2 weeks Ago By Talya Honebeek,Emma Gill,Dianne Bourne,Adam Maidment
The Christmas shopping season is in full swing, and supermarket cafes are offering a festive respite from the aisles with new holiday menus. From pigs-in-blankets dippers to full turkey roast dinners, there's a variety of options to try. And for those just wanting a coffee and cake break, expect to find festive versions in stores too.
To get into the holiday spirit, the Manchester Evening News' Dianne Bourne, Emma Gill and Adam Maidment visited Asda, Sainsbury's, Tesco and M&S to compare their menus. There were highs and lows, some festive gems, but also dishes they wouldn't want to repeat. Here's how they fared.
Asda When Adam Maidment entered Stockport's small Asda cafe on a weekday afternoon, he thought he'd struck gold when he found an almost empty corner. He quickly realised a leaking air vent was the reason for the vacant spots. Undeterred, Adam perused their Christmas menu, featuring a selection of toasties, a Christmas dinner, a turkey bap and a 'Christmas Pizza', along with festive drinks and sweet treats.
"Opting for the Christmas Dinner, the server attempts to persuade me to order something else by informing me there is a 30-minute wait," he said. "But here specifically for that, I'm sadly undeterred by the long wait and tell him it's fine." He also ordered a Brie and Cranberry Toastie for £4.
50 as well as the 'festive deal' of a mince pie and hot drink (the festive Toffee Nut Latte) for just £3. Adam said: "The first sip of the coffee gives me an immediate sugar rush with the lashings of syrup providing a sickly sweet taste. But, actually, it's quite pleasant and the sweetness does eventually simmer down as I make my way through it.
" His Christmas dinner (£6.95) arrived about 25 minutes later, on a plate Adam described as perhaps far too small for it, with "everything packed on like a game of festive jenga". The plate featured three slices of turkey, six roast potatoes (Adam was told he'd been given extra because of the long wait), six sprouts, three pigs in blankets, two stuffing balls, two Yorkshire puddings, a dollop of cranberry sauce and a jug of gravy.
"All in all, it's an impressive offering," Adam said, adding: "The turkey, however, is quite underwhelming. There's nothing exactly wrong about it, but it's not out-of-this-world brilliant either. "For me, the pigs in blankets are also no highlight - the sausage is tough, and, whilst somewhat smoky, the bacon is nothing to write home about either.
The sprouts and the Yorkshire's are uneventful too. "However, a moment of brilliance comes in the form of the roast potatoes. Perfectly crisp and served piping hot, they come quite close in terms of what I would describe as the perfect roastie.
"There just needed to be more gravy to soak up the stodge. But, all in all, it's a serviceable Christmas dinner. Besides the potatoes, there's no show-stoppers, and it's far from a homecooked meal, but it does the job on a basic level.
" The toastie was a different tale. Adam described the bread as "tough", adding: "There's a thick layer of grease that comes off my fingers as I bite into it, and the cranberry I'm getting isn't the most flavoursome. "The taste of the brie is nice, but it's not enough to save it and, after just a couple of bites, I had well and truly had enough.
"The mince pie was pretty similar, if not identical, to the vegan, non-gluten pre-packaged ones I had at the Tesco café for last year's Christmas review. In that sense, my opinion has not changed. "Whilst having a nice, familiar taste to it, there's a grittiness to it that outstays its welcome on the palette.
But, otherwise, it's fine, it's serviceable." Christmas dinner: 2/5 Brie and Cranberry toastie: 1/5 Toffee Nut Latte: 2/5 Gluten-free Mince Pie: 2/5 Overall rating: 2/5 Sainsbury's Dianne Bourne's foray into Sainsbury's Christmas menu began with a promisingly "fairly hefty" festive roast priced at £7.50, but the meal soon took a turn for the worse.
Dianne lamented: "The stuffing ball also achieved that nifty trick of being incinerated on one side and undercooked on the other. "The 'roast' potatoes were not the greatest either I'm afraid, robbed of any crispness they may have had by that almost water-like gravy poured all over, which is a shame because they weren't shy on the portion size of these." However, it wasn't all doom and gloom as she noted: "But the Turkey was tender and the pigs in blankets were superb.
It's good news if you're a sprout fan as well as there was a big portion of these and cauliflower cheese on the large plate. They also do a kids version for £3.50 too.
" The hot festive feast baguette, costing £5.50, initially looked tempting with its two pigs in blankets and a stuffing ball drizzled with gravy. Yet, upon tasting, Dianne branded it "a hot mess", necessitating the use of cutlery to tackle it.
Dianne suggested: "My advice to Sainsbury's for next year is stop with all the thin turkey, watery gravy and stiff stuffing madness, and create a baguette filled just with your delicious pigs-in-blankets instead," adding: "That would be a definite 5/5 from me." Dianne also tried the toffee nut latte (£3.40), which she found overly sweet, and the luxury mince pie, which she said "was ok for £1.
20, until I crunched on a currant so hard inside it nearly broke a tooth". Concluding, she said: "The standout of the whole trip was the chocolate hazelnut cake (£3) which was a total dream. Piled with festive stars and a snowy sprinkle it was a wonderfully light trio of sponges with a sort of creamy fondant filling.
"A truly festive end to the meal." Turkey dinner: 3/5 Festive baguette: 2/5 Mince Pie: 2/5 Toffee Nut Latte: 2/5 Chocolate cake: 5/5 Overall rating: 3/5 Tesco Unlike other supermarket cafes, Tesco doesn't offer a full Christmas roast dinner. Instead, they provide a range of festive toasties, lattes, mince pies and more, with a combination of previous favourites and eight new products, including three black forest flavoured drinks.
Emma Gill and her companion sampled as much as they could, opting for the new Gingerbread Latte and Panettone Latte, as well as a Chocolate Gingerbread Milkshake. Their favourite was the Gingerbread Latte, topped with cream and sprinkled with crunchy gingerbread biscuit. "It comes piping hot so manages to stay warm for a good while despite all that cream, and is well worth the £4.
15 price tag," Emma said. "We can taste more chocolate than gingerbread in the milkshake, priced £4.25, but it's a nice flavour and makes for a refreshing drink, if a little too sickly sweet.
" Emma couldn't get her hands on the new Festive Mac 'n' Cheese as it was already sold out, so she settled for the Pigs Under Blankets Toastie at £5.25, the Brie and Cranberry Toastie priced at £4.95, and the Brie and Bacon Croissant for £4.
25. She reported that the toasties were brimming with filling and had a generous coating of golden cheese; although slightly greasy, they were "delicious". The cranberry and béchamel sauce in the Pigs Under Blankets Toastie was particularly praised for adding an extra burst of flavour.
"The croissant looks a little overdone, but it tastes OK and again the filling is plentiful, with a thick slice of cheese and crispy bacon," Emma commented. When it came to dessert, choosing was no easy feat. Eventually, they chose the Rudolph Shortbread Biscuit and Winter Bakewell, both £2.
75 each, along with a Viennese Swirl Mince Pie, which cost £1.50. "Two shortbread reindeer-shaped biscuits, filled with mixed fruit jam and topped with sweet 'snow' sugar dusting, the Rudolph tastes as delightful as it looks - a bit like a Jammie Dodger, but with a lighter, tastier shortbread.
" Although the Viennese Swirl Mince Pie was somewhat dry and not as flavoursome as expected, Emma noted it was "saved by the buttery taste and traditional mince filling". Emma concluded: "With just enough room to sample a bite of the Winter Bakewell, it doesn't disappoint. "A mince pie and Bakewell slice muddled together, it's a winning combination - the familiar flavour of the frangipane sponge shines through and the soft icing and dusting gives the festive feels you want from any Christmas dessert.
" "I never really considered a supermarket cafe stop to be a treat before, but this was mighty fine." Gingerbread Latte: 5/5 Panettone Latte: 4/5 Chocolate Gingerbread Milkshake: 3/5 Pigs Under Blankets Toastie: 5/5 Brie and Cranberry Toastie: 4/5 Brie and Bacon Croissant: 3/5 Rudolph Shortbread Biscuit: 4/5 Winter Bakewell: 4/5 Viennese Swirl Mince Pie: 3/5 Overall rating: 4/5 Marks and Spencer Dianne Bourne's final destination was Marks & Spencer where she commented positively on the swift service. While it wasn't quite a roast dinner, new to the menu for 2024 is a chicken Schnitzel dish, comprised of a golden breadcrumb crusted chicken breast slathered in a double drizzle of cranberry sauce and mayonnaise and is served with roast potatoes and salad for £9.
95. Adding a twist to the sides, M&S now offers roast potatoes as an extra at £2, with the option of indulgent gravy or cranberry sauce dips for a tiny 50p uplift. "When I was initially served the schnitzel dish I thought the potatoes looked a little sad, but when I gave them a try I was gobsmacked with how good they were," Dianne revealed.
"There was a really tasty fat used on the exterior which had a delightful crunch while the innards were fluffy perfection. "The Schnitzel itself was nice enough, although I'm not sure a salad accompaniment could ever really be festive. Overall I'm not sure I'd splash out on £9.
95 again for this particular dish. But I'd definitely snap up the roasties again as a snack for £2." The pigs-in-blanket dippers were another newcomer.
Available to order as a side dish for £2.50, these come as a "quartet speared onto a stick" with a pot of gravy on the side. Sadly, the cooking of the pigs in blankets wasn't quite to Dianne's taste.
She said: "I could see as soon as they arrived that they looked a tad undercooked for my personal liking - as the bacon wrapper on some of the sausages was very flabby and not crispy as I would personally be cooking my own - and I wasn't that keen on the sausage flavour either." That said, Dianne would definitely recommend the "truly epic" MandS turkey and ham hock toastie (£7.50).
"This is a really hearty sandwich, and could easily be shared between two people, particularly if you're considering teaming it with some of those roasties (which you definitely should)," she said. A Gluten-free version of this toastie is also available to buy this year too. M&S has launched a new festive menu this year, featuring a S'mores hot chocolate priced at £4.
10 and a corresponding milkshake for £4. Dianne said: "I've never been all that impressed by the S'mores flavour myself, and I found it rather sickly in the hot chocolate which was topped with two large pink marshmallows and some biscuity crumb," but added, "I much preferred the milkshake which tasted more refreshing, with a lighter hint of the marshmallow flavour." On the sweet side, Dianne sampled the salted caramel chocolate yule log at £4.
25, noting it as "even more gooey than last year and a definite hit". She also tasted the classic M&S mince pie for £2.50, along with the new Christmas spiced tiffin costing £3; the latter she took home to savour later, finding it to be "a really good dessert offering, with a slick layer of chocolate on top peppered with crunchy sweet bits" Chicken schnitzel: 3/5 (mainly for the roasties) Festive toastie: 5/5 Pigs-in-blankets: 1/5 S'Mores Hot Chocolate: 2/5 S'Mores milkshake: 3/5 Festive tiffin: 5/5 Mince pie: 5/5 Yule log: 5/5 Overall rating: 4/5.
