Eatwise, Longden Coleham
Driven entirely by my own laziness, I decided to start my Chinese adventure as locally as possible! Here’s hoping I solve this problem and find a great Chinese takeaway in one go, right?
Up until this point my laziness had driven me to only ever try the 2 or 3 takeaways on Just Eat, Shrewsbury Eats, Uber Eats, Shark ‘whatever they are called’ or one of those other total rip merchant delivery systems. For anyones info who cares, these sharks firstly charge a huge ‘set up fee’ to each restaurant to cover (and then exploit) the cost of some dodgy printer and what other pointless piece of technology they ‘have’ to install to fuel their thievery; they then charge each restaurant 20% of their takings for the pleasure of delivering the food cold, late and with some seriously bad delivery driver attitude!……I am so sorry that you struggled to find my house in the middle of a built up area, armed only with my accurate postcode, road name and full address……what’s that? You didn’t think to call me on the phone number I gave you……soz…..IDIOTS!
Of course, they then screw us (the end consumer) over by also charging a transaction fee and delivery charge for the privilege of all this nonsense. What it means is most restaurants just up their prices by 20% to compensate for it - no problem, right? Absolutely no problem if your food is any good. But upping the price this high soon starts to highlight the issues with your food and people start getting picky, resulting in the overall verdict on your food dropping considerably! Or is that only me?………..
Imagine how direct and to the point my blogs would be if I didn’t just get sidetracked by this kind of pure fury - anyway, hope you found that interesting and some level of inspiration to stick 2 fingers up to these con-men and get off your lazy backside and go direct to the takeaways to support them - just like I did with Eatwise, and every other Chinese on this list - because none of them are on those platforms - lovely stuff!
So, to the case in hand and what we are all here for; the food! Lets start with the menu…….massive as you would expect from a Chinese. The menu was suitably adorned with badly translated information - a positive sign if you ask me! ‘MEALS ARE INSTANTLY COOKED AND SUPPLIED WITH HYGIENIC DISPOSABLE CONTAINERS & PLASTIC CARRIER BAGS’ - all very much reassuring information. Although how instant is instant? I personally couldn’t wait to find out!
This place, as with so many Chinese takeaways is cash only - I knew this but still managed to arrive totally unprepared. All is not lost though - Spar is just over the road with a free cashpoint and gives you the perfect chance to buy some extra, unnecessary booze to have with your food!
The Order:
Crispy Szechuan Chilli Beef
Singapore Noodles
Sweet & Sour Chicken Cantonese Style (on recommendation)
King Prawn Egg Foo Yung
Vegetables with Cashew Nuts
Free Prawn Crackers
The Price:
£32.50 odd - something like that! Actually really good value!
This order was for 2 adults and one little muncher - seems like a lot of food; it was! But that was intentional - I want to try as much as I can and lets face it - do you buy a Chinese for the main meal or for the cold leftovers for lunch the next day? I know where I am sat and that is on the dining room table the day after eating out of the tubs with a kids spoon - Chinese food all over my face!
Overall, I thought this was a solid effort - would make a decent enough local. There wasn’t anything spectacular about it but also not much to moan about.
The food was all hot, tasted freshly cooked and served on time - which is always a good start. The seasoning was all good - again, nothing to be wowed by but actually as you would expect it to be.
Szechuan cooking is one of my faves. I love losing my head into a Szechuan Hot Pot - bobbing my sweaty head back up for air, much to the dismay of fellow diners before heading straight back in. Total confusion about whether I’m having the time of my life, need an ambulance or am in such pain that I’m heading straight for total delirium. If you aren’t familiar with what Szechaun is, its a province in China - the food is hot, spicy, pungent, garlicky and just about as exciting as food gets. The synonymous ingredient is Szechaun Pepper. I adore Szechuan pepper - it’s such an exciting ingredient to cook with! It’s a pepper corn that has a tingling, numbing effect - if you get hold of some, just pop them on your tongue for a minute and wait a moment. Nothing but exhilaration. When it comes to Szechuan cooking and in particular hot pots (hard to find proper ones over here because we are all massive wetters), I love the level of Szechuan pepper to be at the paralysing level. The sort of level that renders your bottom jaw completely floppy, leaving you with a massive struggle when it actually comes to eating the said hot pot. The hot pot billowing out of the sides of your mouth, forcing you to point your head to the sky to leave your bottom jaw more like a sort of bucket for you to pour hot pot straight into. Think about a pelican scooping up some fish. It’s that kind of effect. If you’ve had a few too many beers you might even consider doing your best Bubba Gump impression and totally isolate yourself from anyone in your close vicinity - if you get the urge, don’t do it, trust me!
The szechuan chilli beef at Eatwise was nowhere near this - but I don’t expect it to be. Like I said, we are wetters over here so everything gets dumbed down a bit. Still, it had a bit of a tingle and you could tell there was Szechuan pepper in it - so that’s not terrible. The beef itself was a little bit over fried - crispy to the edge of becoming a bit like a sort of tasteless beefy wotsit - but it carried the sauce and coating nicely - could have been better but not a deal breaker.
The sweet and sour chicken was a recommendation from one of you delightful people and I can see why - the chicken was really tender and the batter was crisp enough - once soaked in the sweet and sour gloop, how can it really be crispy? But it wasn’t heavy to eat which tells me it was definitely crispy at some point in it’s life. If there was a problem, it was the sauce. It really had the tell tale signs of a cheap bookers bought in sauce. Thick, clagging, super gloopy, slime. So sweet and so sour to ensure that no bacteria will be able to form a home for at least 10,000 years. When I lifted the lid and glimpsed at the colour, I first reached for my sunglasses, followed by a brief expectation for Egon Spengler to burst through the door playing Jackie Wilson shouting something about crossing his streams (if you are lost, go watch Ghostbusters).
The real winner of the meal was the Egg Foo Yung! Have any of you heard of this before? It was totally new to me - how have I missed it? I have no idea - but it was bloody delicious! Basically an egg omelette with tons of big juicy prawns in it - really well cooked. It was very reminiscent of my visit to China. I can remember being surprised with how many simple flavoured omelettes everyone was eating in China - and they were all super delicious! I was over the moon with this dish!
Everything else was very much middle of the road and solidly cooked/seasoned. The Singapore Noodles were tasty and the veg wasn’t too soft - still had a bit of life, and tasted like fresh rather than frozen veg.
The final test - the day after! The cold test. Fresh out the fridge, eaten straight out of the tub - pig at the trough style. It passed with flying colours - I think I actually preferred the sweet and sour sauce cold and out of the fridge - more spreadable and the cold had toned the over the top sweet and sour flavours down!
In terms of the food I think this was a solid start to my adventure. It exceeded my expectations (which weren’t excactly high) but we will see where this sits as my adventure continues. I can see it being somewhere I will use again - so that’s definitely a positive. I get a feeling that it is consistent - don’t ask me why, this is the only meal I have had from there but it just felt right!
The massive highlight is the value for money - £32 for all of that, and all cooked at a reasonable standard - that is a massive bonus and makes it a really attractive prospect for my regular return.
The best Chinese I have tried so far…..but joking aside, a good start that has left me with hope in my heart!
Roll on the next part to my adventure……….
