The 'Finest' supermarket own brand? (Tesco Finest Range)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Tesco Finest Range
Date:	09/08/09 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Delicious food, easy cooking instructions, high quality ingredients, a wide choice of meals and food

Disadvantages: Very expensive in comparison to the standard Tesco range

Tesco Finest is the 'posh' range of foods available from Tesco, those which surpass in quality that offered by many branded products let alone the standard Tesco range. The majority of products which Tesco produce under their own label are also available in this more expensive silver packaging, although you may see me writing many Value reviews I can often be found browsing the Finest products as in the main they are absolutely delicious - if not overpriced.

Tesco claim their Finest range has been inspired by restaurant cuisine, a fairly hefty statement for what is in essence a supermarket own brand but you can tell that so much work and research has gone into creating and producing the range and most of the food is very good indeed and manages to be authentic to the recipe it's based on.

I do enjoy their chilled ready meals which are always a cut above any similar meal I've eaten. Their Beef Lasagne is absolutely wonderful; extremely meaty with a rich and peppery sauce sandwiched between layers of perfectly cooked pasta - it's always hard to remember that I've only really warmed it up in the oven and I'm quite sure you could pass this off as home made! My favourite ever food from the Tesco Finest range is their Thai Fish Cakes which is served with a lovely sweet chilli dip; these delicately battered fish cakes taste so exceptionally fresh and flavoursome that you could almost be eating them freshly made at the seaside!

Fish is such an awkward food I find. If the sauce you use is too delicate then the fish can taste overpoweringly, well, fishy but a too-heavy accompaniment may completely obliterate the flavour of the fish. However, every single fish and seafood product I've tried from the Finest range has been wonderful and from these particular dishes you can see the expertise in creating the recipe. Their Salmon En Croute is beyond equal within the supermarket ranges, even the M&S version pales into insignificance next to this one from the Finest range. Likewise their Battered Prawns are certainly something I would happily serve up as part of a buffet party meal as the quality and size of them is truly excellent.

Not only do the Finest range produce the very best ready meals, but you can also buy fantastic meal accompaniments for when you really cannot be bothered peeling carrots and dicing potatoes. It's not often I buy these if I'm honest as the portion sizes are very large and living alone it doesn't tend to work out economically viable, but whenever I have eaten them they have been extremely fresh and very tasty indeed. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the Red Cabbage and Apple dish which is thickly sliced red cabbage combined with chunks of apple, sultanas and apricots - and the best thing is I can have this unusual, attractive and delicious vegetable dish ready in just five minutes in the microwave!

My daughter often buys pots of the Finest mashed potato which is also delicious, the potato has been mashed using cream and butter which gives a smooth and very luxuriant mash. It's also seasoned surprisingly well and again can be microwaved without the potato becoming crusty or losing any of it's delicious creamy texture. Unfortunately this product will only serve 1 ½ people so she doesn't buy this as often as she'd like because the cost would soon become a little much considering there are five mash lovers in her house!

I have eaten from the range of Finest prepared salads and while they're very nice, I do find them very expensive for what they are. Yes, you will get posher lettuce and perhaps something exciting like mozzarella balls but I honestly don't think they are worth the price tag of £2 - £3 for one small salad which probably won't keep your appetite under control for long. The range of fresh vegetables and fruits that come under the Finest umbrella is always fresh and exceedingly tasty, although again the price of these items really puts me off buying them as I find Tesco fresh produce very good anyway even from their standard ranges so it seems pointless for me to spend unnecessarily on the Finest range.

The Finest pre-packaged cooked meats are fabulous and don't really work out a great deal more expensive than buying from the deli. I particularly like their Wholegrain Mustard Wiltshire Cured Ham which is of excellent quality and has a deliciously tangy mustard to liven up the meaty and very substantial ham. If you're feeling a little more adventurous then I completely recommend the Salami, Bresaola or Chiavennasca - all of which I have served at parties and they have all gone down extremely well.

The Finest cheese are fantastic too, I don't actually think I've come across one that I don't like (unless, of course, I don't enjoy one of the main ingredients!). My absolute favourite is the Wensleydale with Blueberries and Cranberries which is an absolute delight to eat either alone or as part of a salad; a creamy and crumbly Wensleydale which is turned fruity by the high quality berries mixed in with it. The Finest Goats Cheese is excellent too, although unfortunately not a patch on my favourite goats cheese which I buy from my local farmers market!

I'm not fond of the Finest range of crisps as they seem to be trying to emulate Kettle with those 'too hard' crisps, the flavours are all good and the price reasonable but I just don't really enjoy the texture of the crisps. This is purely a personal matter though and the crisps are of the high quality expected from the Finest range. You can also buy sweets, chocolate and biscuits branded as Finest, and I must say I love most of them. The chocolate is of very high quality and wonderfully flavoured, you'll never find a dry biscuit in a Finest product and the sweets concentrate more on flavouring than how much sugar they can pack into them.

There are numerous other items encompassed by the Finest range; yogurts, desserts, frozen foods, alcoholic drinks and even toiletries. I have never really come across a product that has been no good, although obviously there are occasions when I shall buy something from the range only to discover that I don't like it overall - which is something that can happen even when buying the poshest food in the land!

Of course, quality foods such as this will have a price tag to match and I don't think there are many with the means to shop exclusively from the Finest range. To give you an idea of prices their chilled ready meals cost anywhere between £3.50 and £5, a packet of biscuits will be around £1.69 and pre-packaged cooked meats can cost from £1.99 to around the £3 mark. As you can see, a large jump in price from the standard Tesco range but honestly the quality of the food is above and beyond what you would expect from any supermarket range so I urge you to try something from the Finest brand soon!

Go on, treat yourself!

Summary: A fantastic range of food from Tesco Finest.