M&S Christmas Food hit and misses

[gbpaln]

I'm always taking notes for next year so interested in thoughts on M&S Christmas food hits and misses. Ours were:

Hits
Chateaubriand beef with peppercorn source
Sticky toffee trifle (was sceptical but delicious)
Christmas sourdough (made the most amazing Boxing Day sandwiches)

Misses
Dancing through the Snow dessert (it was fine and looked amazing when on the table but very.expensive for a couple of spoonfuls of mousse)
Pigs in Blankets Mac 'n' Cheese

Appreciate it is all down to personal taste but always wonder what delights I have missed.

Rodney the reindeer’s were dry and hard, couldn’t find the cherry roulade anywhere ( disappointed ) veg gravy wasn’t nice, love the cauliflower cheese and pigs in blankets and stuffing balls, trifle lovely.

The chocolate cherry roulade was a miss in our house. The outer casing was too hard even after defrosting and it just all went everywhere. Was not appealing visually! And didn’t taste great either.

Possibly. I used them for years with Waitrose but they became unreliable so I'd discounted them.

The family size cauliflower cheese and garlic dough ball Christmas tree were both good.

HITS 3bird roast and slow cooked pulled lamb were lovely, the roast potatoes perfect

MISS: cabbage and carrot/swede veg packs were like soup; the paella bites were utterly rank and impossible to dish up or eat. The party food was pretty underwhelming, actually. Won’t buy those again next year.

The Yule log was awful last year, I tried a Christmas Colin log cake this year. Not impressed unfortunately. The chocolate seemed to leave an unpleasant aftertaste. And it was advertised as having popping candy on it. I didn’t notice any when I was eating it.

We got the massive chocolate profiterole dessert, I expected it to be a flop but everyone really enjoyed it - not too sweet.

This was our first year getting m&s food we wanted to see what the hype was about. We didn't get lots as it is super expensive.

We liked the pinecones, cheese leek gratin, sticky toffee trifle and the yule log.

We probably wouldn't get again although liked them we just felt they were expensive for the size was the venison and the lobster. I actually prefer the lobster from aldi. I found the m&s ones really dry.

I'm not sure we'd get anything again next year for us. It's such a big portion of our budget and we wasn't absolutely wowed by anything.

We did the M&S Christmas food order this year after the local farm shop ‘forgot’ to put about £20 of stuff in the box last year.

Hits: sprout and leek gratin, butternut squash and brie wellington, crackling gammon joint, beef rump with duxelles butter.

Misses: paprika and harissa prawns (gave those who had it windy, sore tums).

Couldn’t get the chocolate cherry roulade but picked one up for £8 on Saturday, not tried it yet.

If you have a Waitrose - their party selection was brilliant. The brie wedges with cranberry sauce and the Indian platter went down well here. Much better than the M&S foods, most of which did actually end up in the bin.

The M & S chocolate tart was delicious! Big hit at our home!

All the food we had was okay, the reindeer dessert was nice but basic, decided it’s the last year I use m&s the collection was a complete joke and it’s so overpriced, £200 for one meal, must need my head banging up a wall.

Could we have photos and prices as I'd find that interesting please? I miss M&S.

Turkey feast dip, nduja & pepperoni hot dip, frozen pain au chocolates & the chocolate pine cones all very good 😀

Pavlova was soggy and mushy. Artic Colin is going to cost someone their teeth one day.

Turkey was great the dog said, and the nut roast was exceptional.

The huge flat shallow chocolate tart/torte was lovely!

Don't know it's proper name sorry. From the frozen section.

The brioche surf and turf rolls are amazing... treated myself to one in my lunch hour. The roast beef was so tender and the lobster and prawn cocktail was just delicious. Went in the next day for another and was gutted there were none on the shelves. I wish they did them all year round

MIL got the turkey from Ocado, that was dry. Too dry for me wanting to try a sandwich the next day. She cooks well and the one she usually gets from the butcher is delicious so I'm assuming it was down to being from there.

Mini goats cheese and caramelised onion bites were lovely.

The plant turkey crown and nut roast were again praised by the vegetarians in our party. (Also Tesco’s plant pigs in blankets 👌)

Hit:

Slow cooked turkey joint
Chocolate pine cones
Best ever Chocolate Yule log - this was amazing!!!
Turkey dip

Miss:
Pigs I'm blanket mac n cheese - nice, but not worth the almost £10
All the party food we got tbh, including the hashbrown tower, mini beef burgers. Can get just as good elsewhere.

Perhaps a little cynical, but I expect the profit M&S made on their Christmas food made up for any losses suffered in the cyber attack earlier this year.

Forgot to say the cranberry and port sauce. This was SO nice, probably the best cranberry sauce I've ever tasted.

Only misses for me I'm afraid.
As always they mix their vegan food with meat and I won't search through meat for vegan products.
I shopped for my parents and 5 days before Christmas they had no mince pies, crazy amount of Christmas cakes which were very good to be fair.
Two days before Christmas there were still no mince pies and they confirmed there wouldn't be any.
Trolleys full of Christmas flowers which as another poster has said could be reduced.
Any time I ask staff about a product or request help they behave as if they're deeply offended ie: I ask if they're expecting mince pies to come in and they stare at each other obviously not knowing what to say.My nearest M&S is 15 miles away so it's useful to know if an item will be restocked.

It was a massive hit here! If you used a warm knife (i used boiling water) to cut through and it sliced really well, the flavour was great, but we'd let it defrost far longer than suggested as we didn't want it immediately after lunch.

FIL bought some of their frangipane mince pies which were lovely.

Christmas Colin was great but annoying there were no regular Colin's as it was for DS birthday.

Wagyy beef dripping Yorkshire's were also great.

I don't think we had any misses.

Best ever yule log was fabulous
Mini beef lattice ( party food range ) was a hit

Cheesy scones were great
Turkey toasties were really good
Belgian biscuit assortment - family fought over these
Best ever beef gravy was so tasty