By Moises Taveras on
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Mario Kart World is here, folks, and it’s a whole lot of fun. Whether you’re getting in a quick Grand Prix, an intense match of the round-based elimination mode Knockout Tour, or taking a breezy drive in the free-roam mode, there’s a lot of ground to cover anytime the game’s booted up. The world of Mario Kart is now one vast interconnected continent, complete with collectibles, points of interest, roads connecting them all, and doing it all builds up quite the appetite. Fortunately, Mario Kart World has more snacks than one could possibly ask for.
These food items, known in-game as Dash Food, are worth grabbing for the boosts they provide. Depending upon the size of the pickup–Dash Food often comes in small, medium, and large variants–the player will speed up for a certain amount of time, like they’ve just picked up a mushroom. The real fun, however, comes with the fact that most Dash Food items transform your character, switching them into one of Mario Kart World’s various alternate skins and unlocking the game’s massive roster.
Dash Food also largely fits the vibe of the locales they’re in. Spending some laps circling Koopa Troopa Beach? Grab a delectable fruit salad! Heading up to the Japan-inspired Cheep Cheep Falls? Enjoy some Takoyaki and delicious-looking seafood platters. And when in doubt, a roadside Yoshi’s restaurant is bound to have some burgers to-go.
All of it looks mouth-wateringly good thanks to the Switch 2’s improved processing power, too, so much so that I’ll often get hungry just playing a race. And because I’ve spent so much time driving around in Mario Kart World and picking them up, I feel uniquely suited to ranking the very best of the approximately 60 Dash Food items featured in the game, though they can largely be consolidated into about 20 groupings of delectable, mouth-watering dishes.
Honorable Mention: Pancakes
Ah, pancakes, the champion of breakfast foods. This list wouldn’t be complete without them, and neither would my belly. A love for pancakes, and breakfast in general, is a clear sign to me of a well-adjusted person. If there’s a pancake hater in your life, cut them out–and then get a fat triple stack of these bad boys dripping with the sweetest syrup imaginable, like you can find throughout Mario Kart World. Everything will be okay after just a bite of these fluffy slices of heaven.
10. Baked Ham
When I think of a cartoon meal, one of two images pops into my head: a big brown turkey (typically reserved for a Thanksgiving episode/special) and the baked ham featured in Mario Kart World. The thing looks outstandingly juicy, the egg on top is begging to be gobbled up, and while I’m no pineapple lover, the tasteful placement on this ham versus the arrangements I’ve seen on actual Hawaiian baked hams leaves me open to the idea of eating this one whole. Bone and all.
9. Thali and Naan
A lot of the charm of Dash Food in Mario Kart World comes from how the developers have clearly incorporated elements of the Mushroom Kingdom’s iconography into a variety of typical dishes from around the real world, elevating these meals with a Pixar-like touch. For example, the Thali and Naan, which can be most easily picked up in Shy Guy Bazaar, features plates of curry themed after Fire Flowers and skewers that look like Pokeys, enemies which are frequently found in desert levels throughout Mario titles. Once again, everything on the plate looks scrumptious, but it’s that extra bit–the proverbial “dash of love”–in its presentation that puts me over.
8. Tire Donuts
The donuts in Mario Kart World are freaking tires, dog. What is more whimsical in a game with driving animals, silly business signs, cars that fling bananas and bombs in equal measure, and buses full of Toads than picking up some grub at a pit stop on a long stretch of highway and finding that you’ve just gotten a box full of donuts that look like car tires? Nothing, man. Absolutely nothing.
7. Burger
I recently caught a show and dinner with some friends and made the spectacular decision to order the tallest, juiciest burger I’ve ever had. Let me tell you, reader, it was the biggest thing I have ever tried and failed to fit in my mouth. The triple patty burger in Mario Kart World reminds me a lot of that burger and frankly, you can’t go wrong with one of these. It’s just as intimidatingly huge as the real thing and I’m sure that if I bit into it I’d be transported to a tender, meaty heaven. This colossal burger is as quintessential as the water I drink and the air I breathe, but besides that, it also unlocks a great number of the best alternate skins in Mario Kart World, making its inclusion here a surefire thing. Almost as surefire as me pulling the trigger on another burger in the near future, though maybe not one quite as audaciously big.
6. Fruit Salad
I could stand to eat significantly healthier and I’m really trying to these days, but changing my diet would go over a lot easier if more dishes looked like Mario Kart World’s fruit salads. The presentation is simple and straightforward, but I especially love the touch of it all coming in a Donkey Kong-like barrel. There’s a smattering of fruits that I can see myself inhaling while reclined on a beach chair, too. But most importantly, there are Super Star fruits included, and I like to believe that they’re present to communicate how healthy eating should leave one feeling: invincible and on top of the world.
5. Yogurt
My lactose intolerance prohibits me from enjoying much dairy in my actual life, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t stop and appreciate Mario Kart World’s yogurt game. The biggest one of these yogurt cups looks especially yummy, and features a pixel-perfect swirl. The block of cheese is a great touch, even if it would greatly burden me on a physical level, but the pièce de résistance here is the cow branding on the yogurt cup, as well as the complimentary bovine cookie. The cow has become a real all-star member of Mario Kart World’s roster, and is working overtime to keep me sane and happy, so anything that celebrates them is great in my eyes.
4. Takoyaki
This just looks like some bomb-ass takoyaki. The glaze on ’em is brilliant. Whatever this dish might be lacking in aesthetic consistency, it makes up for by looking like one of the tastiest things in the game. Pretty fortunate timing on Nintendo’s part to have ripped the Inkling kids from Splatoon out of Mario Kart World just in time to include this hearty helping of octopus.
3. Baked Goods
You know the only thing better than trouncing your enemies in battle? Eating them, and that’s precisely the appeal of the basket of baked goods in Mario Kart World. Turns out Kirby had it figured out all this time, folks. The smallest of these baskets boasts a piece of bread shaped like the goofiest little Koopa Troopa, but the bigger variants also feature the likes of Boo cakes, Thwomp cinnamon rolls, a braided loaf for a basket handle that looks like those shifting boost gates, and an absolutely diabolical Goomba muffin that’s so perfect it could bring you to tears.
2. Kebabs
I’m a meat lover, and will eat it in virtually any shape or form, so believe me when I say this: I think that one of the most inspired ways to devour a slab o’ meat is on a stick. Roasted meats over a charcoal grill go so hard and Mario Kart World is smart to recognize this while also throwing its own distinct take on the meal. The kebabs in Mario Kart World look so tasty, in part because of the wide variety of items on the skewer: there’s beef, there’s what appears to be shrimp, and some veggies for good measure. The addition that really brings it home, however, is the lightly charred and perfectly browned Super Mushroom that sits at the top of the middle skewer. How has it taken this long to conceptualize the notion of cooking one of those things? Does it make you grow extra tall? Or, I guess, in the case of Mario Kart, does it make you go super fast? All I know is, I can’t wait to bite into it.
1. Fish and Chips
Despite the fact that I could not be any less of a fan of fish and chips, I’ve got to give it up to the ones in Mario Kart World. Often found by the water near tracks like Koopa Troopa or Peach Beach, the fried fish on these dishes is on a whole new level. If I’m being entirely honest, I first thought the fried and battered fish here was an empanada and just about lost my damn mind. But even after clarity settled in, I couldn’t deny how crispy it looked, and I could practically hear the crunch of my teeth sinking into it. Fish and chips is pretty synonymous, at least to me, with a drab depiction of English cities and gets ragged on a lot because of this perception, which has never helped its appeal. Mario Kart World does some smart revisionism here by sticking fish and chips on the most vibrant parts of the Mario Kart World map, which works wonders for the dish’s image. To me, this is an all-time banger in terms of Mario Kart World food, and any other consumables I’ve seen in games.
