Looks: The entire dish lacks the shininess of the meal on the box; the ravioli look dry, and the vegetables appear mushy and overcooked. The sizing is right, but the ravioli filling isn’t as substantial as it should be. 3 out of 5
Taste: Meh. The ravioli are too chewy, and the filling has a bitter aftertaste. I did enjoy the sauce though – kind of sweet, but buttery. The cooked apples are a nice touch too, but there aren’t enough of them to make up for the lackluster pasta. 2 out of 5
Looks: You see how on the box, there’s one ravioli that’s cut open to show off the filling? You see how the one that I cut open fluffs up too to show the substantial filling? No? Yeah, that’s because there’s not nearly enough filling to get it to stay open like that. Other failings: the herbs look nothing like the fresh sprigs on the box, and the sauce is… lacking in texture, to say the least. 1.5 out of 5
Taste: Better than it looks. (SmartOnes meals are usually decent, so this isn’t surprising.) The filling is a dry ricotta mix, and the ravioli noodles have a decent bite to them. 3.5 out of 5
Looks: Once you’ve shaken them out of the can and swirled them around a bit, the ravioli do have the same basic shape as depicted on the wrapper, and the sauce is almost the right color. However, the meat inside is not a healthy brown, but rather a sickly gray. (The pasta too is miscolored – more a pasty white than a golden yellow.) Additionally, the sauce doesn’t coat the ravioli like it’s supposed to, and the pasta pieces are more like flared-out boxes of meat than fluffy little beef pillows. 2.5 out of 5
Taste: There isn’t much. The sauce is really the only thing with a flavor, so it’s a good thing it’s decent for having come out of a can that may have been on the shelf for years. The “pasta” is so soft that you can chew the whole meal with just your tongue and the roof of your mouth, so add another point to the score if you’re suffering from lockjaw. 1 out of 5
Preaching truth to packaging. Pictures of packaged food, cooked to specifications, compared to the photo on the box.
