Chef's Plate Meal Delivery Service [General]

2016 Mar 7
Continued from
Forum - Chef's Plate Meal Delivery Service - 4 free meal referral

I forgot to post the review of last weeks meals from Chef's Plate.

First up was Tilapia Piccata with Cauliflower rice.
There were 2 large pieces that are over 1 lb of tilapia. It was pretty tasty but I think I would prefer the traditional piccata sauce without the addition of chopped spinach and have the spinach on the side sautéed with a bit of garlic. The cauliflower rice was interesting and reasonably tasty but if I was doing this again for a quick dinner, I think I would have the sauteed spinach and some quinoa or couscous since it would be faster and easier. Dad did not like the piccata sauce since it was too sour for his taste so he left the spinach as well since it is in the piccata sauce.

The Garlic Pepper steak was pretty good but had to cook it for a little bit longer since parental units like their steak more cooked. I added another steak and the seasoning was enough for both steaks so we had enough to serve 3. The parsley roasted potatoes were a little fussy with having to boil the potatoes then roast them with the parsley so would probably just do wedges or chunks next time. Dad really disliked the Radicchio, likely due to the bitterness and mom said it is not her favourite part of the meal.. Which was the steak... Dad was so so about the steak.

sigh...


2016 Mar 8
FT, I am on the fence about next week's order so I had a look at Miss Fresh. The choices from there didn't look so great either. I am remembering about the discount so if I do order from them I will use it. What do you think?

2016 Mar 8
Hi FT,

I would personally wait till April or after to try miss fresh unless you found enough for 3 dishes that you love or you have a groupon you need to use up. I bought 1 for my sister as a gift which need to be used up so been looking at their recipes.

They sold something like 270 groupons for their meal service and they expire end of March. Not sure for delivery or for ordering. I think that is why they are putting more old recipes that use cheaper ingredients till this is passed. They have some nice older recipes but they seem not be using them and the repeats they used 1st 2 weeks of March most are meh. They are supposedly developing new recipes which you can tell by the recipe number when you check and they are currently in the 240s for new recipes. So anything less than that are retreads.

Have commented on 2 weeks of complete retreads early March which I think was pretty bad. They said they are developing recipes but I realized that it was also the time where a lot of school breaks are happening in Quebec so maybe their recipe developer was on holiday.

2016 Mar 9
FT, Thanks for that. I will wait to order from them. Kinda sleazy though to use cheap meals for groupon buyers. To know that makes me think twice about using them at all. I continue to be very happy with Chef's Plates and will be ordering from them for next week.

2016 Mar 9
It may be as they say that they are trying to figure out what the customer want now that they can choose the meals then being force into the 3 or 5 meal packs.

I am just a little annoyed that they only have only 1 or 2 interest meal/ ingredient in a week after starting with a week where there are 3 meals I liked but was forced to take 5 meals. If I can only find a couple of meals I like and their minimal meal is 3 I still have pick up extra meal to make the quota..

2016 Mar 10
I'll try to post a more detailed update on my Culiniste experience later, but the tl;dr version is that I prefer Chef's Plate. While I appreciate having 3 vegetarian options, the overall flavour profile and ingredient quality is better at Chef's Plate. I did email them to ask them to consider adding another vegetarian option, but their response wasn't the greatest. So if other Chef's Plate users would consider asking for more vegetarian options as well, that would be awesome.

2016 Mar 11
This week we had the Turkey Tikka Masala, which came with Naan, Steak and Horseradish Cream which came with sweet potatoes and swiss chard and Thai Mango Chicken. The chicken dish came with a large mango and in our opinion, was too much mango for the dish. I would make this again but use less mango and possibly add some cucumber. The steak dish was delicious. The turkey dish was good too but I would have liked some vegetables or something to go with it. I'm rather felt as though I were eating turkey soup with a hunk of bread, rather than a proper meal. However, in all cases the flavours were great.

2016 Mar 16
End up missing the deadline for this week last week while I was sitting on the fence a bit on the Southwest Steak salad and the Creole Baked Fish. Might be better this way since have to work down the freezer a bit to bring in 12 frozen meals from meals on wheels for parents while I am away.

Next week the couple of meals I liked did not fit the dietary restriction and have ordered Miss fresh instead.

SRS, I did inquire while asking for nutritional information from Jill/ Chef's Plate customer service that if they plan to increase the number of recipes. The feedback is that they they may offer more selection as they grow but there are no concrete plans. With only 4 non vegetarian option, sometimes it is a struggle to find even 2 that fits my parents dietary restrictions and one of their taste profiles lol.

I logged into my account and it seems that the new referral links are for 3 free plates ($33) off only now but original referral links for 4 free plates still seem to work...
www.chefsplate.com


2016 Mar 17
This week had the Creole Baked Fish - it was very tasty except there were too many spuds. That's saying something as I am a spud lover. The Pork Spring Roll Bowl was very good, but there were discrepancies in the amounts sent, both in overages and shortages. For example, they were to send 170 gm. of rice noodles, they sent 265 gm. The recipe card stated 4 tablespoons of plum sauce, I got a bit over 2 Tablespoons. There was also too much soy sauce. Tonight we had the Irish Chicken Pot Pie. I measured all the ingredients. There was to be 1 cup of biscuit mix, they sent 3/4 cup. They were also short on the green beans. The chicken dish itself was good, the dumplings were not. They were heavy but my ratios may have been off, given that the biscuit mix was less than what should have been sent.

I wrote to them and they are following up. They did state that the pre-measured ingredients are supposed to reflect what is on the recipe card. I think the "measuring people" are doing a bit of guessing.

So, to those of you who also use Chef's Plates, make sure you measure your ingredients.

2016 Mar 18
One of my first meals was the flat iron steak with polenta and greens and the cornmeal for the polenta was suppose to be 3/4 of a cup but the bag looked a bit light so I measured it and it was only 1/2 cup. The recipe asked for 3 cups of water but with the lower cornmeal, I checked on the internet and decided to do only 2 cups of water since the ratio seem to be 1/4 cup of corn meal for 1 cup of water. Mentioned to customer service not really to complain but asking should it have been 2 cup or 3 cup of water for the 1/2 cup of cornmeal delivered, did not get a definitely answer.

Most of the meals I choose did not have to be that precise but I tend to measure the protein since I assess if I want to add a protein or some sides to make it a meal for 3 sometimes. Chef's Plate delivers at least 5 oz of protein / serving for steak, around 5-6 oz / serving for poultry and once I had over a pound of tilapia for a meal for 2. A couple of times herbs or veggies seemed light but there were times they seem more than indicated.

I am pretty sure their packers are hourly employees that are paid minimal wage or pretty close to it. I suspect some after a few kits start to eyeball it then precisely measure everything.

Actually rice noodles tend to come in 1 lb packages at retail level and usually it is good for 4 people so I would actually expect a meal for 2 to be about 1/2 lb or around 225g. Some would have to estimate when they split a 1lb or larger package unless they took the time to scale everything which I doubt.

2016 Mar 23
Is anyone getting the sweet potato lakes from Chef's Plate?

2016 Mar 23
Sorry FF, got Miss Fresh this week.

2016 Mar 29
I tried them tonight:) I failed the first batch cause I didn't use enough olive oil:( The second batch however was very tasty, I switched to a nice coat of coconut oil. Would make again:) The kit came with neat stuff for serving, a dukkah nut and spice mix (interesting:))), mascarpone (I like it more in desserts, used salsa on the side instead, spriracha or sweet chilli would be nice too) and arugula (very fresh). Good service, don't order every week (glad they have the option) but like when they have something a little different to try:)

2016 Mar 30
Last week we had:

Cornmeal crusted fish tacos - would not make this recipe again . The fish needed a crispier coating plus I am not fond of raw kohlrabi in the salad topping. I got 1 1/2 teaspoons of chili powder instead of the 1 tablespoon advertised but I had some on hand and topped it up. On the other hand they sent over a pound of fish.

Havarti stuffed chicken supreme - this was really good and the card has gone into my Chef's Plate binder.

Sirloin steak and broccoli stir-fry - the steak that came with this order were sirloin steak strips, pre-cut at least 1/2" thick. Way too thick for a stir fry and predictably came out tough as nails. We really could not eat the meat. That was a shame because the rest of the dish was really good and I kept the recipe. Once again there was an ingredient shortage, in that the stated 1 1/2 tablespoons of sesame seeds as stated was 1 teaspoon in reality. 1 teaspoon was, however, enough.

I am writing to them again about the discrepancies in the measurements and am also adding a comment about the beef.