dish’d – the ultimate frozen meal
SPONSORED (IN-KIND)
If reputable chefs such as Jacques Reymond are involved in designing this food then you can be sure dish’d meals aren’t your average TV dinner… this is a new era for frozen meals, and you can try for yourself – we have a $50 voucher to give away to one lucky reader.
Where: Delivered to your door (if your door is located in metro Melbourne or Sydney – with plans to expand)
Cost: Minimum order is $30 (but given these are frozen meals it makes sense to stock up). Order now
Review
I have used supermarket and fresh food home delivery for years – my weekly delivery is my get out of jail card when it comes to milk and a couple of items we use every day (at the moment it seems to be cucumbers and strawberries). So ordering the dish’d meals online wasn’t too much of a stretch – the hardest bit was not drooling into the keyboard as the food looked so amazing, I wished it could arrive straight away. You don’t have to wait too long though – dish’d offer next day delivery.
From the first look at the website it’s not obvious (well it wasn’t to me) that the service is actually all about frozen meals. Even when I completed my order I was a little uncertain if somethings might be frozen and others not – but EVERYTHING is frozen. And then the delivery window of 8am – 5pm had me worried.. would the food be okay sitting out for an extended period if it arrived at 8am when I had a work day and wouldn’t be home until 4pm?
But everything is frozen and the cool box is filled with dry ice, even by the time I got home at 4pm (5.5 hours after I got the text message confirming the delivery had arrived) the ice-cream was still properly frozen, despite it being a hot day = win! dish’d meals are all frozen to retain their nutritional and taste credentials. Next challenge was the “freezer tetris” I undertook to get everything to fit in my itty-bitty freezer.
And then there was that final doubt. I don’t know about you but I frequently get seduced by a lovely bit of food porn photography on a supermarket shelf – experience has taught me that 9.5 times out of 10 the food looks nothing like what’s on the box and then the dining experience you’re likely to re-create when you get home is probably akin to my late grandfathers nursing home food – blerggg.
dish’d is nothing nothing nothing like any supermarket frozen meal I have been brave enough to try. When I opened the dish’d packets I was genuinely excited at how great the food looked – and as it cooked the smells that filled the kitchen were delicious. Our first meal (and there will be many to come; with the $30 special running at the moment our $100 budget went quite a way) was meatballs (made in Australia). They were juicy, lightly seasoned and lip-smacking tasty – they kids ate them but they weren’t quite as into them as I was (they contained a bit more seasoning than we usually have – I am a very dull cook).
Even more exciting was dessert – we did try two, for the sake of the review {dessert also might be my favourite meal}. Clearly these desserts have been carefully prepared and packaged to ensure presentation at home can be Instagram worthy. The Gianduja Shortbread (made in France) was interesting – the shortbread isn’t your usual (well not mine anyway, I was thinking English shortbread) base – it’s a bit like crunched up anzac biscuit, with a layer of chocolate mousse and covered with nuts and bits of candied orange peel. It was very pretty and the tang of the peel combined with the very crunchy base made for an interesting taste and texture experience – it was too rich for the kids but I enjoyed – and it would definitely be dinner party worthy!
The other desert I tried was the Tartufo Negro (made in Italy) and it was one of the best I have had in Australia – and definitely the best pre-made-shop-bought Tartufo I have ever had anywhere. I love Tartufo. I have been to Pizzo in Italy where the Tartufo comes from – it’s all about the intensity of the hazelnut gelato and the punch of the cocoa, the dish’d Tartufo delivered on both.
My only negative would be the carbon footprint of meals travelling from all over the world (although given the amount of international travel I haven’t done lately I am probably allowed some bonus points on my footprint). The frozen fruits came from Belgium, which seemed a bit crazy given we have perfectly good access to all of those ingredients in Oz. So with that in mind I will probably keep my future dish’d orders to meals that I really can’t source at my local greengrocer/butcher/supermarket.
As a mum it’s awesome to have a collection of fresh, tasty, easy meals on hand for those nights when I am behind schedule – to be able to pull out something that just needs 15 minutes in the oven to finish it off is very attractive. Given the quality of these meals there are some great components that would also make a dinner party (or even a cocktail party) a breeze!
One final thought – I have a few oldies (aged 79+) in my life who live on their own. They are of a vintage that doesn’t do take-away and haven’t found a home shop delivery service that quite works for them. I could see these meals providing a great option for them when they fancy a night off cooking or a bit of a culinary treat… I might just have to make the first order to get them started.
Check out what was in our delivery box:
Competition
Win a $50 dish’d voucher to use towards your own order! Just fill out the form below and tell us:
“What would you spend your $50 dish’d voucher on?”
This competition is now closed – congratulations to our winner Carly Harris.
Terms & Conditions
- Entrants must live in Victoria (sorry it’s Vic only due to state legislations).
- This competition closes at 8pm, Tuesday 16 December 2014.
- All prizes are randomly selected and all winners will be notified via email.
- To qualify to enter you must fill in the entry form below and be a subscriber of Meetoo.
- One entry per household permitted.
- By entering this competition you agree to be automatically subscribed to Meetoo (if you are not already a subscriber). Your privacy is protected and your email address will not be used for anything other than notifying winners directly and, where applicable, being subscribed to Meetoo.
Brought to you by Nuffnang and dish’d.
