bistromdreviews - Tumblr blog

[bistromdreviews]

Bistromd Thoughts/Tips/Tricks

1. If you get the snack plan: The protein bars are all delicious. The jerky, nuts, and granola are solid. Avoid the bags of what I call “chip substitutes” at all costs. They have a weird grainy texture that is reminiscent of eating sand and they don’t taste very good. 

2. The algorithm which generates your “dietician recommended” menu each week doesn’t take into account your preferences or try to avoid repetition at all, so going in and customizing each week’s menu is essential. (It will not put on things that you have removed from your approved meals, but that’s about the extent of consideration it will give). If you don’t do this, you will end up with the same blackened tilapia and peppercorn beef dishes every single week. 

3. Do not start your first week until the Saturday after it arrives. If you start earlier, there’s a good chance you’ll run out of food between weeks since the boxes may come anytime between Tuesday and Saturday. Personally, I find it hard to go on and off the plan and prefer to not have gaps. If you feel the same, you’ll want to start on Saturday. 

4. I suggest trying everything once, but don’t kid yourself or push yourself too hard in the beginning. Overall, the food is pretty good, but if, like me, you don’t like salmon, it’s probably not going to make you like salmon. But the white fish options are edible, if not my favorite. 

5. If you don’t like something, remove it in the preferences section immediately. This goes along with tip #2. Even if you’re so-so on something, don’t think that the algorithm will automatically send it to you only very rarely. You can always add things back to your approved list, but simply giving things a low rating will not effect how often you receive it. Remove things you’re unsure if you like and then add them back to the approved list if you find you need more variety later. 

[bistromdreviews]

Stuffed Grape Leaves With Tomato Sauce

I had high hopes for this dish based on the photo online. But it wasn’t all that great. Not horrible, just not that great. The grape leaves fall apart the minute you try to eat them, leaving this as really nothing more than another ground beef dish. And, don’t get me wrong, I love ground beef, but they have a lot of other dishes that do it better. The grape leaves add nothing to it and it really just sort of feels like eating chunky spaghetti sauce. I’d have rather had the old standbys of green beans or broccoli instead of the mushy squashy vegetable medley. 

2.0/5.0

[bistromdreviews]

Stuffed French Toast

This should be delicious. 

And it’s good. But not one of my favorite breakfasts they offer. It felt really heavy for a breakfast and is the only time I’ve felt like I was given too much food for the meal. The side dish of sweet potatoes is huge (good, but huge). Sandwiched in between the pieces of french toast is a kind of cinnamon cream cheese, and it’s not bad, but it could use a little more flavor. I might try adding some extra cinnamon to beef up the flavor next time. i also might eat this as a lunch or dinner because it just feels too heavy for breakfast for me. But it’s definitely good and I’ll be keeping in my rotation. 

4.0/5.0

[bistromdreviews]

Salmon With Bell Pepper Coulis

Going into this I had no idea what a coulis was. And after eating it I still have no idea what a coulis is. Obviously it’s some type of sauce, but honestly it didn’t taste much like bell peppers to me. Ultimately, the flavor wasn’t bad but it wasn’t strong enough to mask the salmon flavor for a person who doesn’t really like salmon much (as opposed to the blackened salmon which does a great job of this). It’s a shame the main dish isn’t better because the side dish, a quinoa/bean mix is delicious (it seems to be basically the Quinoa salad that they offer as full entree). This one just doesn’t work for me but it might work for someone who really likes salmon. 

1.0/5.0 

REMOVED

[bistromdreviews]

Breaded Catfish with Tartar Sauce and Slaw

The catfish is okay if you drown it in the tartar sauce. What ruins this dish is the sides. The slaw would be more accurately described as boiled cabbage, which is technically not a misnomer, but I think it’s purposefully misleading because when most people think “slaw” they think “cole slaw” and cole slaw this most definitely is not. But the real tragedy here is the sweet potatoes, which they’ve ruined by drowning them in very spicy herbs. In my opinion that is just not the way sweet potatoes are meant to be eaten. 

1.0/5.0 REMOVED

[bistromdreviews]

African Peanut Stew

This dish sounds weird...and it is. I find myself completely unable to describe the taste. I got a hint of peanuts, but the overwhelming flavor was something else. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. The stew shares just one compartment with plain brown rice and there are no other side dishes, which does nothing to raise it’s rating for me. If you’re going to have no side dishes, then the main dish better be delicious, and this one isn’t. My recommendation is to steer clear. 

1.0/5.0 BINNED and REMOVED

[bistromdreviews]

Hickory Smoked BBQ Beef with Yukon Gold Potatoes

The BBQ sauces is nice and sweet, just how I like it. The beef was a wee bit fatty, but it’s fairly easy to ignore because the sauce is so delicious. It’s always nice to get potatoes (carbs!!) and the green bean side is solid, as usual. I see this dish as having mass appeal, I think most people would enjoy it.  

5.0/5.0

[bistromdreviews]

Sweet Onion Frittata

Not bad. But not good either. The onion flavor is VERY strong, and it’s not as if they didn’t warn me, but it’s just too much for me personally. It also has kind of a…gooey consistency when you cut into it, which I found unappealing.

2.5/5.0 (REMOVED – but may be my own personal taste)

[bistromdreviews]

Smoked Chipotle Pork and Eggs

The pork is VERY spicy. Not bad, just very spicy. Too spicy for my stomach to handle, especially at breakfast. Sadly, the egg underneath does nothing to make the dish more appealing to me…it’s a strange little egg pattie which reminds me of mcdonald’s mcmuffin eggs but not as good tasting. Well, not tasting at all, it was pretty flavorless (seems to just be egg whites). It’s a shame because the corn and bean salad side dish was delicious.

2.0/5.0 REMOVED – but only because it was way too spicy for me.

[bistromdreviews]

Blackened Tilapia with Red Pepper Coulis

Not to be confused with the disgusting Tilapia with Smoky Tomato Sauce, this is a really solid tilapia dish. It’s simple, and some might find that boring, but for me it was genius in it’s simplicity. Not trying too hard to be fancy or exciting. It just says “Hey I’m a tilapia fillet, sup?” The bean and rice side dish has an equally simple flavor palate, but it’s real carbs and that’s exciting on a diet like this, which often subs out rice with cauliflower crumbles. Side number two is basic broccoli.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

[bistromdreviews]

Sliced Roast Beef with Red Wine Demi

Tasty. Unlike the Beef and Vegetable Stew with Burgundy wine, this dish has just the slightest hint of alcoholic aroma and flavor, and it’s just enough. The dish is greatly helped out by the mashed potatoes (always exciting when one is on a diet) and also includes the standard green beans. It’s just…good.

5.0/5.0

[bistromdreviews]

Sliced Ham with Mustard Maple Sauce

When they say Ham, boy, do they mean HAM. This ham doesn’t just taste like ham, it jumps off the plate and starts beating you up while screaming “SAY MY NAME!” I’ve never had ham with such a strong ham flavor and, for me, it was just way, way too much. Ditto on the mustard sauce (which has no notes of maple in my book). Too strong, too sour, not sweet enough. The two veggie side dishes are basic, but solid.

Rating: 0.5/5.0 (half point for the solid sides) REMOVED.

[bistromdreviews]

Ham and Potato Egg Scramble

This is the kind of dish that’s hard to screw up and, thankfully, bistroMD doesn’t. The ham and potato scrambled eggs are tasty and do not taste artificial or “instant.” The best part, though, is the cinnamon apple side dish. Who doesn’t love cinnamon apples? Dessert for breakfast? Yes, please.

5.0/5.0

[bistromdreviews]

Tilapia with Smoky Tomato Sauce

It’s not so much smoky as burned. The sauce has a disgusting burned flavor. I like tilapia, but I hated this dish because the sauce made it taste so disgusting. The little corn mush triangle side dish is completely flavorless. The green beans are fine, I’m sure, but I never found out -this is one of the few dishes that went into the trash can almost immediately.  

0.0/5.0 (BINNED and REMOVED)

[bistromdreviews]

Beef with Green Peppercorn Sauce

This dish tastes…familiar. I don’t know what peppercorn sauce is, but it must be a really common sauce for beef dishes because I feel I’ve had it many times before. It’s like the standard beef stew taste. Not going to blow your mind with its inventiveness, but it’s a solid entrée. Side dish number 1 is mixed veggies (mostly broccoli) and, like all the bistromd veggies, it’s tasty (I think they must put butter or something on them). Side number two is a bit more adventurous – sweet potato mash with a citrus flavor. Whether you like it or not will mostly come down to whether or not you like sweet potatoes and citrus fruit. I love both these things, so I thought it was tasty, if a little bit mushy (sweet potato chunks would have been better in my opinion).

Rating: 4.5/5.0

Note: This dish is one of what I call the bistromd staple dishes, which basically means that it’s always available and the algorithm will put it on your menus very frequently unless it is removed.