FoodVood and What Not!

The other day I was shopping at a hyper-super store in my neighbourhood. It had everything starting from grocery items to pillows to rugs, every damn thing under sun available. As we made our way into the grocery aisles, I saw this young couple with a paper in hand, strutting from one rack to the other. A bit of a busybody that I am, I had to curiously overhear their conversations. The lady was diligently going from 1 rack to the other to find all Mexican things in the store. The guy was given tasks one after another to find an ingredient from the aisles surrounding them. It was fun to look at them. Finally the great Punjabi vein of the guy gave off the big words, “won’t it be better to make some samosas instead of enchiladas?” He was positively bummed, not the most fun part of a Saturday I believe. Plus the cost of every ingredient added up to a huge bill for him. After leaving the store, all he wanted was a samosa, and nothing else at all.

If this is a story that you have lived through a couple of times in your life, then you know how irritated you become after such a visit. And those ingredients that you bought in full packets of 500 gms to 1000 gms are still rotting in your cupboard, never used after that very first time.  So the need of the hour is to have these food delivery systems up which gives out pre portioned neat packets of raw materials, perfect for a couple who need to make and eat exotic, but don’t want to spend a weekend amassing the raw materials; and then storing the unused materials to rot. These delivery guys get you exactly the ingredients required to make a perfect candlelight dinner, without any hassles.

The owners of 1 such delivery system in Gurgaon got in touch with me for a review. They came with samples of many lunch ‘dabbas’ of exotic nature that they deliver to various offices nearby. But I was most excited to look at the kitchen kit that they bought along. They got me a kit for Mushroom Risotto, with pre portioned Arborio rice, mushroom, unpeeled garlic, salt, white pepper etc. The young owner seemed very enterprising. It was lovely catching up with him over a cuppa and homemade crackers. His food was decent, not at all oily. But the spicy quotient was a bit unbalanced which left many of the dishes flat. Fat and slim salad had an overload of garlic, and so I rather have that on toast as a bruschetta than alone as a salad. Similarly, the chilly paneer was really hot and needed something sweet to cool down! But I was most interested in the kit that was given. Arborio rice was of good quality. But the recipe card, though quite detailed with pictures of each step; had given a wrong recipe. Risotto for me is to be cooked bit by bit, splashing a ladle full of simmering stock. Not at all by cooking the rice first and then adding into a white cream based sauce. Never the less, the quality of ingredients really stood out. I just feel they need a bit more thought into the recipe. But for a start-up I think they have done better than usual. It is a good option to pre order lunch from their website, especially when in office you crave a new dabba now and then. They deliver in Gurgaon and can be reached at Foodvood.com.