a shiny gold watering can. If you're really desperate for sugar though, it might be worth it.

Unfortunately there is no rhyme or reason to the Restaurant City marketplace. The three ingredients up for sale each day seem to be picked at random, and you don't always get access to each ingredient once a month. Even worse, the ingredients worth the least seem to pop up the most often.

The pricing isn't even set in stone. You may see egg in the marketplace for 2,500 coins one day, and then 3,600 coins the next. You really just have to use your best judgment and pick the most valuable ingredient (or an ingredient of the value level you need) for the least amount of coins.

The True Value of Restaurant City Ingredients

Most people who have played Restaurant City to level 32 trade according to rarity rather than star rating. Reason being, it just makes more sense. Some ingredients are much harder to get than others, and for those players obsessed with finishing all 74 dishes (or even just 20 for the gold gourmet award), they definitely recognize how much rarity costs - in time.

You need to learn this rarity system, and learn to use it well, because the best people to trade with are veteran players. They have hundreds upon hundreds of these ingredients available for trade, and are a true blessing when searching for the rarest of ingredients.

Some ingredients are only used in 1 dish, while others are used in 6 or more dishes. The ingredients below are ranked according to their rarity, and generally only get traded with ingredients of equal value. However, just like in the star rating, you can also offer a higher-valued ingredient for a lesser-valued ingredient, but you're not likely to get a trade request accepted if it is the other way around.

Many thanks to Chris Moran for putting together this list - and in alphabetical order too! With just shy of 60 ingredients, it's impossible to memorize all of them, so be sure to bookmark this page so you can reference it for future trades (and whenever you're deciding whether to buy a marketplace ingredient).

Rarity 1 ( most common, and thus least valuable ingredients)
coriander, dragon fruit, noodles, oregano, peach, pepperoni, sweetcorn, wasabi

Rarity 2
apple, bacon, beans, carrot, ginger, lobster, mango. pomegranate, saffron, sausage, tofu

Rarity 3
banana, chili, ice, kiwi, lamb, leek, mushroom, pasta, peas, prawn, tuna, vanilla

Rarity 4
basil, chocolate, coffee beans, lemon, lime, onion, pork, tea leaves

Rarity 5
bayleaf, beef, bread, butter, chicken, garlic, pumpkin, strawberry

Rarity 6+ (most valuable ingredients)
cheese, cream, egg, flour, ice cream, milk, potato, rice, salad, sugar, tomato, water

Trading Advanced Tactics - Things to Consider

Before you choose a dish, don't just look at how many of the needed ingredients you have - also look at how many ingredients you can spare of the same value to see if you can get a total of 10 for each ingredient. In other words, if you need 10 coffee beans but you only have 5, then you should be able to make up the difference by trading whatever basil , chocolate, lemon, lime, onion, pork, or tea leaves you can spare.

If you can't, then it's time to hunt down some more ingredients. Whether you add neighbors to get free ones, buy them from the marketplace, or grow them in your garden, it doesn't particularly matter - but I highly recommend the adding neighbors method. More neighbors never hurts, especially with the new way to earn money by helping neighbors.

Pretty soon you will also be able reference my dish strategy guides every week to see which dishes are the easiest to finish according to what is currently available. Look on my wall for links to these strategy guides after you add me.

As for the Restaurant City Market application I mentioned earlier - it is not a perfect system. A lot of people don't use it as it should be used. Especially with the most rare ingredients I tend to find they don't actually have the ingredients they claim to have, and it can be quite aggravating. I know. I spent an entire day looking for just one flour!

You also don't want to post everything you have to offer for trades. Rather, you're much better off selecting the ingredients you need and then offering only the ingredients you have of equal value to the ones you need. In other words, if you need coffee and have lemon, lime, and beef to trade, only publish the lemon and lime.

Reason being - you may end up with a lot of trade requests asking you to fork out some beef to get coffee (which is less valuable than beef). You will also end up with a lot of people trying to trade with you but not knowing what to give in exchange.

For instance, let's say you're offering bayleaf, a rarity 5 ingredient, but don't have any rarity 5 ingredients listed as wants. Your new neighbor is left scratching his head trying to figure out what they should give you so they can definitely get the bayleaf they so desperately need without having to give up a rarity 6 ingredient.

It is also a smart idea to tweak your offerings from time to time, sometimes specializing in only a few ingredients, sometimes only posting what you have to offer - it all depends on what you're trying to do. If you are actively looking for people to trade, it's best to bring yourself down to one particular set of ingredients - like rarity 3 or 4 - according to what you need most.

If you're open to any even trades, just publish what you have available, with the ingredients you need most listed in your comment, on the sign for your restaurant, or in a message when you accept the friend request. Outside of that, it is best to keep all your ingredients locked except for the least valuable rarity 1 - unless you plan on using them anytime soon.

As for all those random strangers you added for the free ingredient, most are open to just being temporary friends. You can save yourself a headache if you do two things - add them to a "temp friends" list and block them once you've both gotten your free ingredient and deleted each other.

Last but not least, don't forget to add me on Facebook to not only get your free ingredient and trade with me, but also to keep up to date on all my latest strategy guides on Restaurant City and other games, including:

- Restaurant City strategy guides to Starters, Main Dishes, Desserts, and Drinks - ranking each dish according to how difficult it will be to complete.

- Weekly Trading Guides - up to date supply and demand information so you will know which dish is easiest to finish that particular week - and links to profiles of people who have the ingredients you want.

- Restaurant City Wholesale Stuff Weekly Guides - where you can trade for stuff (stoves, decorations, whatever) at a decreased price. So instead of selling off your unwanted items for less than half the purchase price, you can trade for 60% of their original value.

- And more strategy guides coming soon on Cafe World, Pirate Clan, and Country Life among others.

Be sure to send me a message about these guides. You're always welcome in my restaurant ;D