M&S Christmas food - hit and miss

[lulujuju]

I always order at least £100 worth of Christmas food from M&S but this is the first year I've found things to be hit and miss.
The hits were:
Cauliflower cheese
Chocolate pine cones
Brie en croute
Vegan nut roast
Black Forest gateaux

The misses were:
Pigs in blankets - full of gristle
Brandy cream, salted caramel cream and chocolate cream (all bought in store) - all just tasted of nothing!
Sausage wreath - really greasy

I was also really disappointed by all of their party food.

I enjoyed our M&S food. We had:

• Turkey crown with stuffing and bacon
• Veg and goose fat potatoes
• Pigs in blankets and stuffing balls- were nice although I slightly preferred their boxed stuffing
• Colin the Caterpillar Christmas version
• Mixed cooked meats pie
• Christmas Cronuts (can't remember what they were called 'Rudolph cronuts' or something) were delicious and a bit like 'Krispy Kreme doughnuts'

The party food chicken things on sticks were inedible

The pork belly squares and chicken lollipops were good.

Hit - turkey crown £16
Miss Chocolate forest cake so sickly £20!!
Cranberry sauce, Colin the Caterpillar yuk!

The lasagne dip was amazing
Cava was fine
The cheeseboard boxes were great

The party food was naff. Tasted okay but nothing special. The only notable offering were the chicken doughnuts, as the waffle crumb and spicy bbq sauce included made an interesting combination

The giant sticky toffee pudding trifle was meh. The size didn’t work, it was just a big bowl of slop

Potato gratin was vile. Molten cheese bake wasn’t very nice either

Overall, disappointed

We've just opened the choc panettone this evening & thought it was delicious! It did look a bit like a flat cake despite the fancy panettone shaped box.

Forgot to say, all of their Christmas snacks were lovely. The crisps, fudge, marshmallow, nuts, “yumnuts” etc

I found that the standard food hall items were much better than the Christmas offerings!

The Turkey crown with stuffing and bacon was nice, as was the red cabbage.
The chicken doughnuts and brie and cranberry tartlets went down well but the mini toad in the holes didn't.
The shortbread in the musical house was lovely.

I was so disappointed with the M&S pigs! The turkey from them was the best I've ever had though. Truly delicious!

I thought the m&s canapes were excellent this year

Agreed OP. To be honest it was just two of us and we managed to avoid buying the stuff in the red Xmas packaging as it usually feeds 4-6. We bought their normal things to cobble together a steak Christmas dinner which was great. We had their extra fabulous most amazing dogs bollocks best ever trifle which was divine. Their special edition beef gravy was amazing very different to their usual ready made offering.

Missed out on the party food only the two of us but otherwise it was pretty good, but probably because we had their usual roasts etc.

Hits - turkey joint, seafood rock pool, oysters

Misses - Colin, Santa hat profiteroles (need to avoid desserts obviously!)

I was mostly disappointed the egg nog cream wasn’t back this year. This years offers didn’t do it for me.

The Brussels with chestnuts and bacon were horrid

We loved the molten cheese bake, and the gold box mince pies were delicious. I buy my turkey from the butchers so can’t comment there.

Hit.Seafood Rockpool.
Miss. Cauliflower cheese.Awful.

We had the mini burgers, was so disappointed but we loved the mini battered salt & vinegar sausages.

Loved the turkey crown, molten cheese bake, party ham (except had to eat in 3 days and couldn’t freeze), all the Xmas prepared veggies, shortbread in the house tin. Wasn’t keen on the festive Colin or the triple chocolate panettone. Also the smoked salmon platter was very overpriced for what you got.

Colin the caterpillar was moist but the decorations too sugar and hard to bite.
Sausage roll wreath- enjoyed but it was a lil greasy
Rib of beef- not as good as last year. Froze half but didn’t cook well from frozen

Had a few bits from Aldi and they were great

Chocolate torte and pannacotta with Prosecco jelly on top were both amazing
Ricotta stacks good
Tub of cranberry sauce too sweet
Everything else ‘ok’

Colin the Christmas Caterpillar was pretty rubbish, really dry and the chocolate "presents" were too chunky to be on a cake

Turkey crown was 👍🏻
Rodney cheesecake good too.
Felt the party food was expensive so picked up bits elsewhere.
Someone bought us a box (cardboard) of sweets , they were unexpectedly yummy. I’m not usually a fan of Marks and Spencer chocolate.
Bar Christmas cake usual standard.
Disappointed in the Brandy butter.

The salted caramel profiteroles and chocolate pine cones were delicious. Same with the nut roast.

Didn’t like the pigs in blankets or sausage roll wreath. The were both greasy and gristly. The Brussels sprouts were awful and just stayed hard even though we cooked them for ages.

Our turkey joint (just the basic version as only 3 of us) was delicious, moist and lots of flavour. It beat the super posh farm one we had last year which was twice the price.

Roast potatoes, red cabbage and their standard Brussels all good (although my friend had the posher festive ones with chestnuts and didn't like them).

Raspberry panna cotta was very nice, great texture.

Got their standard pack of smoked salmon rather than the festive version and again it was lovely.

Classic mince pies excellent.

The cauli cheese and the pot of turkey gravy were a bit meh and lacking in flavour.

Overall very happy.

Miss- the prawns in blankets, overwhelmingly tasted of smoke
Hits- Cornish cruncher cheese, lemon roulade, whole turkey

@73kittycat73

My brother bought me Goose Fat Roast Potatoes for Christmas to try. Lets just say I'm a almost life long vegetarian and these made me cave! Soo much better than Aunt Bessies and almost as good as my mums! Will have them again for sure.

Eh, why would someone buy a vegetarian goose fat potatoes?