With romantic weekend getaways, hotel stays, tasting menus and basically anything outside of our house not an option for Valentines Day this year, my enterprising husband bought me a £100 voucher to spend at ‘Great Food 2U’ – bringing DIY meal kits from UK restaurants to the home.
The restaurants are mainly fancy fast food types – burgers, pizzas, chicken etc – something I’ve definitely missed since getting the train home from work in London in March 2020 and not going back since. The ‘burbs may be good for dog walks but they definitely lack city-style eating options.
None of the meal kits are particularly expensive, so £100 is enough to try 3 or 4. As the delivery charge is the same for up to three kits, I ordered three at once and have enough cash left to try one more in the future.
My three choices were as follows:
1. Prawn Pad Thai, from Rosa’s
I’m a big fan of Pad Thai but it always seems hard work to make at home, so I was hoping this kit would help me out.
The ingredients all looked great, especially the king prawns (such luxury!) and the portion sizes looked generous.
I chose to make 2 portions but used all the spring onions and prawns in them, and plan to make the next 2 portions with my own spring onions and tofu.
The instructions were very clear and it was really easy to prepare…although you do have to work quickly and not get distracted, as with most quick-cook stir-fry type dishes. I added some peanut butter to my finished dish for that proper Pad Thai flavour. The portions were huge and tasted fantastic – Rosa’s Pad Thai sauce is pretty special. This really made me feel like I was eating out in the real world and I’m excited to have my second portion in a couple of days.
2. Buffalo and Honey Sesame Chicken Wings, from Wing Shack Co
A bit of a random purchase, but 1.5kg of chicken wings seemed like a fun way to spend a Friday night in lockdown.
The wings came in a marinade and with pots of the honey sauce, buffalo sauce, and sesame seeds, chives and spring onions to garnish. There were two sets of instructions to prepare them – frying or baking. We chose to bake them as don’t have a deep fat fryer at home.
Cooking was easy – they took 40 minutes to bake, turning half-way through, and I then drenched them in the various sauces and garnishes.
Unfortunately, this was where the good times ended.
The wings were horribly salty and we didn’t think much of either of the sauces. They really needed a cooling dip – maybe sour cream or blue cheese – to take some of the heat away. But the biggest issue was the salt, which detracted from any other flavours and made them pretty hard to eat.
Not recommended. The pack also did not contain the bibs as promised either.
- Buffalo and Honey Sesame Chicken Wings – £30 for 4
3. Chicken Souvlaki from The Real Greek
Some of our best foodie memories are from our first holiday to Greece back in 2010, so the idea of proper Greek souvlaki at home was really appealing.
We chose to have our Chicken Souvlaki for lunch on Saturday. It was really easy to prepare, and I was impressed with how the wraps softened when cooking in the pan. The chicken had a delicious marinade and cooked perfectly in a pan, and the garnishes were plentiful.
It was a nice touch to include the paper to wrap the souvlaki authentically and it tasted delicious. I’d definitely order this again.
I’ve got £30 left to spend with Great Food 2U and am very tempted to get another couple of souvlaki’s or even another Pad Thai kit, but will restrain myself and try something new. I’ve enjoyed Bleecker burgers at their London sites and so think I’ll try their package containing 2 double cheeseburgers and 2 ‘symplicity’ or veggie burgers. We’ll probably have single cheeseburgers so this could last us for 3 meals, if we add a couple of extra buns and maybe some sneaky bacon.
- Chicken Souvlaki – £14 for 2
Do check out Great Food 2U if you are missing dirty city street food while in lockdown…but make sure you avoid the wings!
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