Food review: A bit too much on the side...?

Eating in is the new eating out. The third (and final?) lockdown has led to a cardboard shortage as retailers box clever by increasing the number of home deliveries, with sofas and kitchen tables now doubling as home offices.

Brexit caused businesses to stockpile, while at-home experiences delivered in trusty cardboard has also caused huge problems.

Recycling, on the other hand, has plummeted as the volume of packaging in people’s homes goes through the roof. The card needed for paper mills so that it can be converted and used again is sitting beside the recycling bin, waiting for the next fortnightly collection.

Like the carbon dioxide shortage of 2018, which hit everyone from pig processors to beer firms, the latest supply chain fandango is seeing orders slip by.

And then there’s the issue of couriers. Some are great – step forward DPD – offering reliable deliveries that don’t go missing, are handled carefully and provide customers with a time slot.

Others are as much use as the proverbial chocolate tea pot, sending items to the wrong addresses or telling people to drive the 40 miles to the depot to collect their goods, otherwise they’ll be thrown away.

Against that backdrop, the fittest are finding ways to survive. Orders for at-home food boxes are through the roof and the recent Valentine’s Day experiences caused a surge in sales.

With Mother’s Day in the near future, we can expect more couriers to hit the road as diners reheat pre-prepared food from restaurants, rather than buying something nice from the supermarket.

The demand has been driven by lockdown and people can buy anything from three Michelin-starred food to a humble burger.

While our pre-Covid eating habits were dominated by geography – other than a really special occasion, for most of us it would be rare to step outside our hinterland for lunch or dinner – lockdown habits are very, very different.

Now the nation is buying online, which gives it access to kits from around the UK.

There are some good ones in our region – more of which in coming weeks – though home diners from the West Midlands now find themselves with access to kits from Bermondsey to Bolton, from Birmingham to Bagginswood – actually, I’m pretty sure there isn’t a kit provider in Bagginswood, nor one in Badger, Bache Mill, Brierley Hill or Brownhills. But I digress.

Besides, who can blame us for not wanting to risk infection? The orders from the Government are pretty clear. Stay home unless going out is unavoidable. So we are.

And with that advice ringing in our ears, we Googled – Burgers that would make Elvis Presley sigh.

Dirty Bones appeared on our radar like a pair of Blue Suede Shoes in a Graceland giftshop.

Or, more specifically, the Mac Daddy Burger Kit came looming into view.

Having eaten the excellent Libertine at home box – sorry, Dirty Bones, but that’s still our favourite – it was time to give another of the nation’s purveyors of burgerlicious badness a whirl.

Would Big Daddy take it from Giant Haystacks, would The Big Show give it to The Undertaker?

Dirty Bones has avoided The Great Cardboard Shortage of 2021 and also managed to find one of the good couriers who don’t mess up orders. For which we should be thankful. Our order featured a selection of cholesterol-busting dishes that were guaranteed to undo all the work of even the most ardent dieter.

Opting for a Mac Daddy Burger Kit with a side order of Lamb Fries, we could hear the local cardiologist sigh as he thought of all those monosaturated fats. Sorry, Doc. We just can’t help believing, when she smiles up soft and gentle, with a trace of misty morning, and a promise of tomorrow in her eyes. . .

Fabulously fattening, decadently delicious and mercilessly messy, our at-home food was of the type that might be delivered to slimline actors looking to fatten up for a Hollywood role.

Lamb fat, double burgers, gooey cheese, extra meat, fries and a slippery shot of man’n’cheese.

The instructions were a doddle to follow. The box was mostly recyclable.

Ordering was as easy as click, click, click and my kitchen skills were sufficiently proficient to conclude that if I ever need a fifth job I’ll be fine working as the chief patty flipper in my local branch of Fat Burger Shack. Not that the Mac Daddy bossed its way into our Burger World Cup Final. The box contained burger patties, seeded brioche buns, flimsy American goo (sorry, cheese) and then it got a little weird.

The Mac Daddy is all about mac’n’cheese – geddit? – so as well as slathering two patties and a slice of cheese in the bun, you also top the double burger combo with a filthy layer of cheese pasta. Gulp.

And then there was pulled beef short rib that had been marinated in an espresso-spiked BBQ sauce. More gulps.

So each burger was two burgers, cheese, mac’n’cheese and a layer of coffee-infused barbecued beef. You can have too much of a good thing and the Mac Daddy was precisely that.

Lamb fries, however, were banging. Skinny fries were supposed to be oven-cooked. But, really, who likes oven chips?

We shallow-fried ours in olive oil until they were crisper than one of Heston’s triple-cooked chips.

Lamb belly was fried to get rid of the fat and then doused in an umami-rich white miso glaze.

To that, we added jalapeno dressing, spring onion and chilli. Heaven is.

And as we wanted to keep the fries crisp, the whistles and bells were placed to the side, rather than plonked on top to make the fries soggy. Delish.

Home kits are great at times, because you can pimp them as you fancy, rather than as the chef might suggest.

Still, it was hard to get excited about Mac Daddy. Just as Taylor Swift fans might baulk if they were forced to listen to a 24-hour marathon of 1989, just as Wolves fans wouldn’t necessarily wish to watch re-runs of their 1985/6 season; it was all just a bit too much.