Born ready, ready meals from the Thai Grocer.

In life nothing seems to promise so much and deliver so little as a takeaway. The scenario always seems to develop something like this, it’s Friday night (probably.) It’s been a tough week at work (well when hasn’t it,) and either nothing in the kitchen appeals to you or you simply haven’t got the energy to cook it.

So, you park yourself on the sofa and scroll through the mouthwatering images on Deliveroo or JustEat and eventually after much indecision, procrastination, and disagreement you order and await the arrival of your feast. What then eventually arrives is either too big or too small, has mystery items added whilst the dish that you really wanted is somehow missing and the whole thing feels scarcely warmer than the artic circle. Is there an alternative though for those nights when you’re simply too tired or can’t be bothered?

The Thai Grocer when it was still a seated restaurant was probably my favourite in Earlsfield. I don’t think I’d ever been disappointed by a meal there. They now own a café creatively called The Earlsfield Grocer just down Garratt Lane where I regularly buy coffee (the cortado there is excellent,) where I was asked by the owner if I’d mind trying one of his new(ish) range of frozen meals, specifically a Thai yellow beef curry with slow cooked beef, the slow cooked beef being an innovation. To round this off I also purchased some veetee microwaveable sticky rice and frozen gyoza, to create a full meal.

Predictably Friday rolled around again, and I thought that this was the night to try my preprepared goodies. I started with the chicken gyoza, the cooking instructions suggested that these either by steamed for 4 minutes or lightly fried for 2. Channelling my inner Tony Blair, I squirted some frylight over them and placed them in the airfryer for about 5 minutes. The emerged cooked, tasty but perhaps rather crunchier than they would have been should I have steamed them as the instructions said.

Next it was the main event the yellow beef curry, this I was determined to reheat/cook properly and so placed in the chef’s friend (microwave,) initially for 4 and a half minutes. Once this stage was completed, I let sit for a minute, peeled back the lid, stirred, and placed back in on full power for a further 3 minutes. This was my only error as it would have been OK to just let sit without stirring and pulling back the lid allowed some sauce to bubble out and into the microwave…you have been warned.

Once that was completed, the veetee rice took a further minute whilst the main dish was doing its post cooking settling down. One portion of veetee was about enough to soak up a lot of the sauce and I served on a regular plate.

I was surprised at ow good it tasted, fresh with an astringent slightly citrus Thai curry flavour. The advantages here was that it was hot, tasted fresh and I cooked it on demand. The slow cooked beef was delicious and retained the slow cooked flavour, and I could have happily eaten even more.

To me this represents a great alternative to takeaways, and I’d advise stocking up with a selection for your freezer. The downside is that at about £9 for each main course it’s about as expensive as a takeaway, but then they keep for months and can be conjured on demand. I’m going to get a few more.

Earlsfield Grocer

address,  383 Garratt Ln, London SW18 4SL