President’s Choice Product Sample (2009)

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To those who have read this blog for some time, to those who know me, specially those whom I have broken the bread with, know I am quite adamant about attending open houses, receiving “freebies” and similar situations. It is because I am an average person who just happens to write a blog which tries to describe experiences average consumer would have. However, you can’t deny that, despite my public notes about what to expect from this blog, once in a while, people in charge of PR have tried to contact me (the most hilarous one being one from a local restaurant – which shall remain unnamed – asking me to wear my stilettos and attend an event). So far, I have chosen not to attended any events from places restaurants in Vancouver but, I was quite puzzled when I received this email:

Hi! I have a review offer for you from President’s Choice. President’s Choice is celebrating Canada’s culinary cultural mosaic
with 1000 Tastes of Canada.

Would you like to sample some of these products? We’d like to send you:

• PC Indian Butter Chicken Cooking Sauce
• PC Blood Orange Italian Soda
• PC Tzatziki Yogurt Dressing
• PC Memories Of Mexico Fajita Cooking Sauce
• PC The Decadent Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
• PC Barbeque Baby Back Ribs Rippled Potato Chips

I’ve also got a release, backgrounders and images I can send. You can also learn more at www.presidentschoice.ca.

Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll have the samples shipped to you. Thanks so much for your time!

Rather than say yes or no outright, I checked with some other local food bloggers because, while I had some thoughts, I wanted to hear their thoughts too. In general, they were quite enthusiastic about it. However, I still had to ask one question in mind:

Dear ************,

Thanks for your email.

I will safely assume you sent me the email because I write a food related blog. But, before I answer your question, can you, please, tell me the expectations from your side if I choose to accept the samples? I.e., Do you expect I will blog it after I have sampled them? Will I have an independent opinion of the products? Please advise.

Now, before anybody tells me I might be making up this email, let me assure you, others were BCCed on this email… And, here is the response I got:

I was looking through Vancouver-based blogs when I found I’m Only Here for the Food. I saw that you write about a diverse range of foods (as you said Vancouver has a wide variety of offerings), and thought this 1000 Tastes of Canada campaign would be perfect for you. We would like to send you the sample products and hear your honest opinion. If you hate the food and don’t want to post about it, that’s perfectly fine. If you hate the food and want to write about how much you hated it, that’s your right, also. You are not entering any kind of agreement with us by accepting these products for review.

I hope this answers your questions, but feel free to get back to me with any other concerns.

Let me translate that just in case: Although I received these free samples, I have total editorial control over this post. No $$$ was provided in exchange for writing this post. In fact, rather than me keeping them for myself, I had a really good idea (something echoed by the people I BCCed): Do a mini-gathering and cook with these products!

Note: For a larger version, please, click on the image – it will open in a new window.
Note 2: To readers outside of Canada, President’s Choice is a private label brand of Loblaws, who operates different supermarkets in Canada, the best known being Superstore and the recently purchased T&T.

There were two problems though: Timing and place. I ended up going on a trip not long after I received the package (my trip to Florida) and where. The first one was just a matter of waiting after I came back, not that much of a problem; the second one, well, that is more tricky. Since I live in a one-bedroom apartment, that would have been difficult to accomodate that many people. Fortunately, Sherman of Sherman’s Food Adventures, who was among the people I BCCed, offered his place to hold this event. With that one detail resolved, it was a matter of making sure who else would come (as we had to coordinate the rest of the details, specially that of how much food). Again, with that issue resolved…

Please, do NOT ask about the sleep eye mask…

In the end, frequent blog reader/commenter Anita and TS of [eatingclub]Vancouver (and, of course, Sherman and Viv) were able to make it. Now, no hard feelings towards the rest whom I BCCed, after all, you all had plans and I knew timing wasn’t the best. The only regret, probably, would be that you couldn’t taste the dishes! But, back to the picture above, notice there are some products that were not included in the original list as well as products that should have been included but did not – Cookies anybody??? ^_^ The second picture includes that of the other ingredients we had to gather as, after all, without them, there wasn’t that much you could do… Once we took some of the pictures, we started cooking the following menu:

• Butter Chicken.
• Chicken Fajita – OK, actually this was the chicken marinated in the fajita sauce.
• Lemon Chicken – This was my personal variant to “compare” it to the other ones.
• Potato salad, as per this recipe (from President’s Choice site).
• Tomato salad/platter
• Pickled cucumber
• Peach Flognarde

Some chips to start up with

Chicken being grilled…

First couple of dishes… The naan being store bought naan

Pickled cucumber

Heirloom tomatoes with basil and olive oil. I am really impressed with TS’s skills, even with small touches before considering it “done”!

Potato salad

Chicken “marinated” with the fajita sauce

The lemon chicken. I could easily recognize one from the other because of the not-so deep colour.

Butter chicken, prepared as per jar’s instructions.

Dinner is ready!

Dessert is ready!

So, here is a breakdown of the food:

PC Barbeque Baby Back Ribs Rippled Potato Chips: I think it was Annie who said it tasted like an all-dressed chip with some smoky taste along. While I have stopped buying big bags of chips long time ago (though, once in a while, I will eat them), I find this quite good. It was crunchy and loaded with flavour (and salt?). However, I am not in a hurry to buy these.

Naan (not included in the sample package): I won’t even try to compare it to restaurant naan. But, for store bought, it was quite good while it is warm. Once it starts to “cool” down, it is not that different to any form of flatbread. However, at $2.xx, I might as well buy a good sourdough rather than naan.

Butter chicken: I think most of us were disappointed with this one. To quote Sherman: if I were to go for butter chicken, I would instead go to Surrey. But, then again, not everybody can do that (I myself won’t as I don’t like to drive “that far”). However, judging the product as is, there were some common comments: too salty and not smooth/sweet enough. Probably our understand of butter chicken is different, as we were expecting a smooth creamy sauce with tomato overtones. Here, we did not really taste too much of the cream. TS, mentioned something: it is possible the fact we used whole thighs rather than boneless pieces of chicken and/or the chicken was slightly seasoned might have had an impact on how the dish ended up. But, still, I do not think that would have had impacted that much on the taste of the sauce itself.

Chicken Fajita: I know, I know. Some people would have expected some flour tortilla and cheese and so. No, according to the PC newsletter, you should marinate some shrimp and cook them on the grill. However, no shrimp in this case and I made the executive decision of going on with chicken. In the end, we all agree it did not add much… Could it be we should use the sauce as a dipping sauce?

Potato salad: We used a recipe from President’s Choice site with one exception: no onions. It was due mainly because of somebody’s “reaction” to it (I will let you guess who that is). But, other than that, it was quite decent, as in lighter than similar salads made with mayo. But, if you like a richer version, go ahead and use mayo instead. Oh, I did go for the potatoes suggested by the recipe (hey, they would, obviously suggest their own products!); however, if you do try this recipe, any red potatoes will do.

Lemon chicken: For this chicken, I did the following: in a bowl, mix the juice of two lemon, some coriander, garlic, salt, pepper and 125 mL of olive oil. Pour it in a resealable bag with pieces of chicken thigh. Let it “marinate” for a couple of hours. Discard the marinate and grill the chicken. As a side sauce, in a blender, the juice of two lemon with 125 mL of olive oil and basil. I asked Anita to taste and she gave me a really odd (which ended up being a really good) suggestion: add some sugar! I thought this would be an epic fail as, at first, it looked like a mix-and-match of ingredients. However, it seems it turned out better than expected, though, to quote Sherman “I like lemons” (Of course, he is referring to the citrus…).

Pickled cucumber: I think I did not add enough sugar to this one but too many thai chili. As a result, this dish was quite hot but oddly refreshing. It seems everybody enjoyed it. Oh, as for the recipe, I will partially keep it for myself; however, TS has a good one here.

Heirloom tomatoes: I will have to give full credit to TS on this one, as he masterfully prepared the dish, even the small details like the basil and how much olive oil to add. As for the tomato itself, well, since it is a bit of mix-n-match, we could taste several types, though, we tended up to go for the “meatier” ones. Sorry, other than the its colour (the deep red ones), I don’t think I will be able to describe which one was it.

Peach Flognarde: If there was a personal fail, I will have to say it was this dish. Several things went wrong: not sweet enough and the batter ended up a big too “stiff”. And I though you couldn’t mess with a clafoutis/flognarde!

So, here is the big question: how did the PC products do? Before I go on, I admit that I normally buy some of the PC products, as I find some them as good, if not better than brand name products. However, in some instances they are hit-and-miss. As for the ones we sampled, the general concensus was that the sauces were mostly a fail. Given enough cooking skills, you will be able to make something a lot better rather than pouring sauces from a jar. However, if you are short on time, that might be an alternative. Come to think about it, if you are going all the way to a Superstore to buy these and prepare it from scratch, you might as well just buy a rotisserie chicken (or two).

Regardless of my opinion of the products, I will have to give thanks to Loblaws: It gave us an excuse to gather together. Anita, thanks for coming: you gave us interesting thoughts from a different perspective. TS, I apologize you ended up doing a lot of the cooking and I wish you did not have to leave early. Finally, Sherman and Viv, thanks a lot for offering your home to host this. So… How about some random wine tasting next time?

Tagged under: Chicken • Home Cooking • Random • Salad