Chow-Off

**Chow-Off** is the nineteenth Season 3 episode of Leeko: The Beginning trilogy, and the eighty-sixth episode overall.

## Summary

A classmate of Chef Peppermint’s comes to visit him, but finds out that his cooking is sorely poor. Later, King Leonardo holds a cook-off between Peppermint and Licorice, where the winner gets to keep Peppermint’s restaurant.

## Characters

### Primary

* Leeko
* Chef Peppermint
* Milly
* King Leonardo
* Chef Licorice (*debut*)

### Secondary

* Athena (*no dialogue*)
* Bubbles
* Chief Gordy
* Cindy (*no dialogue*)
* Daisy (*no dialogue*)
* Dr. Medico (*no dialogue*)
* Gamba (*no dialogue*)
* Gene
* Lobberlicious (*debut*)
* Manny
* Marvin
* Mayor Bay Brittleton
* Mr. Eggward (*no dialogue; flashback*)
* Parker
* Professor Antico
* Sir Pathogen (*no dialogue*)
* Tommy
* Viruses (*no dialogue*)
* Whitehead (*no dialogue*)
* Various unnamed Puffy villagers

## Episode summary

The episode begins as an eccentric man wanders into Puffy Town looking for Chef Peppermint. Chief Gordy points him to Peppermint's Table, where Leeko is busy slurping down leftover noodles. Once the man enters the restaurant, he sees Chef Peppermint, and the two of them embrace in a dramatic fashion in front of Leeko, Milly, and Manny. Chef Peppermint then introduces his old friend to the Puffies as Chef Licorice, who was one of his fellow students back in cooking school and helped him through the hard times there. After a brief moment of confusion, the Puffies decide they were initially harsh on him and welcome Licorice more warmly, while Tommy informs King Leonardo about Licorice's arrival. While Licorice is out of earshot, Chef Peppermint tries to get everyone to agree to pretend to like his cooking so Licorice does not catch on to the fact that Peppermint still cannot cook well. Licorice then complicates the matters when he insists on inviting everyone in to the restaurant and paying for lunch from Peppermint, insisting that he will be having some as well to see how Peppermint has improved.

As the Puffies brace themselves for Peppermint's lunch, Milly attempts to help Chef Peppermint in the kitchen with his cooking. This help ends up paying off, as the ramen Peppermint serves ends up being genuinely agreeable to all those present. In return for the meal, Chef Licorice offers to cook Peppermint something of his own. Licorice makes a ramen of his own to compare and contrast with Peppermint's style, and all those present end up loving it. When King Leonardo hears that Licorice made such good food for the Puffies, he runs off to get the chef's attention despite already having eaten "his body weight" in chips. Back in town, the townsfolk gossip about how much better Licorice is than Peppermint, and Licorice ends up overhearing their gossip. Furious, he storms back into the restaurant and berates his friend for deceiving him. The two get into a brief scuffle which Milly and Manny break up, but at that moment, King Leonardo and Tommy show up. King Leonardo imposes a cooking contest on Peppermint and Licorice, offering the right to the restaurant to the winner, and Peppermint starts to despair, knowing he cannot possibly win.

King Leonardo sets up the tournament and announces it on Channel Lion Out Loud, while waiting on special gourmet ingredients from Nebula Enterprises. Chef Licorice then comes in to see the delivery of fresh seafood through the Monster delivery system. Once everyone is gathered in the studio, the cook-off begins as the two chefs are allowed to start with a specialty of their own choosing. As Chef Peppermint begins to cook, Milly gives him advice while hiding under his table. Once both are done, the dishes are brought up to the judges to taste. Before they can do so, however, the lights briefly go out, and Peppermint's curry is sabotaged by adding a hot spice to it. This ends up causing the judges to spew flames when they eat it. Once the judges recover, the second round begins, where the chefs are challenged to invent a new dish on the spot. Much like before, the dishes are tampered with by Tommy when the lights momentarily go out, and Peppermint's dish once again ends up causing the contestants to burn up from the spiciness. For the final round, Chef Peppermint goes for a stir fry and this time endeavors to not use any spices at all. As the lights go out for a third time, Chef Licorice sees what Tommy is doing to the dishes. Regardless, the tasting commences, and the same thing happens as the last two time, though even more exaggerated than before.

Chef Licorice is declared winner of the contest, and Chef Peppermint is about to be banished from Puffy Town forever, but Licorice steps in and tells Peppermint that he has one more dish to prepare as an encore: his "Shrimp Licorice". After frying up the shrimp, he serves King Leonardo, but after a single bite from it, King Leonardo is sent into a spiraling flame-belching turmoil that not even a pool of water can put it out. Chef Licorice then reveals that he used the same hot sauce that Tommy used to tamper with Chef Peppermint's dishes and shows the film of Tommy tampering with the dishes. Chef Licorice then tells Chef Peppermint that it's okay that he does not cook as well as him, since Leeko seems to prefer Peppermint's cooking to his own. King Leonardo then decides to declare the contest a draw so that Chef Licorice can cook for King Leonardo personally. At that moment, however, the shrimp Licorice prepared transforms into the giant monster Lobberlicious and attacks. As everyone else flees for safety, Milly tosses Leeko a ladle for him to vacuum-mouth, giving him the Chef Copy Ability. Chef Leeko deflects Lobberlicious' fire breath and inadvertently causes it to scorch King Leonardo and Tommy. Leeko then deflects the monster's fire breath onto itself, causing it to burst into flames and then explode, defeating it very quickly. The episode ends as Chef Licorice leaves Usapia while Chef Peppermint and the kids wave him goodbye.

## Trivia

* This is the sixth episode of the *Leeko: The Beginning* trilogy to feature the Chef Copy Ability.
* The way Tommy tampers with food to make it ultra spicy in this episode is like how he tampers Beatrice’s crab dinner in the episode Come Get Your Meals!.