Here To Eat: Ace Eats America 10 Plates at a Time

Price: $2.00
Rating: *** / *****

The Lean Cuisine section at my local supermarket is quite the monolith to sort through. I feel like Beethoven's 9th symphony is going to burst out from behind the freezer and a band of employees are going to reach their arms out to take me into their lair. Or something along those lines. It is a daunting task to choose from the selection, I have literally stood there for minutes as small children walked by to laugh at my statuesque gaze.

I finally decided on Asian-Style beef and rice this time. I said, "Hey, I'm Asian. I like beef. I like rice. I like the concept of being lean. I like cuisine. I like the chopsticks in this picture. What can go wrong?" The answer? Not a whole lot, as it turns out. It can certainly be improved, though. The rice was nice and fluffy, though they could have tried to pack in more to round the dish out. There was actually more beef than rice, which is nice but a bit too heavy. The beef isn't actually real slices of beef, which is to be expected. It is "seasoned cooked beef product", but it actually tasted pretty nice. The sauce had a bit of hoison sauce and salted plum, giving it a distinct edge and pleasantly bitter ending note.

The veggies included broccoli, red peppers, carrots, and water chestnuts. I haven't had many experiences with water chestnuts, but I was surprised by how crispy it stayed even after microwaving in sauce. Unlike other nuts, it has a very light and refreshing flavor, coming closer to fresh jicama or daikon radish. The other vegetables weren't very noticeable.

I have a beef(very intended) with the picture provided. It shows the dish being served with thin chopsticks. I submit that the somewhat wet rice is impossible to eat with any sort of chopsticks, and I felt a bit foolish putting the plate to my mouth and scooping it in. Surely the people at Lean Cuisine don't expect the average consumer to do this. Maybe they just have a lot of pranksters at their test kitchens. I will club the bones of their children and eat the marrow if I find them!

* note: the editor of Here To Eat does not condone kidnapping and eating children unless provoked

Posted by Anthony Nguyen on Sunday, December 03, 2006 at 9:16 AM | Permalink