Frozen – Page 5 – Food In Real Life

Lean Cuisine Chicken in Peanut Sauce

Looks: The only difference from box to bowl is that the sauce is thicker in real life, and this gives the entire dish less of a “shiny” appearance and more of a “mucky” appearance, to use a technical term. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: Have you ever made a bowl of chicken, noodles, and vegetables, and then just for the heck of it, mixed in a few tablespoons of peanut butter? No? Because that would taste weird? Yeah, it would taste weird, wouldn’t it. If this meal came without the peanut sauce, it would probably rate a 3.5, but the thick peanut sauce was just too much like peanut butter. 2 out of 5

Lawson VL Mix Pizza

Today’s submission is from Shari, who blogs at Japanese Snack Reviews. She sent in these pictures and descriptions of a Japanese pizza.

Looks: “This is a tiny, tiny single serving pizza at 15 cm. (6 in.). There are perforations in the crust to allow for easy division of the pieces. It comes out of the toaster oven looking much sweatier (due to the grease) than the pizza on the package. The green pepper pieces are mere small shreds and there are no visible bits of red pepper. Perhaps the manufacturer was worried about lactose intolerance in Asian consumers and decided to use less cheese than the picture on the package would imply. The image looks like it has been shot through the kind of soft focus lens that is used to make wrinkles harder to see on aging actresses. The real pizza looks rather stark in comparison.” 3 out of 5

Taste: “The crust is really just very soft bread with a little sweetness to it. It’s common in Japan for sugar to be a bigger component in regular bread-based products and you can sense it in this pizza. The sausage is greasy and has the faintest whisper of pork taste, but really doesn’t taste like much of anything. Mainly, you taste the bread and the corn and get an oily mouth. The cheese is a minor textural element. It reminds me of the lame pizza bread I used to have in the elementary school cafeteria, only with more oil. Because of nostalgia, I’ll give it a 2 out of 5.”

If you’d like to see your food featured on FoodIRL, send pictures and descriptions to food@foodirl.com.

Lean Cuisine Baja-Style Chicken Quesadilla

Looks: I don’t know what kind of cutting and dividing they did for the box picture, but there’s only one quesadilla in the box. Its filling is pretty close to what you see on the package, but the cheese kind of overwhelms the other stuff as it melts, much like a volcano taking out Los Angeles with its lava. (Side note: the cheese filling is like lava in another way, in that it will melt your mouth if you eat it too soon after heating.) 4 out of 5

Taste: They should really call this a corn quesadilla, because all you taste is corn and cheese. It was still ok, but I wouldn’t have known there was chicken in it if I hadn’t seen it on the box. So if you like corn and you like cheese, you’ll love this meal. (If you don’t like corn or cheese, why did you buy a quesadilla that clearly contains both? Weirdo.) 3 out of 5

Lean Cuisine Macaroni & Cheese

Looks: Hallelujah, it’s the same as the meal on the box! Well, it’s a little more watery, but that’s it. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: I really like – wait, let me start over. I love macaroni and cheese. It’s possibly my favorite food. So when I saw that this macaroni and cheese looked quite appetizing after cooking, I got excited. I may have danced a little in my kitchen in anticipation. However, my glee was short-lived. Although it looks good, it has only slight cheese flavor, and the noodles themselves are somehow watery. (As in they squish out water when you bite into them.) Don’t make the same mistake I did – don’t get excited over this macaroni. 2.5 out of 5