10 Second Anime - Shokugeki no Soma S2 - Episode 11

Souma and Hisako pair up for their first week as stagiaires at a restaurant facing a changing clientele.

Episode 11 - "The Stagiaire"

Heh.

The next arc for the close of the season has all the kids being scattered to regular restaurants for a week's worth of internship. There is a grading of sorts, where the kids have to make a visible mark on the restaurant's operations.

To spice up the comedy, we get some interesting pairings. Souma got Hisako, who is back from her "journey," and Megumi got to be intimidated by Erina.

Hisako and Souma's restaurant used to have a nice neighborhood atmosphere, but when the local train station started handling bullet train traffic, the staff and menu couldn't handle the fast paced crush of customers.

Hisako got to see Souma in action as a diner brat, which we've seen before.

In fact, this episode felt very similar to the story of Souma's Summer break where he helped his market district beat back a new mall's restaurant.

Hisako didn't want to like Souma, but part of Souma's brashness is his honesty, which makes him quick to hand out compliments.

Hisako knows Excel.

The big problem with having talented students help out and handle the crush is what happens when their week is over. Souma figured this out after about a day but needed to reconcile this observation with how to leave a visible mark on the restaurant.

The solution was for the owner to realize what his vision of the restaurant is supposed to be and then make it happen. The owner missed his regulars, who stopped coming because the service took a nosedive with the train customers coming in. His solution was to require reservations, which brought back the locals and brought back the relaxed atmosphere.

The Totsuki faculty keeping track of Souma and Hisako is so cool, she wears sunglasses at night.

This Nishizono lady gave the kids a passing grade for how they left the restaurant a better place.

Megumi and Erina had a different experience at their French restaurant. Erina took over the kitchen, improving all the dishes. Meanwhile, Megumi made her mark by washing dishes and noticing how the customers either left too much sauce on one dish or had leftover vegetables because of not enough sauce.

Erina backed her up by suggesting a sauce boat, which is a very traditional part of French cuisine. They passed.

Telling the story of Erina and Hisako at the same time gave them a chance to hash over Hisako's issues with losing to Hayama. It also gave Erina a chance to get angry while thinking about Souma.

Erina wanted a friend, but Hisako still thinks she needs to be her aide.

Souma told her to become the kind of chef who can cook beside Erina instead of one that follows her around, if she wants to be worthy to be Erina's presence.

That opened Hisako's eyes to an aspirational goal.

Souma saw that Hisako wasn't going to avoid Erina anymore, so he gave her the shoujo manga that she wanted. Souma's pretty sneaky about being lazy too.

Next time, Shinomiya opened a Japanese branch, so I wonder who's going to be his stagiaire?

I hope there's some customers who can suffer a foodgasm with Souma's and Shinomiya's combined cooking efforts, because this episode was pretty boring without even the chance at one.