Home Bistro

I ordered the 7 day meals for 3 people to help out after a family member had surgery. I saw the meals when delivered and they were meticulously packed, low profile in baggies, so they can be stacked. Easy to prepare. They had several and said they were wonderful and wished they could keep having them delivered. They looked good even frozen. Portions are just the right size. Quality product, reliable delivery.

Think airplane meals. I shopped for myself in anticipation of surgery. Not an easy website to use, and it took an hour because the page refresh erased my cart at checkout. Next, could not complete checkout. After years of shipping to Hawaii, they had stopped without notice, but not without continually bombarding me with discount offers. Time and energy wasted, and not even some mediocre food on the way. Major fail. I should have stuck with Stouffer’s.

Great idea, wanted to like it SOOO much. I ordered 14 meals of their ‘diabetic’ plan.
I had very high hopes, as I hate cooking myself, but am sick of the same old frozen crap from the grocery store. Unfortunately, their food, especially vegetables, are actually worse than that frozen stuff from the grocery store!
The main entrees (Salmon, tilapia, chicken) were decent. Unfortunately, the vegetables were almost universally inedible. The glazed carrots were tough and bitter, like trying to eat tree bark, for instance. This held true for ⁹⁄₁₀ of the vegetable selections. The broccoli was pale and bitter and tough.
I don’t know what they are doing to their veggies, but it is absolutely not working. They need to rethink their strategy.
So in the majority of meals, here is the script: I eat eat ²⁄₃ of the food (e.g., the carb (rice) and main entrée), and it is decent, and I throw the vegetable in the trash.
I give it 2 ½ stars. I will not be buying from them again.

OK, so I’ve tried a few of these now. Here’s the pros:
–Still great idea for folks who are house-​bound, hate to cook, or don’t get out much. Think older relatives, new moms, anyone recovering from surgery or accident, etc.
–Great for portion control: The filet mignon is the size of the palm of my hand, which is the right size and the sides are filling but not overkill.
–Nothing like a Lean Cuisine. This is real food, real portion sizes, that you heat up (boil-​in-​bag style) and serve on a real plate.
–Convenient for when you want decent food but haven’t gone grocery shopping or don’t feel like going to a lot of trouble
–Really good if you’re single and like variety of food at home. Because let’s face it, if you cook a protein and 1 or 2 sides, you have enough food to feed 4 others and/​or you have to eat it for the rest of the week.
–High quality: the steak is perfect (not fatty or grizzly) and sides like fresh asparagus include top 3^rd of tips only (the best part) and they are thin and cook up al dente (not the mushy frozen stuff you’d get at the grocery store)
–Nice selection from red meats to chicken to fish and pasta, plus sides and soups and desserts and breakfasts, if desired
Cons:
–Not cheap. Steak entrée is about $ 20.
–I found the crab and lobster dishes turned out a bit rubbery (tried the recommended method and the microwave method)
Overall, though, it is what it claims to be. Decent frozen food.

I ordered a Home Bistro gift certificate for a friend who had just had a baby — I wanted to save her the trouble of cooking. She loved it. So a few months later I decided to order some food for my family.
The order came yesterday — and right on time, nicely packed in a cooler with dry ice.
So far I have only tried 1 item — but it was delicious — and contrary to the reviewer below — decent ingredients — no Hydrogented oils.
I had the Veggie-​filled Ravioli with Vodka sauce. Now — the caloric content is HORRIFIC — due to the vodka sauce which is all butter and cream — so I only used a smidgen of it. (The entrée is 260 calories without the sauce and 490 with it!!!).
There were 3 large, plump ravioli — and they were delish! Topped with diced grilled eggplant and roasted red peppers. It really was «as described» in the gorgeous catalog.
Next I will be trying the Mac ‘n cheddar and brocolli mac ‘n cheddar. Each pack serves 2 — 400 cals a serving would be 800 if you dared to eat the whole pack. (It has cavatappi pasta — so I will need to restrain myself.)
So far so good — I will up it to 4 stars (the food really is great — but caloric.) once I try the rest.
Also note — they do have «Lite Style» entrees which supposedly have fewer calories — but, of course, I didn’y try any of those.
I still maintain that a Home Bistro Gift Certificate makes a SUPERB gift for an expecting mom. That way she can pick out a bunch of gourmet meals and not have to cook. And with a new born — cooking goes right out the window.
Thanks, Home Bistro!

I got some of their dinners as a Christmas gift. It’s a neat concept: frozen food comes in plastic pouches to you. You defrost by boiling pouches and eat a gourmet meal.
Unfortunately the idea is scotched because of the terrible ingredients they use. At first you see good ingredients, but read down further and you get into bad ingredients. For instance with the Roasted Crab Cakes in Lobster Sauce and there’s:
Partially Hydrogenated soybean oil (Transfat!)
hydrogenated cottonseed and soy oil (Transfat)
dextrose
maltodextrin
and more.
natural flavors. Shouldn’t the crab be flavor enough? why add «natural flavor» onto crab and sea scallops? The concept of «natural flavor», though it sounds good, is bogus. It means they’re putting something in there that tastes like lobster or crab, that is not lobster or crab. If it was lobster or crab or butter, it would simply say that ingredient. «Natural flavor» is something else.
By adding these ingredients, they’re actually ruining the good ingredients they put in.
Flavor-​wise and healthy wise this is about as honest as the ingredients in Nabisco’s chicken in a bisquit crackers. LOL.
I also got the Filet Mignon in Bearnaise sauce. The filet was good. But what’s in the bearnaise sauce? A «Hollandaise mix.» They don’t even make a hollandaise sauce from scratch, they use a mix that contains hydrogenated fat.
I don’t have hydrolized protein, guar gum and thiamine hydrochloride in my cupboard, but they apparently do, since these are ingredients in the Bearnaise sauce.
Bearnaise Sauce Continued: Then there’s «partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil (TRANSFAT)
maltodextrin
Natural Flavors
SUMMARY: With the idea of cooking food and flash freezing it, the ingredients should be totally honest. They’re not. This is less about a chef holding a frying pan and more about a chemist holding a beaker.