I have to hand it to Daily Dish. Every week they put together new recipes for four days, pack up the exact measured ingredients in boxes for three categories (classic, low carb and vegetarian) and deliver it to their customers every Monday. What could go wrong? A lot, I’m sure, if I was doing it. I would probably forget an item or two, but I can’t fault them on that. The problem I experienced was with the late delivery of the food, but the way it was handled gave me faith that in fact customer service does exist out there.
But let me start at the beginning. I have been aware of Daily Dish for some time. I have been reading about it on other blogs. On finding they had a low carb menu, I was really interested. I started printing their recipes. The problem I have mentioned before about this low carb kick we are on is that the meals from The Real Meal Revolution take forever. I’m not knocking the freshness and the need to prepare quality, I’m just looking for alternatives to putting food in the oven for two hours etc. In any case, I have been entering competitions and was absolutely thrilled to win at You, Baby and I. Not only would I get to sample their food, but it would put a significant dent in my food shopping. Win-win!
The Monday I was expecting delivery of the food turned out to be a bit hectic. I am normally at home, but as it happened, I landed up needing to go into work (for my phoning job) which meant that someone needed to be at home to collect the food. I arranged for my maid to be there, although it was not her normal day to come.
When I arrived back I was very surprised to hear that the food had not arrived, especially since I had received an email saying it would be there between 8am and 1pm. It was now around 12. I picked up the phone just before one and phoned Diane de Villiers at Daily Dish. She immediately said she would find out what was happening and call back.
It turned out that they were using a new guy with a new van (so as to improve the quality – refrigerated) and were experiencing some teething problems. He was not aware that I was on the list for the morning and thought I was for the afternoon. She said the food was on the way.
So I waited. And waited.
After Nicky had had his nap it was now around 3/4 and I was needing to drop the maid off. But I was still waiting for the food. So I phoned again. Again, Di was apologetic and I was put in touch with the driver, who said he was in Pretoria. I said I was just going to drop the maid and would be right back.
I got back and waited again. And waited.
By this time I was thinking about picking up hubby from work but of course I was still waiting for the food.
When I phoned Di again she was a super star. She firstly offered to pay for take away supper but to be honest I was not that keen on that. I wanted my healthy food, dammit! She then offered to give us another week of food. Bonus! I was thrilled!
Well, that driver finally pitched up at… wait for it… five to eight at night. By that stage I wasn’t even interested in his stories. I just wanted to grab the food and go fetch hubby so that we could get our take aways, which I hadn’t wanted in the first place, but there we are. Nicky also had a late night, but that was unavoidable.
However, I think it is worth noticing how Di handled this situation and that it can be a lesson to some other people in customer services out there (I’m particularly thinking of some useless cellphone call centres)
1) Polite and efficient: She listened carefully, found out what the problem was and got back to me immediately each time I phoned.
2) She offered a solution: She gave me options on how to make up for the loss.
3) She reworked the problem: The driver worked out a better route and the next week my food was delivered at a quarter to nine. That impressed me.
Well, enough about that. Let’s get on to the food.
Oh and Nicky liked the box. You can see him climbing into it.
I had the Low Carb menu. These are some of my findings.
1) The two weeks seemed to follow a pattern of 1x chicken, 1x pork, 1x vegetarian and 1x other (one week bacon, other week mussels). However, looking at the next week I see there is 1x chicken, 1x fish, 1x bacon and 1x steak. (Next week really looks great and I’m now bummed I’m not getting it).
2)The chicken recipes are the ones I found most useful in that I will be cooking them again. The one I cooked on Friday was Paprika and Lime Chicken with Garlic Mushrooms. I like the way the food comes out really tasty. I just decided to substitute the beans for a packet of mixed veg. Hubby loves mushrooms so of course that is a winner. I also liked Lemon Garlic Chicken with Spicy Cauliflower – tasty hot cauliflower which you could dip into a salad of yoghurt and grated cucumber.
3) We aren’t vegetarians and didn’t really go for those. The first vegetarian one was okay (it had sweet potato in) (Roast Root and Feta) and I added some of my own chicken, so that was fine. The next week when they did an aubergine stack it was not great. I’m sure it’s very healthy but I don’t really like aubergines.
4) I would say the meals took just over an hour on average to prepare. The first one I did (Green Curry Pork Stir Fry) as you can see has a lot of vegetable preparation. It took me two hours but that was because of CTI (Constant Toddler Interruption). Nicky was standing on his table by the sink insisting I give him more water to play with every five seconds or so! By the way that one was fab – I liked all those vegetables. The quickest one really did take half an hour and that was the Courgette and Smoked Mussel Salad (did not have to cook although I did have to peel the courgettes).
5) I noticed how they packed the food so that it would last better. The meat is vacuum packed. The cauliflower has leaves around it and looks better than most I buy. (And I know. That is what low carbers do when you can’t do potato).
6) The food is really tasty and comes with little plastic sachets of spices all measured out. There’s no bland on the menu here.
7) I learned new things and tried some fresh cooking skills. I made cauli rice for the first time. I also tried new tastes.
8) My favourite was the Cheese n Bacon Topped Butternut. I just really liked the taste. I think this would also make a nice lunch. Butternut is such a warming, comforting food as well.
In conclusion I would say you won’t regret it if you try out Daily Dish. The nice thing is that you can do a week and then press pause until you want to do it again.
Do yourself a favour and at least take a look at their recipes. I know I will be!
And if anything goes wrong you can trust Di to put it to rights. Nothing like all those ingredients delivered to your door to make it all better.
It looks and sounds like this is a business that deserves to do well. There is no business that doesn’t have a hiccup, how they handle it makes all the difference
Great post! I’m so glad you love them as much as I do. Everyone deserves a second chance. Great customer service is what makes a “bad” situation better.