I swore I wouldn’t do this again, but here we are.
Last fall, I reviewed four of Chef Gordon Ramsay’s frozen meals and Guy Fieri’s frozen meal line available at Walmart.
Guy’s meals pushed me over the edge and I immediately halted my frozen celebrity chef meal quest because they were so bad. Fieri’s Sweet & Sour Pork is truly nightmarish stuff.
Walmart is also offering Chef Ramsay’s line of five appetizers. Each costs a head-shaking $7 per box ($6.97 to be exact), which is $.73 more than each entree. And Walmart is now charging $.34 more per entree than last October.
In the name of science and Super Bowl Sunday, we tried all five of the appetizers. Here are my thoughts, in order from best to worst:
Three Cheese Stuffed Pizza Bites
These are the best tasting of the bunch. To be fair, they do taste good in their own right, outside of this frozen appetizer universe. You’ll have to supply the parm and herb sprinkle and sauce yourself.
Each bite clocks-in at $.58, but is about 1.5X larger than a Tostino’s pizza roll. The crust is softer, thicker, and fluffier.
Costco was sampling Tostino’s pizza rolls this weekend, and, let’s be real – they are delicious in their own frankenfood way, but the sauce inside is sweet and the cheese is low-quality goo.
Chef Ramsay’s pizza bite filling tastes higher quality. I heard family members commenting that they tasted really good.
Taste: 10/10
Wellington Bites
Chef Ramsay is famous for the Beef Wellington he serves at his restaurants.
At Hell’s Kitchen in Las Vegas, the Beef Wellington entree costs $72.95 and $96 as part of a three-course pre fix meal. It’s hella expensive.
Beef Wellington is delicious and one of those dishes that is a pain in the a$$ to make, so I understand why it’s expensive.
Our family member orders the individual beef wellingtons from Lunds for a special occasion each year and they are delightful.
Each box contains five little Wellington puffs ($1.40 each). Are they worth it?
Meeeeehbe?
The pastry is light and flaky and the beef-mushroom filling tastes flavorful. It’s just that the beef is chopped into small pieces, so, while the puffs feel Wellington-inspired, they comes across more like beef stew in a pastry ball.
Truly, the appetizer taste fine and even, good, but you only get five puffs. If you’re going to shell out the money to serve these at a party, you might as well order some Wellingtons from Lund’s and cut them into pieces.
Taste: 8.5/10
Fried Chicken Bites with Korean Style Sauce
Let’s be real, there’s nothing Korean about these chicken bites, but they do taste good. The chicken bites are made with dark-meat chicken – we did not encounter any gristle or weird textures. The batter gets soggy when you toss it in the sauce, which is to be expected.
The red sauce tastes spicy. Very non-descriptly spicy. No gochujang flavor, no garlic punch, just vaguely spicy with a black pepper kick.
Korean or not, the chicken bites do taste good. But my God chef, have you ever had Korean food?
Taste: 7.8/10
Cheese Bites
These are
not good.
The batter tastes slightly malty, but mostly stale.
Worse yet is the cheese. It’s gooey. But there is no cheese-pull or delightful stringy chewy bite.
Minnesotans and Wisconsinites will frankly, find these offensive.
Taste: 5/10
Crab Cakes
I’m sure it’s no surprise that the crab cakes were my least favorite.
The reason why there aren’t many frozen crab appetizers is probably because they’re bad.
Even if these are actually made with lump meat crab, you can’t tell. The inside has a fine texture, no lumps.
The crab cake tastes fishy, but not terribly so. With a tartar or horseradish sauce, they’ll be fine.
We’ve all got that Uncle Jim or Bob will go back for seconds and tell you they’re real good. Honestly, they’re less bad than I expected which is not actually the kind of compliment anyone wants to hear.
But to actually spend $7 on these, just why.
You’re better off serving crab ragoons. Or making crab dip. Or just no crab.
Taste: 4.5/10
Concluding Thoughts
Chef Ramsay’s appetizer line is better than the frozen meals I tried. The food isn’t overly salty and some taste legitimately good.
But are the appetizers $7 per box good?
Yes, if you have lots of cash lying around to the point that you have no concerns about money.
No to everyone else. Just go to Costco.
If the appetizers cost $6 a box, I’d give a more enthusiastic endorsement. Not being bad isn’t good enough to justify the price.
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