Both my son and I have got a great deal of entertainment and that has helped his educationally by Orchard Games. I bought this game for £3.50 when it was on offer. I do find that some Orchard games can be quite similar but this one looked very different to the other games he owned.
Orchard Game as are British makers of quality board games and puzzles. These are quality products which don't focus on the current marketing trends so these games don't go out of Fashion.

The game Crazy chef is designed for between 2-5 players with an age recommendation of 3-7 years of age.

Setting up the game

To set up the game each player decides which dish they want to create. You have a choice of prawn noodles, cottage pie, fairy cakes, Pizza and Kebabs. Each player selects the board that goes with the dish. All the small cards are placed face down, the empty plates are put in a pile and the finished meals are also put on one side for near the end of the game. The game also comes with a spinner but again this is not needed at the beginning of the game.

The game

The game starts with choosing who goes first, Orchard do state on all their games the youngest player goes first but this is something I disagree with so always chose to ignore it. The players take turns to turn over one of the 35 small game tiles and check whether the ingredient is one needed for their dish. If it is then they place it on their food board and if not then it is returned face down to its original spot. The idea is to collect all your ingredients to progress to the next stage of the game. Once you have all the ingredients for your dish then you spin the spinner on your next turn. The spinner has two plates and four children. First you need to land on the plate to get an empty plate to serve your dish on. This is placed on the hands the image of your chef on your food board, it makes it look like the chef is actually carrying the plate. On your next turn you need to spin and land on a child to complete you dish. The completed dish card is placed on the empty plate. The game does continue to give everyone a chance to finish but the winner is the person who finishes first.

Our Experience

I have to say I am happy that my son doesn't just pick the cakes to cook he will cook a variety of meals. I do think it is actually a great idea for helping children to understand the ingredients that go into a meal as well as the utensils that are used in creating a dish and it doesn't appear magically on a plate by the food fairies. I started playing this game with my son when he was three and as a result we had to simplify the game. remembering which card out of 35 he had checked was far too many to we played a far less competitive version which meant when we played we simply checked every ones card. If it was an ingredient not used we put it on one side. This meant that the game did have a completion point. I found that although my son does already know many ingredients he didn't know a few such as spring onions and for any child who had little knowledge of different foods and opportunity to learn. Now my son is at school I was amused that he thought the mince for the cottage pie was Quorn as it is regularly featured on his school dinner Menu. I have found the spinner does need to be on a fairy hard surface but spins freely.

I do find due to the way we play this game it is quite a chance of who actually wins and I do not let my son win games all the time not because I can't bear losing but simply I think it teaches them how to cope with winning and losing. If I win I don't make too much of a song and dance and if he wins I do shake his hand and say well done. I am hoping that my modelling how to deal with winning and losing does rub off on him when he is playing with his peers.

Overall this is a game we do play regularly. He enjoys it as much a year and a half later. The game still looks like new which is reflective of the quality I have grown to expect with Orchard Games. I do think this helps children with learning about cooking, Learning taking turns and social skills and sharing. If played the traditional way it does help with memory skills.

Summary and Availability
This is a game that I would recommend certainly for children aged 3-6. This game is easy to adapt to the ability level of the child, This game is currently available on Amazon for £6.70 and while I paid less I still do think this is very good value.