#housebites

This image goes so fucking hard.

UK-based restaurant Housebites decided to help people who can't cook but want to impress their guests by offering them the dirty dishes alongside the food, so they can be more convincing.

Not everyone likes to cook, but lost of people love to pretend they can cook, so British takeaway restaurant Housebites, decided to give them a hand by launching the "pretend you can cook" service. According to the official press release, this " allows customers to pretend they have slaved away at a hot stove more convincingly by delivering dirty pans alongside the food. Cooked by a professional chef and delivered to your door, Housebites main courses cost on average between £10($16) and £12($19), and now for an additional £5($8), customers can request the pans used to cook them for added authenticity. Collection of the pans is then arranged as easily as the original delivery slot."

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I'm an awful food snob. I can't help it.

I trained for a couple of years as a pasta chef and despite my career being short and uneventful my opinions of other people's cooking are undeservingly critical.

I hate chain restaurants (mostly) and I only get excited about food that is made by people who obsess about the individual ingredients and put love and effort into the food I eat. For this reason most take away food is always dissapointing no matter how nostalgic I get about MSG, greasy newspaper and cans of Irn Bru.

I got very interested in http://www.housebites.com when @jlcoassin sent an email round the agency. The Housebites concept is that there are people who live near you that are good cooks and for a price will cook you a hot meal and deliver it to you (or you can pick it up). And that's it.

I went to the website, typed in my postcode and looked at Lucy Arena's page - http://www.housebites.com/food/menus/11-10-13 I quickly went for the Lamb Shanks with Celeriac Mash. It was all dead easy to order and payment was through paypal which was super quick. There was a bit of an issue with my discount code but someone called me on my mobile (without me asking them to do so) to talk me through each step of the process. I'd be amazed if they can afford to keep that level of service up but it was very much appreciated.

I ordered the meal from the office for it to be delivered at home and it arrived about 10 mins after I got there. The food was brought to my front door by the cook herself. Lucy was charming and chatty and was a big change from the moronic grunting pizza monsters who usually knock on the door.

The food itself (below) was unsurprisingly good . It was simple slow cooked lamb shanks with a non-fussy but ever so slightly sharp gravy. The meat fell away from the bone as you'd hope it would and there was too much mash (no bad thing) although it was on the cusp of being not quite hot enough.

I was slightly dissapointed there was no colour in the dish. Although it wasn't advertised as having any garnish it would have been great to have some colourful leaves to go with it. I guess I should have bought a salad but at £12.25 + delivery this is already more expensive than the excellent food spot http://www.thelordclyde.com which is at the end of my street. That said I got a 50% first timers discount on the total bill so I cannot complain at all. 

As a new take on takeaway Housebites is a brilliant concept well delivered with a lot of potential and I recommend it as an experiment on how to eat well at home. I'm not sure if you will use it more than once but it will make you think long and hard about ordering greasy delights from the nearest generic takeaway option; who should be genuinely concerned about their strangle hold on the tired and hungry amoungst us.

Planvine on Tour

The Planvine Team went on a trip to Amsterdam last week, to an excellent conference called Capital on Stage. The concept was simple but turned the tables on the usual format; this time it was the investors that had to pitch to the entrepreneurs.

As well as being a great opportunity to hear from 20 of Europe's top investors and VCs, it was also a fantastic place to meet and network with some exciting new start ups from across Europe. Plus, of course, the chance to get to go to Amsterdam!

Much of the discussion was around securing funding in Europe compared to doing the same in the US; and it was interesting to hear the take on this from European based VCs. It was also good to hear what they could offer businesses looking for funding and why, perhaps, a European investor would work better for a European business than getting funding from a US investor.