A hookbone rising from my food, and all things either good or ungood

[venta]

At least once a week, I trundle straight from work onto a train and head off to a dance practice. Being the sort of person who likes meals at nice regular intervals, I pick something up in the station as I pass through. A few years ago, that basically meant Burger King or Upper Crust. These days there are the heady alternatives of M&S Food and Subway. My default choice for some time has been Subway, because it's hot (ie more like a meal, in my book), made from something at least resembling real food, and inexpensive.

For ages, I've been wondering why stations never sell proper, reasonably healthy, takeaway meals - a bowl of rice and curry, a bowl of pasta, a plate of noodles... sometimes you can get soup, but the UK's highstreets are mostly very low on decent street-food options.

I noticed recently a new kiosk was arriving in Reading. I was inclined to dislike it, because a number of bike-racks were demolished to make space for it. Reading does have a lot of bike-racks, but it also has a lot of bikes and space is a bit short. However, stomach overcame principles...

Stewed![*] has a pretty simple plan: make one-pot, stewy sort of meals, sell 'em in tubs to commuters. Yesterday, I paid £3.95 for a reasonable-sized tub of beef goulash and mashed potato, garnished with a spoonful of fresh veg, and jolly nice it was too.

Probably not nice in the sense that if I'd had it in a restaurant it wasn't rave-worthy, and I might not be bothering to tell you. But if considering it on the same level as Subway and Burger King, it's a damn fine option and very good value. (They also do monster-sized pots at £5.95)

Yesterday I had the choice of beef goulash, a chorizo-and-chickpea thing, a Mexican 3-bean chilli (which was vegetarian) and I think at least one other thing (also vegetarian). I also had the choice of mashed spud, couscous or rice as a side-dish. My fresh veg was grated carrot, diced raw pepper, peas and soy beans (no choice to made there, other than do you want it or not). And I think my mash was made from real potatoes, not nasty regurgitated reconstituted stuff. And their website even suggests that all their food is gluten-free.

I'm most impressed. Finally: inexpensive, tasty, reasonably healthy-seeming food which is suitable for a good range of people. (I mean, I'm sure there will be people with dietary problems that aren't catered for, but offering vegetarian and gluten-free choices sounds like a start.) Now I just need everyone to start eating there to encourage them to keep going :) So, er, off you go.

[*] That website seems to deal only with their supermarket ranges - it looks like Reading is their first foray into station kiosk-land.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

This is excellent news! The last time I went through Reading the only meal-like food I could find without going out through the ticket barriers and having to explain my way back in to catch the train was Subway.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, in that case I'm afraid it's not quite such good news :( Stewed! is outside the ticket barriers, and indeed the Subway that used to be inside has vanished in recent months. In fact, due to the ongoing refurbishment virtually everything inside the barriers has gone (on the plus side, this does mean the staff are usually pretty flexible about letting you out to go to shops and things).