FIVE Guys Revisited - is it better value than KFC now? [@NLi10]

 There's a section of the fast-food-eating community that are still admamant that it's worth paying extra for FIVE GUYS over things like McDonalds and KFC and that it's comparable to Nando's and similar.  It usually costs £20 for a 'meal' (they don't do meals - no discounts for you!), and now FKC and McDonalds have snuck in luxury menus they can cost close to £20 too - so - which is the best value in 2026? 

First up we have a cup of chips.  This is not a sane choice, but it's what they go with.  I think it's because of the peanut oil or something - but it's a small portion.  Why is that...?

They tip the rest into your bag.  Now - this seems silly because these are the ones you'll want to eat first before they go cold.  They are protecting the burger for safety.

And what about the drink - they have a giant machine for that.

As ever - these seem to be malfunctioning.  One was off, and the working one put the flat tasting water everywhere.  I used the variations and options to try a Fanta Grape, non Sparkling.

This is me realising I just paid £4 for a cup of squash.  Luckily it's bottomless so I could have a 2nd drink and take it with me into the cinema - I chose a Coke, but it tasted very odd.  Not sure if it was grape residue or just that the machines proportions were thrown off by it being a sprinkler system.

Next up - the main event - a burger cooked your way with a choice of toppings.

They wrap them forcefully in foil to keep them hot, which means that they all look a bit like this.  Decently fresh ingredients, nice enough meat - but is this a £10 burger?

Overall this leaves me wondering why UK fast food places can't get the drinks right post sugar-tax.

Why pub burgers are so much better value and quality than burger place burgers.

And why chips always have to have a gimmick.

Overall I had a decent meal, I was full, and everything food based was decent enough.  I enjoyed the chips and the ability to have a decent amount of salad on the burger was nice.  The £16 KFC Naan Meal from last week was better value, but not really by much. That said - in KFC I can be full for £12 pretty easily.

Maybe I'm just not the teenage/student audience that these things are designed for (when I was 21 this place was still Birmingham's Hard Rock Cafe!) and I should be valuing the fact that I can eat it fast and get back to whatever the young people enjoy these days.  As it stands £20 would get you a slower, better meal at one of towns many many independent pubs, even if the ingredients aren't quite as flashy and the kitchen is probably more basic.

ISO Sushi - Japanese food in Walsall [@NLi10]

We had a mini family get-together and fancied something other than Pizza so had a look on the usual apps then ordered directly from the ISO Sushi app (20% off!) as I'd not seen decent Japanese food in Walsall before and that kind of thing should be encouraged.

  Link here - there are actually a few in the UK by the looks of things.  Wolverhampton too which means when I'm in the remote office I can pick it up...

This meant that it was around £80 for 7 of us including driver tip.  We tried to do delivery but it wouldn't accept the postcode, but as we'd filled it in like that the restaurant phoned us to see if we did want a delivery and it all worked out.

I had the Chicken Yakisoba which came with Udon noodles (unexpected bonus) and it was great - nice deep flavour and a hint of spice to keep things interesting.  Most everyone else had variations on the Katsu (although the youngest had the Ramen)

I also added a drink - a little expensive for what it was but that's typical of the mangajo style drinks

The sharp lemon was a refreshing contrast to the spicy sauce so I was more than happy that I'd added it.

I also added these lovely Biscoff Gyoza! BUT - everyone was too full after their generous mains so I took them home then ate them solo for lunch the next day (pic at top)

The inside is almost like a Baklava - sugar syrup infused Biscoff crumbs and general awesomeness.  If you like this sort of thing then a sweet gyoza is definitely a new flavour sensation and makes a change from endless (but lovely) deep fried bananas.

It was the first time some of my family had tried Japanese food (!) so they were pleasantly surprised and also very full too.  Great value for money and somewhere I'll definitely order from again should I find myself with family again.

Cofresh Punjabi Samosas and Garlic Naan at home (@NLi10)

I live in an area with loads of Asian people - which means that even our local supermarkets have great options to try - for Eid, or just because its raining and the take-away is far.

Here we have a couple of Cofresh things - they make loads of great crisps so lets give their real food a try.

I've never had oven baked samosa before - traditionally they are fried - but I figured that it'd be healthier.

And of course we used authentic sauce. Oh. I had authentic sauces but only the milder ones and I figured that with the spicy (oh boy were they spicy) samosa that I needed a hot sauce to stand a chance.  This was only English strength hot though so was pretty medium in the end. Nice though (and on special!)

So here we have Quorn, peas & sauce, with the samosa and the garlic naan.  I think the naan needed a little longer, but was almost as soft and flavoursome as the ones that I get from my local High Street (4 for a £1) - a win!

The Samosa as mentioned before were really potent, and smaller than the fresh ones that we buy by the box for work.  I liked it like this, you can have too much potato, and the balance of crispiness to heat was great.  They burnt a little (my oven is terrible for evenness of heat) but were still great.

Overall much nicer than the pre-made takeway at home kits and the rest can sit in the freezer until needed (along with my paratha collection).

Ramadan Mubarak everyone!

The Spicy Spanish Stack (McDonalds) By @Cinabar

Friday night is take away night and today we decided to have a look at what the latest is on the McDonalds menu. The new burger from their Summer selection is called the Spanish Stack. I gave it an order to be delivered, flicked the TV on and started to catch up on the Common Wealth games. We have a medal already!

So the burger is on a bread bun flavoured with paprika. It has a spicy salsa and chilli cheese slice. I gave it a try. The first thing to note is that there are two burgers under the bun, making it feel rather substantial. I liked the warmth of the salsa ketchup and the chilli cheese, it was gentle but worked well. I think calling it ‘spicy’ might be a bit optimistic but there was a nice tingle. I couldn’t taste much paprika on the bread, but I had an awareness it was there. The onion was lovely too, it gave the burger a fresh feel. The best thing, though, is the heavy hit of tomato on the burger. I could eat that spiced ketchup all day. Not enough chilli to overpower anything but a good flavour. I’d have taken a second helping of that with the chips had there been the option.

Jarritos pop/cola & Mexican food (@NLi10)

 There's a pretty new Mexican place that's opened within walking distance of my house.  Run by a Mexican family and visited by lots of people familiar with the area, it's this odd little cultural oasis in our very Asian neighbourhood.  And I love it.

They also import (or aquire from people that do) genuine Mexican snacks & drinks to go with their ingredients so I can work through the Jarritos rainbow one bottle at a time.

For starters I chose Mandarin.  This is one of those flavours that just doesn't show up in English snacks - just one kind of Orange for us.  We occasionally get Satsuma which is basically the same, but here we have the real deal.  It's sharp and exciting, and goes really well with the deep fried nachos starter.

And look at that lunch-time main.  Egg and Chorizo - I forget the real name.  So many lovely flavours with just the right amount of kick to keep you going.

Naturally I got a bottle to take home too.

Mexican cola is a delight - much closer to the Fentimans flavours than the English pop.  

Sure - it's still just water and flavourings but it's at least exotic water that's actually been to Mexico (unlike me).

Maybe I can persuade my partner that I should go fetch us a delivery for this evenings tea...

Caramel Latte In A Can (Costa Coffee) By @Cinabar

On a Saturday day I sometimes pop into Costa for a coffee if I’ve been into town to do some shopping. Last weekend I spotted that they had these new take-out cans, meaning I can enjoy the my iced Costa Caramel Latte at home. There were some cans as well with a regular latte or simple americano too, for those without a sweet tooth, but I chose the drink with a spot of syrup and picked dup a caramel version.
As i was having this drink at home I poured it into a glass and it was then that I noticed it is quite a small portion of drink. It almost filled my glass, where regular cans of pop fill it and have some drink left in them that I can’t squeeze in. Although the Caramel Latte can was tall it was quite thin.

Taste wise I was a little disappointed, I could pick on the UHT milk flavour which seemed to dominate the latte. The coffee element was nice but the caramel wasn’t quite as sweet as I’d hoped either, more of a background flavour and not quite meeting my expectation of a rich Costa Caramel Latte. This is nice enough but not quite the innovative revolution I’d hoped for. I have a bad feeling that between the sugar tax and artificial sweeteners being disliked I’m going to end up spending lots of time on here complaining that products aren’t sweet enough; shame on my sweet tooth.

I'm not eating KFC Vegan food (but only because it's not there yet!) (by @NLi10)

There is a definite health kick in the UK fast food market at the moment.  Whether the consumer chooses the healthy option or not it's certainly a boost to the ego when eating at a place which has healthy options.  People also like vegan food.  The stylish like the lifestyle, and the religious also like the fact that it's automatically Halal. This means that adding a vegan option to the menu, then hyping the heck out of it (like Gregg's did) is good PR and might actually sell.

Because all risks are bad risks the people at KFC decided to do a trial and only sent out a few of the offerings to select stores.  None of these happened to be near me, so at the weekend I went on a jaunt to find one that did.

Too slow! But it comes back in July, which is a week away.  Interestingly they have imposter salads and imposter wraps too which is groovy.

And speaking of wraps - they seem to have all changed!  The plain wrap is now 'original' but different as it has coleslaw in it, and there is a BBQ wrap too.  You don't automatically get the new KFC fries either but have an option for healthier sides.  The new skin on fries are OK actually.  When I asked for an iced tea I got a regular tea - which is fine as all tea is good.

I didn't have the Smokey Mountain BBQ, I think they wrapped me up in the wrong direction.

But it looks fine, has good chicken, and had a lot of colours of veg in there instead of just some lettuce.  It's not as good as the MR Egg wrap, but here this was all £5 and the wrap there was £4 so its a balance thing.

And yeah - I'll be coming back for the Vegan KFC nonsense (it's Quorn again - why don't they get more adventurous!!!) but i was surprised just how much they've developed the menu this year since I last popped in.  I still don't thnk it's the best place to take a veggie on a date, but give them 6 months and who knows.

Domino's 2-4-Tuesdays - Catalan Chicken & Chorizo Pizza (by @NLi10)

We like Pizza, we like special offers.  So - last Tuesday we decided to do Domino's Two For Tuesday and get two pizzas delivered for the price of one! I mean it's still £19 which seems a lot, but we did go for the large ones.  I chose the Catalan Chicken & Chorizo which has lots of chicken, with a sour cream and paprika drizzle on top - but will it look like it's photo?

We had a starter of those Iberian Olives we reviewed the other week - while a little squishy and very oily then are very nice!  I'd still prefer them without stones.

And in a reasonable amount of time they arrived!

And looked like this!

That's close enough to the picture for a thumbs up from me.  The flavours were great and while I thought it may be too much for one it wasn't. I even had a pudding too.

You could taste the chicken and the textures were quite fun too.  The Chorizo was thick enough that I belived they hadn't just slipped cheaper peproni on there and the Italian base was pretty classy too.

All in all I'm happy for £9.50 each delivered and this may tempt me away from our usual Papa Johns more often than I'd thought.

Hot Dog Pizza (Papa Johns @PapaJohnsUK) By @Cinabar

We fancied a takeaway and following an email advert from Papa Johns we decided to settle on pizza. The email is advertising their new Papa Johns Hot Dog Pizza, and this sounded like the perfect excuse for a takeaway. Admittedly we don’t need much of an excuse. It did lead me to think though that this is a hot dog pizza and that there is nobody local to us who deliver hot dogs on their own as a takeaway. We have several pizza places, fish and chips, Chinese, fried chicken and even a Japanese (I say even as we live in the sticks), but nobody delivering hot dogs. Hopefully this pizza would be the next best thing. This is one of those ‘when snacks collide’ combos, and I love both pizza and hot dogs sp couldn’t wait to give it a try.
The Papa Johns Hot Dog Pizza consists of sliced hot dog pieces, onions and a topping of ketchup and a mustard drizzle. The minute the box was opened the aroma was very much that of a hot dog stand and I found myself smiling to myself. The pizza is very tasty, the onions and hots dogs do make a good topping, and thankfully the mustard isn’t too strong. The onions were almost crispy which was nice for the texture. The ketchup give a lovely sweet base flavour and we all enjoyed the pizza.
In conclusion this Papa Johns Hot Dog Pizza gets the thumbs up from me, not just as a substitute for hot dog deliveries in my area but as a mighty fine pizza in its own right. It has flavours that work together well, and I’ll be sad if this disappears off the menu.

Marmite and Cheese Scrolls (Papa Johns) By @Cinabar

Interesting things have been happening today. Firstly I had a bit of play to update the header of Foodstuff Finds, see above. Hope you like it? I normally have minimal artistic talent so I was quite pleased with the results. We then decided to have pizza to celebrate. We ordered via Papa Johns so obviously I had a look at the new items available on their website and found these Marmite and Cheese Scrolls so added them to the order. Then I was doing that thing where I stare out of the window waiting for the delivery man, a car went passed and Spectre asked if it was the pizza, I called back “No, it is a Frogeye Sprite, and nobody delivers pizza in one of them.” My mistake, it pulled up outside our house and out got our Papa Johns delivery man.
I think the first thing we noticed was the strength of the aroma from the Marmite before we even opened the box. Inside were quite a few Marmite and Cheese Scrolls, and I put a couple on the side of my pizza. I gave one a try and although I am a Marmite fan I still found the flavour a bit strong. I liked the soft doughy texture, and the hint of cheese. The salty yeasty taste lingered on the palette too long and distracted from delicate tastes on the Garden Party (veggie) pizza. I ate all my Marmite and Cheese Scrolls though, I was just left with the thought that I wouldn’t miss them if they left the menu. Spectre wasn’t impressed at all, he said they were too strong for him, he can tolerate Marmite crisps, but these were not his thing. He then munched the decorative chillis from the side of the pizza as he often does, the first one was the usual heat he said. The second one he ate whole, and it blew his head off. Sweat was pouring off him, I gave a supportive laugh and then realised he was genuinely struggling and got him a large glass of milk to drink. Turns out the Marmite and Cheese Scrolls weren’t the worst tasting thing on his plate after all.

Festive Feast Pizza (Papa Johns) By @Cinabar

Festive Feast Pizza Papa Johns

Christmas is all about the pizza. Well I think I meant that the other way around, this pizza is all about Christmas. It might not be the most obvious pairing, but top a pizza with turkey, bacon, some stuffing and a drizzle of cranberry sauce and how can you not be on to a winner.
I am a big fan of cheese in general but I wasn’t sure how that would go with turkey, but putting this aside I ordered the pizza as a stuffed crust too! I have to admit it did work rather well, the stuffing flavour was mainly sage and added a good herby taste, similar to that of a heavily seasoned sausage. The turkey pieces were meaty and flavoursome and there was plenty of topping. The cranberry sauce was a nice different touch too, the flavour was sweet but also sharp, and this brought the whole pizza together, as it worked well with the cheese and the meaty tastes. I enjoyed dipping the stuffed crust into the pot of garlic sauce that came with it too, there aren’t any calories at Christmas right?
One thing is for sure though this pizza won’t be on the menu for long, so I need to work in another order into my schedule before it has gone and Christmas has arrived. Turkey, cheese and cranberry turns out to be a winning combination!

New Chipotle Pulled Pork Pizza (@Dominos_UK) By @Cinabar

We decided to have pizza from Dominos for a quick tea. Spectre is still on crutches so a simple and tasty dinner was to be ordered. As there was a new pizza listed on their website, Chipotle Pulled Pork, it was easy to choose what to have. “New”, that’s how we roll at Foodstuff Finds.
We made no changes to the pizza, and had a medium size exactly as recommended. The pizza arrived and looked stunning, there was loads of topping. I was pleased to see plenty of vegetables too, red and green peppers, onions and sweetcorn. I love a mix of textures, and the crunchy vegetables mixed with the soft pulled pork, and the firm bread base was a texture combination mixed in heaven.
The pulled pork shone in terms of flavour too. The barbecue and tomato tastes from the meat and sauce was stunning, and I loved how the chipotle sauce added a really good burn from the chilli heat, my mouth could really feel the spicy warmth. This made the creamy garlic dip they sent heaven for dipping the crusts and cooling my mouth down.
In short this pizza was fantastic. Gorgeous spicy moist meat, plenty of fresh crunchy vegetables, and absolute treat.

Dominos New Italiano Range - Verona Pizza & Tiramisu (By @Cinabar)

Dominos has updated their menu with a selection of Italian themed pizzas. I know pizza is Italian, but many of Dominos pizzas always seem to be American style, rather than the more traditional Italian. We decide to give it a go and also chose their new Italian style desserts as I have a bit of a weakness for Tiramisu.

Verona Pizza
The pizza came topped with chicken and prosciutto, and had a side portion of rocket and chilli oil to sprinkle on top. The base of this new pizza is much thinner than our usual, and is crispy in texture, this made it good for dipping in sauce. The chicken and prosciutto were lovely, in particular the meat in the prosciutto was delicate, tasty and added a little bit of salt. Weirdly the star of the show was the rocket leaves, they were spicy and tangy and went so well with the other flavours. I was very impressed with the Italian Verona pizza and do look forward to having it again.

Desserts: Tiramisu and Lemon Cheesecake

Firstly take a look at the screenshot of the online menu.

I have to admit to being disappointed with the look of the dessert. The menu we had in the post made this look like we'd receive a proper slice of Tiramisu as you would in an Italian restaurant. What arrived was very similar to what I'd order online on my supermarket order, which would normally cost me around £1.50 for two desserts. This was £3.99 for one, which felt quite hefty.

The dessert was very nice, the mascarpone layer was very tasty, quite thick but very creamy. The sponge fingers were so heavily soaked in their Marsala sauce they were almost fudge like in texture, they were heavy and over moist. I quite liked this, but it wasn't like any Tiramisu I'd had before.

The Lemon Cheese looked the same, it was again just in a pot, rather than a piece of cake. Although I didn't taste it, I was informed that it was very tasty and zingy. The biscuit was over pressed though, so much so that trying to get it out of the pot involved some light chiselling with the spoon.

I think the desserts weren't what I was expecting, I wanted an actual piece of Tiramisu and a proper slice of cheesecake, although they were tasty, they worked expensive for what they were. The Verona pizza on the other hand was a complete success, the Italian meat, chilli oil and rocket hit the spot, and we are looking forward to ordering one of these again soon.

Arabian Pulled Lamb Pizza - Papa Johns (@NLi10)

Papa John has continued to be good to us recently. They offered us the opportunity to try their Arabian Pulled Lamb pizza on its launch week for free. Naturally after realising that we need larger portions for a party we ordered two extra pizza which gives us enough for 5 people, or in this case 4 with lunch the following day for two of us.

I invited round my sister who is a massive fan of lamb, and her partner for a few games of cards with myself and my veggie partner.

While I remember Papa Johns wanted us to tell you about the special offer for customers who want to try this pizza, with a small pizza for just £5 (with any order above £10.99 that includes a pizza).  

Actually this works out fine as you all get a slice of the new pizza alongside what you already ordered. Personally I'll never do this, and you probably shouldn't either, but I have my reasons...

First up we have the Garden Party - a good, solid veggie pizza that was mostly for my partner.  She enjoyed it.

Next up we have a split pizza of Supreme Peperoni/All The Meats. The thinking behind this was to hark back to our last review and have half the pizza with the reduced fat cheese option, and the other half with the regular cheese option. Unfortunately I couldn't see how to do this online and didn't want to try to explain this requirement over the phone. I thought it would be a fun mini review within the review (reviewception?) but alas, I had to settle for the two meaty options instead.  If Papa Johns made the options for the cheese a bit more obvious in the splits then it would have been good to try.  

We didn't really discuss the relative merits here as the All The Meats half vanished almost instantly, more flavour and variety is clearly better. 

And so to the main event.

The pizza had the traditional Papa Johns smell, but there were definite extra flavours here that were new. I'd not really anticipated the chillies on here, but wasn't phased and took two decent sized slices as my first portion.

The lamb looks good, and there is a decent coverage of ingredients. Essentially it tastes like a kebab with chillies on it, and a good quality one at that. I live in a very diverse area and can get Morrocan and Arabian kebabs within walking distance, and this is closer to the spicy Arabian target than I expected. The chillies are also really sweet and spicy and are what make this pizza work so well. All The Meats is one of my favourite deliver pizzas, this is better.  My sister's partner agreed, he liked the heat and the flavour and agreed that it was very much something new that he'd not tried on a pizza.

My sister is a big fan of lamb. When we shared this house she'd frequently fill it with the smell of slowly cooking lamb. This is not something I enjoyed, and my veggie partner had to leave on one occasion as the smell was so bad. (Side note: our veggie companion said this pizza actually smelt ok so it passes that test to!).  We took the chillies off because my sister isn't a fan of spicy, but even then there were some bites she found too intense. She also thought the lamb was a little tasteless and suggested that a minty lamb version would have been much more up her street.

She was a big thumbs down. We were a big thumbs up!

Overall the opinion of the pizzas was positive, especially of the Arabian Pulled Lamb. While Papa Johns special offer is very generous I'd personally ignore it. If you like spicy pizzas then just order the whole thing right away - and use one of the other special offers to get it cheap, if you don't like spicy pizzas then you probably aren't going to get the best out of it and the offer isn't for you.

We will certainly be ordering this again, and while it really isn't for veggies (and you have to be able to tolerate the heat) it is one of the most interesting pizzas I've had in years and worth a special order just to try.

Papa Johns - lower fat cheese option Pizza (@NLi10)

Papa Johns has let us sample their new flavours before, but what they had on offer this time was a little different. I agreed to give it a try and they hooked us up with a meal for two.

Here we have one pizza and two mysterious white bags.

The pizza is as requested - a veggie pizza (I think a Garden Party) but with no mushrooms - and most importantly for the review - low fat cheese.  Now I'm a little sceptical when it comes to the low fat varieties of things, I'm a much bigger fan of eating less of the thing and having the real deal, but I was willing to give this a try.

Here are my first two slices. As you can see, even though the cheese is only 1/3 lower in fat it still doesn't look as prevalent on top of the pizza.  The taste too was quite mild, but it still tasted like a pizza with cheese on it.  This is good for me, I'm not a fan of strong cheese, preferring it in the background holding the pizza together. 

On the online menu you can choose the lower fat cheese at no cost, and presumably it's mentioned at the til when you order in person. And yeah - I'm pretty likely to do this in future - for anyone who doesn't see the cheese as the main event on the pizza then you are likely to feel the same way.

My veggie partner was disappointed that they haven't used a lower fat, but strong cheese as shed much prefer that!

The little white bags were the also new to the menu chargrilled corn bits. These were nice enough and did come apart much easier than regular corn on the cob, but it's just not something I'd get excited about.  We received two portions of four, and didn't need the second bag. We'd be much more likely to add a garlic bread or order the next size up of pizza to complete our meal - but then that would likely negate the lower fat cheese option and reduce the nutrition in the corn. As the corn wasn't that buttery at all I'm guessing that it was pretty healthy compared to the rest of the package.

Pizza is not the most healthy of meals, but in moderation and with the lower fat cheese I guess you could have it just that little more often.