To cancel the food delivery

[MonkeyBirdy]

I live overseas and we have this thing here where you can get your dinner delivered every day. So around 4pm a guy arrives on a motorbike with a tiffin box of food for me. I get three dishes per day - one meat, one vegetable and one random which will be either tofu, fish, egg, something like that. It's mostly Indian/Chinese style food. It's home cooked and very cost effective, I don't think I could do the same for cheaper. It's obviously also really convenient.

But lately the food has changed and the woman who organises it confirmed she'd hired a chef whereas before she used to cook herself. The food is now saltier and not so nice tasting plus the proportion of spicy dishes has gone way up which I'm not a fan of. The variety of dishes is reduced as well, it feels like we're getting the same thing over and over again. Doesn't help that I'm just out of the first trimester and I kind of associate it with feeling rough as I really couldn't eat much of it when pregnant. Unfortunate that the change in chef coincided with that first trimester.

DH is all for just carrying on as we are because he still likes the food (he didn't notice the chef had changed plus he really likes spicy food anyway). But I'm so tempted to cancel. Would I be mad to? I haven't cooked regularly since I moved overseas 6 years ago and we've got an 18 month old...I'm just so sick of eating it every day!

[LesLavandes]

Are there no alternative delivery companies?

[Ragwort]

Don't want to sound rude but why are you asking random Mumsnetters what to do ? .

If you don't like it - cancel it. Is the issue that you don't want to have to do the cooking yourself?

[MadeOfStarStuff]

Why would you be unreasonable to cancel a service that you no longer enjoy?

If it’s a standard thing where you live, are there any other people offering the same service? Or you could compromise and just reduce the number of days you use it for.

Otherwise you’ll just need to cook for yourselves like the rest of the world. You’ll be fine.

[Eileen101]

Is there an alternative provider you could try for a bit?

I'm intrigued as to where you live OP. I saw something like this on TV, where it's so usual to eat out, that flats don't really jave a kitchen. I can't remember where it was though.

[tallduckandhandsome]

Madness is paying for food that you’re not enjoying.

[emmathedilemma]

#FirstWorldProblems
Cancel it if you don't like it or tell the person who owns the company!

[Alternista]

Oh my god that sounds amazing, send it on to me!

Could you freeze the second portion if he wants it and you don’t, then you’ve got spares for when the baby comes?

[MonkeyBirdy]

@emmathedilemma

#FirstWorldProblems
Cancel it if you don't like it or tell the person who owns the company!

It's actually the opposite of a first world problem, you don't get this kind of service in the "first world" as far as I'm aware.

I wouldn't know where to find an alternative tbh, it's all very word of mouth and this is the one the people I know use.

I guess I was asking Mumsnet how much hassle it is cooking every day. Would you get food delivery like this if you could even if it wasn't amazing?

[MyDcAreMarvel]

Surely you would still want to cook most days, it’s a bit strange.

[MonkeyBirdy]

@Eileen101

Is there an alternative provider you could try for a bit?

I'm intrigued as to where you live OP. I saw something like this on TV, where it's so usual to eat out, that flats don't really jave a kitchen. I can't remember where it was though.

Asia! I think it's very normal everywhere here. Eating out local food is super cheap whereas buying groceries can get very expensive (especially if you don't cook local style meals and end up buying imported stuff).

[MichelleScarn]

Do you just get what they've made that day no choice? How do you order?

[tallduckandhandsome]

In this case where it’s word or mouth it would be more helpful to speak to neighbours surely?

[MonkeyBirdy]

@MyDcAreMarvel

Surely you would still want to cook most days, it’s a bit strange.

That's my dilemma. Now lots of days when I look and see what we've got I wish I was cooking my own food. In the days when my daughter was really small it was great and I never felt like that but now she's bigger and the food is worse so it's a harder decision to make.

[Sparklesocks]

Personally I couldn’t face eating food I wasn’t enjoying every single day. I’d start to dislike meal times. I’d prefer to cook myself things I like than push myself to eat things someone else prepared which I don’t really like. The not enjoying my meals would outweigh the convenience of some preparing them for me.

[Sparklfairy]

@MonkeyBirdy a lot MNers won't be able to get their head around this as a concept because cooking is just something that has to be done whether we like it or not so on that front you probably won't get much useful advice/possibly sarky comments etc.

I've seen a thread before about this service and MNers were absolutely gobsmacked it was a thing and totally derailed the thread.

You say you haven't cooked since you moved there. Can you cook? Cooking kind of is as easy or as hard as you make it. I'm the least fussy person ever but the idea of someone sending me a selection of food that I might not like (or fancy) rather than me choosing what to eat would make me prefer to cook! There's millions of easy recipes online.

Could you tell the woman you're cancelling because the food has changed and it's too salty/spicy for you? If she loses business because of the new chef maybe she will reconsider.

[MonkeyBirdy]

@tallduckandhandsome

In this case where it’s word or mouth it would be more helpful to speak to neighbours surely?

To my neighbours cooking for themselves is a very alien concept whereas I assume most people on Mumsnet do cook

[tallduckandhandsome]

No I mean asking neighbours if they know of a better service than your current one.

I don’t get the angst, try cooking for a few weeks and if you don’t like it, go back to meals on wheels.

[Eleoura]

If THEY have changed the chef, its now spicy, salty and mundane, why on earth would you continue paying for it???
Ask around, find someone else, or cook yourself! What do you feed the 18mth old? Salty, spicy food?

Do they have a health certificate? I'd be very concerned about food hygiene, and even more so being pregnant. You obviously aren't concerned in the least, but having a random cook from an unknown premises, then the food being carried around in the heat from house to house would be my worse nightmare- even more so when pregnant!

[MonkeyBirdy]

[quote Sparklfairy]@MonkeyBirdy a lot MNers won't be able to get their head around this as a concept because cooking is just something that has to be done whether we like it or not so on that front you probably won't get much useful advice/possibly sarky comments etc.

I've seen a thread before about this service and MNers were absolutely gobsmacked it was a thing and totally derailed the thread.

You say you haven't cooked since you moved there. Can you cook? Cooking kind of is as easy or as hard as you make it. I'm the least fussy person ever but the idea of someone sending me a selection of food that I might not like (or fancy) rather than me choosing what to eat would make me prefer to cook! There's millions of easy recipes online.

Could you tell the woman you're cancelling because the food has changed and it's too salty/spicy for you? If she loses business because of the new chef maybe she will reconsider.[/quote]
I wonder if that was my thread too 😂

If my country had a Mumsnet I'd post this on there, but it doesn't. The UK is really lucky to have a site like this!

I've told her the food quality has got worse which she agreed with (others have complained). I've given her a month but not much has changed so 🤷🏼‍♀️

[godmum56]

can you talk to the supplier? They might be losing custom hand over fist and not know why.

[dottiedodah]

I wonder if you can maybe take it down to a couple of days a week? Then that gives you a break .Here in UK we have "Hello fresh" which delivers ingreidents to the door ,and you cook the meal you selected .Is there anything like that where you are? Otherwise maybe do some fairly easy meals and see how you go .I think many British women would welcome not having to cook!

[Greymalkin12]

I think you have to have a think how the practicalities of cooking would work, what you would cook, depends what your food storage and cooking facilities are like, how much time you would spending shopping and cooking, the cost of it etc. Bear in mind you'll get more tired when you enter the third trimester etc (of course ideally DH would do his share). Is it possible to take a break or reduce the number of days you order the food?

[JackieTheFart]

Asia



Send feedback to the woman and ask for less spice and salt.

[MsHedgehog]

I have a 3 month old - DH and I have cooked maybe once a week since he was born. We’ve lived off takeaways and throw in the oven meals for the past 3 months.

DH has a very demanding job whereas I struggle to find the time to do anything with a very demanding baby. Neither of us have the time to cook. So the service you have described sounds ideal.

That said, if you’re not enjoying it, maybe look around for another service. Not cooking for 6 years and then suddenly starting when you’re pregnant and have an 18 month old sounds like you may struggle!

[MonkeyBirdy]

Reducing the number of days is a good idea, I actually didn't think about that. I'll ask and see if it's possible.

Eleoura I still pay for it because it's cheap and very convenient. The hygiene aspect doesn't concern me.