Mr Wilkinson and I have been confined to barracks for what seems like forever, but I don't like to complain since I'm in a much happier situation than many people, living in the countryside, surrounded by open spaces and fresh air, and whilst we keep our health and strength, it's not really much of a hardship.
But we've missed eating out, and so when I saw on Saturday kitchen last week that some restaurants are doing home deliveries I thought we might give it a try. We're not fans of fast food and anyway they don't "deliveroo" to places out in the sticks like us. But we do like Rick Stein's restaurant and have visited several of his establishments when visiting Padstow.
So all you do is peruse the menu online decide what and when, and place your order at
Rick Stein Restaurant Dining at Home and lo and behold on the appointed day a nice man from DPD arrives with your dinner in a box.
The menus are three courses and serve two people, so you have to agree what you can both eat, and prices go from around £40 up to £100 if you go for the luxury option of lobster. We went for the hake menu. We decided that we would make an occasion of it and dress up a bit, (not tiaras and elbow length gloves but yes I would take my wellies off) and have a bottle of champagne and some candles on the table.
So Friday morning arrived and Rick's smart looking box arrived bright and early. It even includes a printed menu with instructions on the back.
To be honest the contents didn't look all that exciting and I couldn't help thinking how much more I could have got for the money. The thing about being a keen cook yourself is you can end up in a restaurant thinking to yourself, I could have made a better job of this myself, so I tend to order stuff that I either can't easily produce in my own kitchen or maybe haven't had before, or something that's a lot of trouble to do at home. I think Mr Wilkinson was a a bit disappointed too, but for a different reason. He's not a cook, and was surprised to find just a box full of stuff you have to do something with. I think he thought he would open the box and Rick would spring forth saute pan in hand! No such luck, but everything is prepared and ready to serve or cook, packed in little bags and plastic containers, properly chilled with a freezer pack and hefty foil insulating material. Even down to the salad in a bag and accompanying vinaigrette in a little pot.
As I said, when I eat out I like to have things that I can't easily produce at home, or that I wouldn't often have. Since I regularly make smoked mackerel pate and sticky toffee pudding I had to do a little comparison.
I thought Rick's smoked mackerel pate was nicer than the one I normally make, lighter and more delicate my excuse being that Rick probably has access to better quality smoked mackerel than the ones I normally get from Sainsburys.
The hake and the piperade for the main course were just delicious. My rubbish photo doesn't do it justice. The sticky toffee pudding although very nice was not quite up to our famous family version, though the clotted cream was lovely.
But putting such pickiness aside we had a lovely evening, it's really easy, everything's pretty well done for you, and you can put a lovely meal on the table without getting stuff on your posh frock.
Plus it got us out of a rut, - we even put some Michael Buble on and had a dance around the kitchen.
And Mr Wilkinson even loaded the dishwasher.
I highly recommend it.
I'm not sure if the plastic pots are recyclable but I've washed them for re use and the cardboard box went out to the veg garden to mulch some weeds, the chill pack is in the freezer for re use for picnics. The foil insulation will make a lovely insulating cover round my beehive although I would need two to go right round the hive so maybe we will need to make another order...
