Ayin and I wanted to do more cooking at home, so we did a few recipes that we found, and they were good. But then we were like, “What about a Blue Apron kind of thing, preplanned meals that we cook? Stuff we’d never think of?”
That sounded good so we tried two of the most highly-rated services, Home Chef and Sunbasket. (We tried Blue Apron some time ago and I didn’t care for their meals.)
Sunbasket touts itself as gourmet (which it should at twice the price of Home Chef) and Home Chef’s vibe is…I don’t know, homey? So we looked forward to trying both.
We received Home Chef first and the first two meals we’ve made from it were excellent. We like it and may keep it and get one or two things from them every week. Maybe. We’ll try it for a month or so before we decide.
Sunbasket arrived today. The only problem with that is it was supposed to arrive on Wednesday, two days ago. I opened the box and it stank, bad. The frozen block packaging thing was cool but not cold. But it wasn’t rotten food we were smelling. It was a little jar of fish sauce that had broken and soaked everything.
We hadn’t even ordered a fish meal, it was just flavoring for something else. I don’t know what it was for, exactly, because we jettisoned the meals. I texted Sunbasket and said, “Uh, no thanks,” and called it a day.
I know Sunbasket doesn’t control FedEx, and there probably wasn’t anything they could have done about the lukewarm package of food. But the broken jar of fish sauce, I have to think that’s on them.
And yes, I also know that things happen, but the stink and inconvenience just made me think, “Forget this place,” so I did. The meals were pretentious anyway and overly complicated for what they were (and again, twice the price of Home Chef). So maybe I was looking for an excuse to say ‘no.’ I can’t rule out that possibility.
But the winner at our house, by a mile, is Home Chef.
Appropos of nothing, but enough for a Saturday.
This has not been a paid promotional message. But, you know, if Home Chef wants to comp us some delicious meals…
