Jamie Oliver Does Lunch for Boots
The man with his fingers seemingly in every pie has now created his first lunch range. But it doesn't live up to his name.
Not content with cookbooks, TV series, Italian restaurants, British restaurants, Sainsbury's ad campaigns, a magazine and kitchen tools, Jamie Oliver has now created a lunch range for Boots.
Featuring 21 ‘deli-inspired’ options, including sandwiches, wraps, salads, focaccias and dips, the Jamie Does Lunch range is designed, to quote the man himself, to provide “a proper tasty lunch”.
Options range from a cheese ploughman’s sandwich (“vintage Cheddar and amazing red onion chutney” - and it would need to be for £3.30), to a sweet chilli chicken wrap for £3.80 and a seaside salmon salad (with samphire and tzatziki dressing) for £3.95.
Why keep mentioning the prices? Well, for my 2p, this is getting on to the expensive, artisanal end of your lunch options, so to see Jamie quoted as saying “all the ingredients are top quality” made me hopeful the range justifies its price tag. Unfortunately the samples I tried didn’t live up to that promise.
The taste test
First up was the really smoky chicken sandwich, priced at £3.80 and one of Jamie's favourites, apparently. Well, it isn't one of mine, as it contained a few pieces of grey chicken smothered in an oppressively spicy barbecue sauce accompanied by some sweetcorn and peppers. The white corn bread was stodgy and, in my humble opinion, not the right choice for the ingredients.
My hopes were higher for the muffuletta focaccia (“piled high with cured meats, veggies and herbs”) and this was an improvement (for £4 it needed to be). However, again the quality of the ingredients didn’t justify the price tag.
And this is the problem inherent with mass-producing what is supposed to be handmade and individual – a lack of quality control. Maybe the other items in the range justify their hefty price tags, but I doubt it.
I'll stick to Italian delis... and I'll probably have enough change for a coffee, too.
More food opinion
Enough of these silly flavour combinations!
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