Today we are reviewing Roasted Pork, another choice from Boston Market. This meal is also around the $3.49 range at your local grocery store.

This meal consist of a Roasted Pork with Gravy and Garlic Redskin Mashed Potatoes. The marketing hype from Boston Market suggest:

“Hearty chunks of pork in a delicious gravy with a side of garlic redskin mashed potatoes. So good, it doesn’t need any more explanation.” http://www.bostonmarketfrozen.com/products/dinner.aspx

Nutrional information is as follows:

Nutrition Facts
Calories 510
Calories from Fat 210 % Daily Value*
Total Fat 23G 35%
Saturated Fat 6g 28%
Trans Fat 1g  
Cholesterol 90mg 30%
Sodium 1540mg 64%
Total Carbohydrate 44g 15%
Dietary Fiber 3g 12%
Sugars 2g  
Protein 31g  
Vitamin A 0% * Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 4% * Iron 8%

The Review

Appearance and Packaging
The potato’s actually looked quite nice after heating up as you can see the real sliced potato and skins.  Brown Gravy fills the left side with small pieces of pork swimming, or perhaps drowning. Not the most appealing look, perhaps more like a soup rather than “roasted” pork.

In general, the meal is lacking in color, and screams heavy in starch with all the gravy and potato’s.

Taste and Flavor
The brown gravy was extremely generic tasting, possibly too neutral of a taste to even assist the roasted pork or the potatoes. Also, normally I like to add the gravy onto my potato’s, but given the flavor I decided against it.

Despite the gravy, the potatoes were a treat! I actually enjoyed everything about them, style in which they were prepared, the texture, and the taste were all notwhat you would expect to find in a frozen dinner. Although they were advertised “garlic potatoes”, I tasted just a hint of garlic which is what I prefer. Mostly they were mashed and creamed, but parts were left un-mashed along with cooked skins which gave it a home style feel.

In my opinion the pork also made a poor showing, the pieces were small, some so fatty that it required some extra chewing. The flavor of the pork just did not seem to match the gravy, almost like they did not go together. Some pieces were quite rubbery, while others appeared to be tender. As far as taste, it delivered nothing, just pork.

Overall
Larger higher quality cuts of pork would help this dish along with brown gravy with a tad more flavor. The potatoes were surprisingly good, but this alone would not justify purchasing this dish again.