March 21, 2017 – My first Plated box arrived today, and my first impression is very positive. The first dish is Thai Fish Curry with Kaffir Lime and Jasmine Rice. It reminded me a lot of a Thai Curry Shrimp Soup that I used to make. I usually don’t like tilapia, but I didn’t mind it here. The flavor of the tilapia was mild, but I could still taste it in the soup. The soup had a perfect balance of spices, and it was a very filling dish at only 690 calories per serving. I’d definitely like to make this again.

Plated, like Martha and Marley, gave the option for Tuesday delivery; however, they used a smaller regional delivery service that didn’t have a key to get into the mailroom so they had to call me to let them into the building. I was working from home, so it wasn’t a big deal, but I don’t know what would have happened if I wasn’t home. The box was smaller than the one for Martha and Marley, which made it easier to carry up the three flights of stairs to my apartment. Like Martha and Home Chef, most of the ingredients were bundled together, and thus far the ingredients seem to be high quality. The aforementioned tilapia didn’t taste too muddy and when cooked it didn’t have a mealy texture.

I did notice that one of the recipes calls for two eggs, but they weren’t included in the shipment, but they did send an email today letting me know that I’d need eggs. If I didn’t have eggs left from last week, I would be wicked annoyed, especially since this box is $12 more expensive than Blue Apron, and Blue Apron didn’t leave eggs out of the box when the recipe called for them.

One other thing that I liked about Plated is that they have 10-12 recipes to choose from every week and customization is very easy. This week, four recipes were “encore recipes,” highly rated recipes that are available for the whole month of March. The Fish Curry that I had for lunch was one of the encore recipes, and I can tell why. Next week, there are 12 recipes to choose from, and six of the recipes are encores. Another feature of Plated is that you can choose the number of servings and how many meals you want to receive each week. The minimum is 2 meals with 2 servings each, but you can go up to 4 meals and 4 servings. If you decide to order 4 meals, you will receive the meals in two deliveries to ensure freshness. They also have dessert recipes and ingredients that can be added to your box for $8. I’m going to be out of town next week, so I’m skipping a week, but I added a dessert to my box for the following week.

The only downside is the price of the box. For the 3 meal, 2 serving option, it’s $72. By comparison, the same plan with Blue Apron and Home Chef is $60.