Scenes with over sexualizing food did not add anything except, well ecchi. At first they were funny (Megumi in honey) but after repeating way too many times they mostly annoyed. The show used better ways to describe experiences from food, i.e. - when Erina was first introduced her descriptions were actually interesting and understandable.
The art in Souma is nice, except that it suffers from a common anime disease of using spandex instead of real clothes (i.e. - breasts are always accentuated as if there were special pockets for them in the clothing, even for the gap in between).
The main way Souma wins the viewer is it's theme - food. Absolutely everyone can relate to that, even those who don't cook themselves would find the process enthralling. The theme and mostly realistic approach to the process (as a person with basic skills of cooking for himself can judge, I felt that only in Election arc there was some magic involved) with explanations is the main strength of the show.
