If you've read our previous review of Adventure Menu's products, you'll know that we were thrilled with their food. It doesn't contain any unnecessary additives, tastes delicious and will reliably fill you up on any hike. While these meals are undoubtedly practical, they do have one major drawback - for a multi-dayFor example, you will definitely notice the ten half-kilogram bags of food in your backpack and they take up a lot of space. However, this problem is solved quite effectively by the LightWeight range, which is made for such adventures. We'll take a closer look at it in this review.
Content of the review
If you're wondering how Adventure Menu's products stack up against the competition, we recommend our ranking of the best ready meals. But now back to the standalone review.
Different range, same ingredients
This time it's not the Ready To Eat range, which, as the name suggests, is alreadyReady to Eat, but the LightWeight range, which contains vacuum-dried food. The aim of this range is therefore to make the food as light as possible, so that you can take supplies with you for several days of hiking.
It should be noted, however, that despite the different production process, nothing has changed in the quality of the ingredients used. We were given a Texas chilli con carne to try, which contains only the following ingredients: sterilised beans (25 %), minced beef (20 %), chopped tomatoes (15 %), beef stock (15 %), rapeseed oil, chilli, garlic, cumin and sweet paprika. Once again, this is a dish that is based on quality ingredients and offers greatA good macronutrient profile that you will appreciate on demanding hikes.
However, the fact that the food is vacuum dried has radically changed its weight. Instead of nearly half-kilogram packets of food, this time you only carry about 150 grams, which are also reduced in content. You can put up to 10 of them in your backpack and you won't really notice the weight. However, once you prepare the chilli con carne, the original 157 grams become 600 grams of full meal after rehydration.
The preparation is lengthy but simple
In theory, you wouldn't even need to heat the products from the Ready To Eat range and could eat them straight away. In the case of vacuum-dried food, you could do that too, purely hypothetically, but in practice it would be no treat. This timeyou need to open the food package, pour in the required amount of water (for smallfor small portions, 295 ml, and 443 ml for large portions, but each bag has a line inside, so don't worry). Then you have to close the bag, put it in the cooking bag together with the heated water and the food.and 90 ml of water, and then you start to make the food in the same way as the Ready To Eat variant. However, while the aforementioned Ready To Eat meal only takes 12 minutes to prepare, the LightWeight edition meals will take 20 to 25 minutes to prepare.
Honestly, this was not a problem for us, because at least you have time to set up your tent, for example, to divide thefire or anything else, but of course if you're really hungry, the wait for food can seem kind of endless. Another option for preparation is to pour warm water directly into the bag of food, at a temperature between 90 and 100 degrees Celsius, and close the bag. In this case, your portion will be ready in just 10 minutes, but heating water outdoors isn't always quite possible.
How did we like the chilli con carne?
If you've read our Adventure Menu Ready To Eat review, you'll have noticed that we pointed out that the dish doesn't look entirely attractive at first glance. However, that was not the case with the Texas Chilli con carne at all, the food actually looks quite normal at first glance and even smells lovely. Of course, you can see all the ingredients in it, such as minced meat, beans or corn. So I opened the bag, poured in the amount of water corresponding to the level of the line inside the package. I closed the bag and placed it in the cooking bag along with the heating capsule and the water needed to heat it. I left it alone for about 20 minutes and when I returned, the food was warm.
So I tore off the cap a second time and visually, the only change was that the food had gained in volume quite substantially. Otherwise, it still looked and smelled the same. Taste-wise, however, just like before the Ready To Eat variant, I have nothing to complain about. The beans were very slightly burnt, but if you're at least a little used to spicy food, you won't even notice it. Otherwise, I have to appreciate the very good seasoning, because I haven't enjoyed chilli con carne this well for a long time. And if I hadn't seen with my own eyes before what the food looked like when I first opened the bag, I probably wouldn't have believed that there was any rehydration.
Nevertheless, I would like to make a few quick observations, which I recommend for possible preparation. The first is to let the food heat up more rather than less. The first time I actually pulled the chilli con carne out quite early (after about 15 minutes) and at first glance there was actually no noticeable difference. However, once you bite into the beans, you'll find that they are still hard in the middle, have a sort of "floury" consistency, and frankly don't taste all that good. However, once I made them for over 20 minutes, as recommended by the manufacturer, they were delicious. The other observation then is to really stir the food properly after mixing with water and before reheating. Of course, if there is no water left on any of the pieces, they don't have that opportunity to rehydrate and getthe same problem I mentioned above - it will remain hard and mealy. However, once you've prepared your food this way for the umpteenth time, you'll definitely tweak it to perfection.
What do we say to the price?
One packet of Texas chilli con carne comes out to £259 at the time of writing this review. If you want to heat it up like we did, you'll need to add a reusable cooking pot bag and a disposable heating capsule, so you'll pay about 300 crowns for a large portion of this dish. That's not too little, of course, but on the other hand, it should be noted that this kind of food will fill you up for a really long time and reliably replaces, for example, food from a restaurant or a mountain hut, where the prices are quite similar. Considering that the final portion is 600 grams and 732 kcal, we dare to say that those of you who do not eat so much can split the meal in two. In our team, we managed to eat the portion on our own, but for a while we honestly didn't even think about eating, as full as we were.
Conclusion.
The LightWeight edition of the Adventure Menu is flavorful, maximally packable, and will fill you up perfectly. Plus, thanks to flameless heating, you can enjoy it absolutely anywhere. The only obstacle is the higher price, because paying for300 crowns per portion for a single dinner means that a ten-day hike can get very expensive. So for special occasions when you're going on strenuous hikes far from civilisation, this is a clear choice from our point of view and one we'd happily buy again. However, for regular consumption of this food in situations where it's not downright necessary, we don't see much use for it given the high price tag.
