Ben and I have never been big on Valentine’s – in fact, it’s become a sort of running joke among us and our family that we don’t really celebrate it properly at all. We always, always stay in (as do 63% of the population apparently, according to a survey by Festive Lights), both because it’s so expensive and because of time constraints, we often have it on the wrong day, and we always get a supermarket meal deal. In 2011 (so long ago now!), we had the M&S Valentine’s Meal Deal for the first time and posted about it here, and we’ve usually gone back to M&S for theirs at other times of year too. Last year though we had the Waitrose Valentine’s Meal Deal and really enjoyed that, then recently we had an M&S one that we weren’t so keen on. So this year, we decided to give another a go: the Tesco Valentine’s Meal Deal for £20.
We both love cooking, but also like to take a night off from the kitchen every so often. We do like to go out for meals, just not around Valentine’s when it’s so busy, so meal deals are the next best option. We’re not usually fans of the ready meal, but with ones like this, they’re not too ready meal-like, if that makes sense!
We actually had a Tesco Meal Deal from Tesco’s Bistro range a couple of years ago that was similar to this in that it allowed you to choose a different meal each, so when we saw this one, we decided it was an excellent option. The fact that you can choose a separate meal each is a really big plus for us as we like different things and we like to try each other’s too! Plus it seemed really good value for £20 – you get 2 main courses, 2 side dishes, 2 puddings and a bottle of wine or box of chocolates.
We actually had our Valentine’s meal last night and really enjoyed it, so I wanted to post about it! Here’s what we chose and what we thought:
For our main courses, I went for the Monkfish Medallions with Lemon, Herb & Black Olive butter; Ben chose the Lamb Shank with Roasted Vegetables. We chose the Triple Cooked Chips and Green Vegetable Trio with Herb Butter as our side dishes and shared them between us.
This was actually the first time I’ve tried monkfish – Ben had it at Rick Stein’s in a curry and I did try a little bit, but that’s very different to having it by itself! I’ve always heard that it’s a very meaty and tasty fish so wanted to give it a go. And it was delicious! Definitely the best fish I’ve ever had. The butter was really tasty too and complemented the fish well. Ben’s lamb was tender and fell off the bone easily with a really rich flavour. And LOOK at those chips – they were amazing! There isn’t really a lot you can say about green veg, but it was good, and nice to be able to have 2 sides so we could have some veg too as you don’t always get that with meal deals.
For dessert, I, of course, went for the most chocolate laden dessert on the menu: the Chocolate Reveal. Ben picked the Salted Caramel Dessert. Mine was SO good – I could eat it all day, if it wasn’t quite so rich I suppose! Under the sphere of dark chocolate was a chocolate hazelnut mousse and chocolate brownie, revealed when you poured the hot caramel sauce over the chocolate shell. It doesn’t photograph well afterwards to be honest, but I did film the process of the chocolate unveiling (then failed to upload it properly!).
Ben’s dessert included salted caramel mousse, caramel sauce, pieces of chocolate Brownie and cream. Again, super yummy (but not quite as good as mine!).
We also picked a bottle of champagne off the menu which meant that the whole thing was of excellent value! We’d definitely recommend this meal deal and would get it again!
I didn’t realise you could choose your own meals as this would have been a good option for us although our Tesco doesn’t have the bistro range (I didn’t know it existed) we always stay in and don’t even do cards, we’ve been married 15 yrs and we’re still very lovey dovey which means we don’t have to wait for a (over commercialised 🙂 day. I wish they would keep the mix and match meals and do them in my Tesco.
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I think the Bistro range has now finished (it’s been a couple of years since we got it now), but this was very similar! We actually ended up ordering this for home delivery as we weren’t sure we’d be able to get to Tesco – we were worried it might get substituted and we wouldn’t get what we’d chosen, but it all came and it was awesome! I hope they do it again on another day too 🙂