Sims 4: Maxis Match Food CC and why you shouldn't buy HCH

Do you know what's wrong with this video?

Nothing. Nothing is wrong with the video itself, it was lovely. But the video leaves you with a question, the big elephant in the room that the Sims 4 team has yet to address.

Where did they find the audacity to release another food industry pack when they still have yet to fix Dine Out?

For those of you who don't know, Dine Out is a game pack that was released way earlier, it was a pack that allowed you to make any kind of restaurant, you had full creative control over choosing your employees' uniforms, the menu, building your own restaurant, or just building one to place in your world. It was very transparent, and it was very fun. But eventually, Dine Out met a problem. Bugs.

Customers that enter a restaurant you own will no longer sit down at tables, they'll wander, for minutes, or hours, talking to everyone they shouldn't instead of eating their food, or they'll take their food and walk off to eat elsewhere standing up. When your sims enter restaurants that are not owned by you, it takes forever to get their food, sometimes they never get their food.

It's so bad that a modder took it upon themselves to fix Dine Out.

Carl

For years the Sims 4 team has not addressed it, even though many Simmers, fans of the Sims, have spoken of it. They have not fixed it yet they continue to sell the broken pack.

Then they release a "stuff pack" Home Chef Hustle. A pack where you can open up a street stall food business.

Here's the thing, the one thing you couldn't do with Dine Out is own a business on your home lot. Simmers have always wanted this. Mods were made to accommodate by LittleMsSam.

So the Home Chef Hustle feels like a refreshing alternative and opportunity to have a food business wherever you want even at home, and here is the thing, it's nice. But can and should we trust it? If something goes wrong will they fix it? The Home Chef Hustle pack feels like an attempt to beat around the bush and give us something to pacify us. It feels like a band-aid pack. Do they have no intention to fix Dine Out? Or are they just taking their sweet time (YEARS) to fix Dine Out?

Before the game's release, a patch update followed where bugs were fixed for the game but none of those were Dine Out. Dine Out wasn't even addressed. It was disappointing but at the same time unsurprising. Which is kind of laughable.

EA needs to address it. If they are trying to fix it they should say so, they should not continue to release food service industry stuff. They should not continue to sell Dine Out if they are abandoning the game pack. It's just like milking simmers of their money.

Something they were recently exposed for doing by players who play the Sims 4 mobile. Apparently in the mobile if players wanted to get a bigger house they had to spend money to actually purchase houses, which may not sound bad, until you find out that some of these houses cost about $20. That's ridiculous. For pc, you can buy a few kits and stuff packs with $20. Mobile players are better off deleting the app and just getting the Sims 4 on console or PC.

But back to what I was saying, Simmers should not buy Home Chef Hustle until Dine Out is fixed, that is what I like to say but I know some simmers are already buying Home Chef Hustle because they love and miss that experience of making and selling food. You also get new kitchen furniture and appliances so I understand. Heck, I was also super excited about the pizza oven, so I will not waste my breath trying to preach. I will just say this, EA only continues to get away with their cash grabs because consumers continue to buy it, until players put their foot down and express they won't stand for it any longer, nothing will really happen. I really hope EA starts to crack down and fix the bugs in their old packs and refresh packs instead of charging players for new but similar content.

So, moving on to my second agenda.

The Sims 4 has a lot of food your sims can eat but some of them may still not be enough for foodie sims, especially folks from ethnic backgrounds. Although if you ask many simmers will say they download food cc because they don't like how the normal food looks.

Maxis Match Food CC

Food CC is made by Custom Content Creators. When downloading them you should always pay close attention. There are some who require you to download many mods in order for their things to work and there are others who require you to download very little.

Oni

Oni is a cc creator that specializes in making Asian food; mostly Korean and Japanese. Oni can be found on Patreon and their content is free. They are a personal favorite of mine. Oni requires you to download very few mods. They also have a condition to using their cc. You have to enable the lot challenge "Simple Living"

(This is a lot trait that came out with the Cottage Living expansion pack, "Simple Living" - you have to grow/have the the ingredients in order to make the recipes.

With the normal game mode, you could make whatever without having any ingredients in your fridge or inventory. )

An easy alternative to this is simply purchasing vegetables, or simply growing them yourself. If you do not have the simple living lot challenge on when playing the game you will not be able to make their recipes. But that is it.

Although, I must warn you that some creators require you to download ingredients that don't exist within the game, they will also mention it in their descriptions if it is Required or Optional, so always pay attention. Here are a few ways downloading Oni can enrich your gameplay.

If you are like me and try to recreate Asian environments then Oni is definitely for you! They have a plethora of recipes that can set the vibe. Not only that they also make furniture.

Oni's Korean street food stand can add that special touch to your builds that make it complete. A slice of Korean Society! In addition to its original three colors there are also six more extra colors of the stand. Also this food stand is functional, and functions no differently than other street stalls.

Then there is Oni's Japanese vending machine.

This can also be used for any Asian build, honestly, we don't have enough vending machines in the sims 4!

Moving on, if you are curious of what Oni's food looks like.

Here are some.

With the Home Chef Hustle Kit out, I imagine that Oni will probably look back at some of their old recipes and re-work them so they can be made in pizza ovens.

Their pizzas look more interesting than base game pizzas in my opinion. Also, as you can see in the photo, the pizzas is part of a delivery service mod, the icons on the left side of "How to Use" are the other foods you can get from this zoomer's delivery food mod. So you can expect to get fried chicken, tteokbokki, corn dogs, korean style Chinese food (ex: jjajangmyeon and jjambong). There's also burgers, fries, and gimbap.

Even if you aren't into Asian food there are still other cool recipes.

Those are just examples! Give them a look!

Icemunmun

If you couldn't already tell there are some creators who really like the idea of making gameplay harder and more interesting by harvesting. Icemunmun is also one of those.

Icemunmun makes a plethora of recipes, appliances, and ingredients, they also make random mods. To use all their content you definitely have to download a handful of mods, for food wise it is optional, but for appliances, it is required.

Oni's art style is cute and straightforward but with Icemunmun, you can definitely tell they try to give their food realistic textures but still keep it maxis matchy.

I could be imagining it but I feel the level of detail changes depending on the type of dish. So feel free to check out all their recipes, if you look at this and decide you don't like it. Not all of their foodstuff is like this.

Here is an example of one of their appliances, they made a soda vending machine and soda dispenser, making their own drinks and soda cans.

I also recently just found out they were up to this:

Their own bag of chips! I am always looking for stuff to use to make convenience store builds so this is an amazing find! This is why it's important to keep up to date with the creators you like folks!

Also, what's your favorite chip flavor? If you got this far please leave a comment! My favorites are salt & vinegar, dill pickle chips, and banana/plantain chips.

Littlbowbub

They don't require you to download many mods, other than their own, the "Granny's cookbook" mod. Littlbowbub's food art style is very fluffy, cute, and dreamy, their recipes are mostly baked goods and really remind you of things a Grandmother would make.

They recently made a mod overriding the appearance of Cafeteria food for the High School Years pack. So if there's anyone out there who did not like the fact that the food they bought shows up on plates instead of trays, please consider LittleBowlBub's override.

(Honestly, I didn't even know their food showed up on plates, in the past I wrote on why I was iffy about buying High School years- I still haven't bought it by the way, but this only continues to tell me how much the ball was dropped on recreating the school experience...tragic.)

Anyway as for their food mods I will just quickly show what I meant about their art style.

Cute right? I wonder if they will refresh some of their recipes now that we have the Home Chef Hustle Kit.

They also made a birthday party goodie bag, and catering set. So if you have female child sims (boys are just neglected at this point), feel free to throw them a cute little bday bash with this ensemble!

I do not want to bore you to death so I will just give a "quick" shout-out.

Brazen Lotus

They do not just release food-related cc, but furniture objects too! If you are familiar with Ravasheen, their content is similar. For their food content you will definitely need to download a few mods but personally in my opinion it is not as nerve-racking because it's not like it takes you to another website. Also, you don't have to download everything its up to you.

Brazen Lotus' content reminds me of many other sims. For instance Little Bowlbub and their birthday party set.

Brazen Lotus has their own version, birthday party table sets, these can be used for male sims on their birthday parties! Or girls...

The rainbow birthday party table set.

I love tea, so I also loved the crafting mod that allowed sims to make tea from scratch. With Brazen Lotus mods you can harvest and craft many things. It's very...cottage core.

I also am a big fan of their art style. I never liked it when tea cc used base game mugs, so boring, I wanted to see them in a tea cup. The same for coffee, unless it was a special type of drink the mug didn't change. Brazen Lotus put their coffee in glass. I love drinking hot drinks in glass mugs, so I really fell hard when I saw it.

They also have a canning skill mod and a produce stand that preserves stuff. I've been thinking of making medieval sims 4 worlds so the produce stand really appealed to me, but what won me over completely in the end was the cheesemaking skill mod.

When I saw this I knew I would have to keep my eye on Brazen Lotus, and I think you all should too.