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| We need to talk about noodles... |
Despite their best efforts to make it easy for me to plug their product (no I won't just 'copy and paste this press release onto my blog') I usually either turn these down or take them on condition I can review anonymously (and then only if I really like the sound if it and it's somewhere I would eat anyway).
As a reader, you'll know when I've done it as there will be a disclaimer at the bottom. I'm always honest, and sometimes it can really backfire on the restaurant. So you need to pay it back for me. Go and eat out somewhere, that's an order. It's the start of the month and you've just been paid. There are bound to be some great new restaurants. Or you could stay in and get a takeaway…
On with the challenge!
Coincidentally, I was recently invited by takeaway aggregator JUST EAT to sample a range of the takeaways they represent (and in doing so review their takeaway technology). I've used the site before, quite liked it and so once we'd ascertained that I wouldn't just copy and paste a press release onto my blog, we briefly discussed how this could work.
Eventually, we came up with the idea of a Chinese Challenge (to be followed up with other cuisines over time). JUST EAT would credit an account with enough for me and an assembled crowd to try four or five different takeaways and we'd judge them on a range of criteria on the same night.
It worked, to a point. The site itself is a real boon. It's easy to use and navigate, allowing you to see and select from the menus of hundreds of takeaways that deliver in your area. The problem, as always, is quality. With so many to choose from, you're either reliant on prior experience, or the sites own, less than ideal, customer (more on that later) star rating system.
In order to standardise the Challenge, we went for Chicken Chow Mein as the control dish. Apparently Britain's most popular takeaway dish (oh you imaginative folk…) when done well, it's a thing of simple beauty. Crisp and crunchy bean sprouts married with soft noodles, cut with garlic, spring onion and chilli, braised with soy and scattered with chunks of flavoursome chicken. What's not to like? To contrast with that we also grabbed a special from each of the restaurants and divided the starters and rice up among the orders. Orders went in within 10 minutes of each other, we sat back with Tsing Tao and awaited a noodley landslide.
On the judging panel:
Semi-regular dining companions Dr Vole and Nicco Polo (a man of extensive Oriental travel and chowing experience), The Cousin (Oscar Wilde with better skin), The Professional (food PR by day, vigilante by night) and The Velo-Raptor. We all know our Chow Mein from our Cheung Fun and three of the six had been to China before. We know Chinese food… But was that going to help here? This was a war of attrition, with voting cards. And prawn crackers.
Takeaways by order of arrival:
Oriental Star (Ordered at 20:41, arrived at 21:10, 29 minutes)
Key elements: Chow Mein and 'special' Chinese curry. Guilty pleasure - I've always been a fan of the Chinese curry. A bizarre variant on the Katsu style Japanese curry, with added raisins. Nothing special about either of the dishes, but it arrived reasonably quickly and tasted freshly cooked. This was a pretty decent stab at the standard Chinglish.
Wuli Wuli (Ordered at 20:33, arrived at 21:25, 52 minutes)
Chow Mein and Sichuan Aubergine with Minced Pork, half aromatic crispy duck. A slight cheat here, Wuli Wuli came near the top of the list, but is also a regular favourite of ours due to its excellent home style Sichuanese menu. It didn't disappoint. Aromatic duck was (barring an obscenely sweet, thankfully meagre portion of hoisin sauce) one of the better versions I've had in this country. Chunks of slow cooked creamy aubergine were the perfect foil to a dense and meaty pork mince and the Chow Mein was fresh, spicy and grease-free.
Spring Way (Ordered at 20:25, arrived at 21:45, 80 minutes)
Chow Mein and Special Chicken with Pak Choy. "Sorry mate, we're facking busy..." Unfortunately not busy enough to learn to cook. Definitely the worst of the bunch. Greasy Chow Mein with burnt oil (or possibly diesel) notes was marginally better than it's accompanying chicken with Pak Choy, saltier than Del Boy's Uncle Albert and half as authentic. Virtually untouched and entirely unloved. A bonus point for oddly moreish prawn toast, immediately removed for the portion of pre-loved pork 'rib' made entirely of knuckle.
Kam Foh (Ordered at 20:45, arrived at 22:20, 95 minutes!)
Chow Mein, 'Szechwan' Beef and Chicken with Cashew and Yellow Bean Sauce. Possibly better than Spring Way, though our tortured taste buds were definitely struggling to tell at this point. The chilli doused beef was plain nasty and the rest was generic, somewhat watery and very, very late... If this had been our only order, the 95 minute wait would have been a real deal breaker.
No go: Sun Kong (ordered at 20:37, order rejected as we were 'Too far to travel'.) Given it's around a mile away, I put this down to a polite way of saying we're too busy.. )
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| Our notes - Scientific! |
We challenged them. It was 8.30 on a Friday night. Prime delivery territory (with waits to match). And they didn't all step up to the challenge sadly… If I had to wait over an hour and a half for a delivery meal, no matter how good it was, I'd be seriously dubious about using that takeaway again.
The JUST EAT site works well, to a point. The menus are a godsend, there are a lot of restaurants listed and it's very easy to use. The 'but' however is a pretty big one. The recommendations and star ratings are beyond the worst excesses of TripAdvisor bad and desperately need sorting out. To give one example of how badly they've been gamed, the worst of our restaurants (Spring Way) has over 550 reviews and an average of 5 out of 6 stars. One reviewer Tinabao, loved it so much he ate from there 5 times in three days, including 3 times within the space of less than 4 hours. Now that's a dedicated food fan.
Would I use JUST EAT again? Certainly. Would I plan on using it to discover new restaurants? Probably not.
Disclaimer:
I was invited to do a round up by the team at JUST EAT who credited a voucher into an account for us to use. They didn't select the restaurants, we went with the site's top recommendations for our area.
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| The winning Chow Mein... |
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| And one of the horrors... |
You got a bunch of free food - what's your problem?
ReplyDeleteUm... It's a comparison test? Just because it's free, doesn't automatically make it good. Besides, the restaurants have no idea, so this is the food (or approximation thereof) that they'd serve you happily in exchange for your hard earned pennies. Wouldn't you prefer to know that the quality might vary?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI read your post twice and still can't make out where the winning Chow Mein came from, I mean the one on the pic with the word 'winning' under it. The colours on the pic look like it's a Wuli Wuli grub, which is has gone from all right to horrendous over the past few months IMO, but then again what the heck do I know. Could you spell out where the winner came from? Ta.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused. Which restaurant won? Oriental Star or Wuli Wuli?
ReplyDeleteThe winning Chow Mein came from Wuli Wuli... definitely the best of the bunch for all of us.
ReplyDelete@Girlontherun - Thanks for commenting. It's the first one I've had from WW for a while and haven't noticed a drop in quality (though I've never been a massive fan of their Cantonese stuff) Have you moved to another takeaway? Is there somewhere else we should have tried?
Rich
Wuli Wuli is great! I went there for my first Chinese New Year in London and we weren't disappointed.
ReplyDeleteFuck just eat. Just order direct and stop helping yet another middle man fleece the hard working for providing a "service". All this country is is middle men taking their 10%!
ReplyDelete@ Irina - Thanks for reading and yes, it's definitely the best in the area...
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous - I think that's the point, they're providing a service. If you want to order directly, order direct. If restaurants don't want to be listed, then they don't have to be listed.
Personally speaking, I appreciate having the menus aggregated in one place and if they had a better recommendations system, then I'd use it regularly as a trusted resource to find new takeaways that I don't currently use.
Agree with GG, no one forces a takeaway to be listed, I would imagine most appreciate having another avenue for customers to find them and place an order.
ReplyDeleteI reviewed the service too and like GG I think there are positives and negatives. I find ordering straightforward, even when takeaway phone lines might be busy and I appreciate being able to pay by card in advance - I don't always have cash to hand. But it's not possible to order variations on the menu, as I do with regular providers who I know don't mind swapping greenpeppers for mushrooms, for example.
I'd never look at the reviews or ratings to select a takeaway, as they're just too subject to abuse. In that sense, it's as it was before, in the world of leaflets through the door - if it appeals I'll try it once, if it's shit I won't use it again.
:-)