Category Archives: Food

Food

Eat chicken, leek & bacon risotto soup review – Big Bold @eat_news

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Description: From Eat: “Our version of an Italian classic – rich and creamy, with chicken, smoked bacon and a splash of white wine. Garnished with rice.” About right, although I’d question ‘rich’.

Health: Not great. 425 calories for 16oz, high on saturated fats and salt, low on fibre and protein.

Taste: Not that impressed. Given the nutritional content and description you’d expect something luxuriant and rich – but the thin soup with stingy bits of chicken and fatty pancetta don’t quite live up to the hype. Salty moreishness makes it more than edible, but the substance – isn’t really there.

Full-o-meter: Not great, as you’d imagine, given the description. Wonder if some grated cheddar or parmesan would have been a more sensible topping, and if they’d gone less heavy on water, milk and stock and more generously with meat and veg…

Verdict: 3/5. Tasty-ish, but not that substantial and really not that special by the standards I’ve become accustomed to. Not actively bad, though.

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Pret Malaysian chicken soup review

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This one’s a couple of day’s late – sorry – been a bit manic.

Worth flagging that I had this at least in part to contrast with Eat’s chicken laksa soup – a very, very tasty Eat option which only scored low for me beccause it scores so high on the saturated fat front…

Description: A coconut based Malay-style curry of a soup thick with rice. Pret lists ingredients: chicken, rice, coconut milk, onion, garlic, fish sauce, lime juice, lemon grass, red chilli and galangal.

Health: Not bad at around 243 calories. Pret’s soups and portions seem to be better suited to healthy eating than Eat’s.

Taste: It tasted of disappointment. Thick with rice, thin on chicken and flavouring, this slurry was as far removed from Malaysia as I am (I’m Malaysian, but live in London). Boo. What a let down.

Full-o-meter: With roll, it was fine. Not great; the absence of fibrous vegetables and even enough chicken results in this not feeling like the most wholesome of soups.

Verdict: 2/5. Shame on you, Pret. You can (and usually do) do better.

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Eat chorizo and chickpea soup review – Big Bold @eat_news

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Hmm, new soup day! Excitement!

Description: From Eat: “A hearty and warming soup packed with chorizo, chickpeas and tomatoes with a hint of smoked paprika and red chilli. Garnished with flat leaf parsley.” Yep, about right!

Health: Big on most nutritional fronts – Big Bold was the biggest I allowed myself at 374 cals for the 16 oz portion. Salt also slightly off the charts but not too bad on other fronts.

Taste: It feels a bit unfair to score this against Pret when Eat has been a little cheap in winning the taste war by adding loads of salt. That said, it’s also much fuller of chorizo and chickpea than the Pret alternative (ok, so that had – a few – butterbeans instead of chickpeas) – but probably does win out on salty, spicy, tomato & sausagey goodness.

Full-o-meter: Good – I think. I’ve been a bit rubbish on the diet lately and got it with some rye bread. But the chickpea/fibre in it will make it work.

Verdict: 4.5/5. Definitely has an edge over the Pret alternative and definitely worth having again.

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Eat vegetable gyoza dumpling soup pot review – @eat_news

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Late night on Thursday, so Friday saw me craving some salt – a new ‘soup pot’ at Eat appealed… For those not in the know, this is where hot salty broth is poured into a pot full of cold ingredients to make instant soup.

Description: Salty moreish soup broth poured on egg noodles, bean sprouts, chinese cabbage and other veg, topped with hearty meaty yet inexplicably vegetarian gyoza.

Health: Soup pots are normally pretty healthy from Eat, but this one, in addition to the salt explosion, also hits quite high on cals at 473 for the pot.

Taste: Pretty darn tasty – I generally tire of soup pots as they degenerate into salty stock when you run out of the rest of the veg, filling, etc. but this one seems better proportioned. The gyoza are very tasty, filled with soy or quorn possibly to give them a meaty texture without the meat. Veg are fresh and crunchy and the egg noodle provides substance.

Full-o-meter: Pretty good – this is a big portion with a good half-dozen gyoza in the pot in addition to veg, noodle, etc.

Verdict: 4/5. My new favourite soup pot, even in spite of its vegetarian-ness, although the broth based nature of the soup makes it appeal less than their usual ‘big bold’ options.

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Pret chorizo & butterbean soup review

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Although today Eat has a favourite of mine on the menu, I decided to try something different in Pret’s Chorizo & Butterbean soup.

Description: A tomato-based soup with healthy amounts of tasty chorizo and the occasional butterbean. Pret’s ingredient list includes: chorizo, butterbean, garlic, celery, tomato, organic vegetable bouillon, smoked Spanish paprika, cracked black pepper, thyme, rosemary and sage.

Health:With roll, this is only just over 400 calories, (the soup itself just 180) so its a pretty low cal option. Lowish on sodium and fat too. Reasonable fibre owing to butterbeanishness.

Taste: I wish I could do a comixed strip to describe this, because… at first I was like “Meh, tomato soup with stuff in…” and then I was like “Not bad.” The chorizo is present in goodly amounts and is well flavoured (maybe its the smoked paprika?)… if I were to find some faults it would be that (a) there were only four butterbeans in it (seriously, they cost nothing, nothing!) and (b) its not that hearty as a consequence. But maybe I’m spoiled by Eat.

Full-o-meter: With roll, ample. With more than four beans, even better (maybe I just got a sucky draw).

Verdict: 4/5. Not bad at all. Would have again.

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Pret chilli beef soup review

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I’ve been ill over the weekend so I indulged with a soup bread roll from Pret today as well as the soup. Greedy, eh?

Description: In a word, this is a Chilli. Slightly on the mild side, but unmistakably chilli. Pret’s website lists ingredients: beef, rice, kidney beans, tomato, onion, celery, red chilli, garlic, organic vegetable bouillon, cumin, paptika and cayenne pepper.

Health: 270 calories for a 14 oz portion… high fibre, protein, low on most other fronts… although a bit high on the salt for by Pret’s standards. The Artisan roll clocked up another 200 or so calories with butter, so that nailed my sub-400 calorie lunch target…

Taste: Amazing. Even better than Eat’s version, which is one of my favourite Eat soups!

Full-o-meter: Hard to tell, having had the bread as well. Feeling stuffed after the soup and the bread portion…

Verdict: 5/5. For me, this is a perfect lunchtime soup. Absolutely delicious, good health balance… Well done Nick Sandler!

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Pret sausage hot pot soup review

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My massive wedding blog post is still in production (will try to finish it off this weekend) but I’m back and eating soup for lunch again!

Another Pret day today (Eat’s soup was French Onion, not a fan) and Nick Sandler’s soup again. Hi Nick!

Description: A chunky, tomato based soup with good amounts of sausage and beans. Pret’s website lists ingredients: sausage, cannelini beans, tomato, red wine, onion, garlic, leek, worcester sauce, celery, organic vegetable boilloun, butter, parsley, rusk, thyme, bay leaf & sage.

Health: 278 calories for a 14 oz portion, so not bad. A bit high on the salt for the portion size, but not terrible. Sat fat not great, but really not bad at all.

Taste: Nice. Tomato-y, sausagey, beany. A bit sweet for my liking; could probably double up as a pasta sauce.

Full-o-meter: Pret’s soups are still too small!

Verdict: 3.5/5. Solidly good, but not as interesting/inspired as their Moroccan chicken.

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Eat chicken and garden vegetable broth review – Very Big Bold @eat_news

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Description: From Eat – “A hearty broth packed with loads of chunky vegetables, shredded chicken breast and fresh herbs. Garnished with freshly chopped flat leaf parsley and chives.” Hmm, ‘hearty’ and ‘broth’ I think are contradictictory in this case, but otherwise, yep, about right.

Health: Pretty good – only 404 calories for the Very Big size… and good amounts of protein and fibre. But as with all Eat soup, salty in the extreme – 2101mg of sodium!

Taste: Meh. Like chicken stock with meat and veg in it. Salt makes it moreish but the watery broth is not something I’m keen to return to without some kind of spicy kick to make it interesting (like the Pho soups have).

Full-o-meter: Decent at Very Big Bold size. At only 202 calories for the Bold you’d need bread to keep you going.

Verdict: 2.5/5. There’s nothing wrong with this soup, really, I just don’t like boring old chicken and vegetable broth. Should have risked the Sweet potato and chilli that @ahadfromcheam went for…

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Crussh chicken chilli stew review – medium

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On @LicenceToGil’s recommendation I discovered that Crussh had a shop near me so I called them up to establish the soup offerings were worthwhile and popped on over. Frustratingly, they didn’t warn me they were running out so only got a ‘medium’ – not enough for a normal sized man, but OK when supplemented with some sushi, it turns out.

Description: From Crussh: “This is a Crussh Original, Our chicken chili stew started out as a seasonal soup. But you missed it so much we had to bring it back, according to you it’s a soup for all seasons.” Popular it seems. Yes, it’s a chilli (in the Mexican sense of the word), but with chicken instead of beef.

Health: Pretty good on all counts – the medium is only loaded with 155 calories – low on sat fats, etc. But quite heavy on the salt – 1200mg or so!

Taste: Really very good. It tastes exactly like it sounds – a chicken chilli. As ever, I’d be happier with more spice, but good amount of meat, and nicely textured and spiced otherwise.

Full-o-meter: Meh. Only 12 oz portion to go on so hard to tell.

Verdict: 4/5 – tasty, but small portion, large amount of salt, a longer walk from work, and costing significantly more than Eat (£3.15 for 16 oz) and Pret (2.99 for 14 oz) at £3.60 for a 12 oz portion, I’m not sure I’m going back anytime soon.

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Eat chicken laksa soup review – Big Bold @eat_news

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Description: From Eat – “A Malaysian classic…lots of noodles and chicken in a spicy coconut creamy soup. Garnished with spring onion, spinach and freshly chopped coriander.” Hrm, as a Malaysian I have to point out that this only bears a slight resemblance to a proper laksa. But that’s not necessarilly a bad thing.

Health: Just bad. For soup, I mean, which is still better than most sandwiches, but whilst the 367 calories is low for a lunchtime meal, the 1000+mg of sodium, the 11g of saturated fat, and the low fibre content loses this points.

Taste: Salty, chickeny, creamy, coconutty tastiness. Nothing bad about ths smooth noodle texture and the rich tasting chicken. Could do with a bit more spice to bring it to Malaysian Laksa standards, but imagine it has been toned down for the general population.

Full-o-meter: Ok ish, but I suspect I’m going to be hungry in an hour. The coconut in the soup stock makes it quite heavy for a small pot of soup.

Verdict: 3.5/5. Would get a 4 if it was healthier, as tasty, and will have it again in spite of myself.

Will try to compare this with the Pret variant, but with the wedding coming up next Saturday it may have to wait until my return from the Far East…