Jacket potato with tuna mayo and cheese, with salad; carrot cake with cream

Welcome, Rate My Hospital Platers, friends old and new, to the first review on the pineapple sponge blog site.

This is an unexpected post in many ways as I was assured yesterday, and again multiple times this morning, that I wouldn’t be leaving hospital to go to the rehab unit until after lunch today, and I therefore completed my food order form accordingly: braised steak casserole, mash, swede and sprouts (I almost licked the plate clean last time I had this, it was so delicious – see image below), followed by tapioca pudding because I’ve never had it and thought it would be interesting for you and me if I tried and reviewed it.

But plans changed, accompanied by more than a few neurospicy meltdowns from me, and quicker than my brain could adjust, I was in my new home from home being asked what I wanted for lunch. Seeking comfort, and something I knew to be safe as the staff at the rehab unit were worryingly unaware that I have a serious citrus allergy, I asked for a jacket potato, with cheese and “lots of butter”; tuna mayo would be nice if there was any. Yes please to salad. Yes please also to today’s dessert, carrot cake.

So, to start with the elephant in the room – or the salad not in the room: I didn’t get any. I may have mentioned, just once or twice (LOL), that I rather like salad, so this was a great disappointment to me. ☹

The jacket potato, though, was hospital-worthy, and I mean that as a genuine compliment: beautifully soft and fluffy insides, with a jacket that, having travelled less far from kitchen to diner than the average hospital meal, remained crunchy in places.

If the potato was a little short of the requested “lots of butter”, it was at least loaded with cheese, even if it was mild cheddar and not the stronger, more mature stuff the hospital uses and I much prefer. Plenty of tuna mayo, which was good, but then it’s hard to mess up tuna mayo. (Although I’m sure there are hospitals out there that have managed it – if I’ve learned one thing from RMHP, it’s that there’s always someone who can mess up anything.)

Followed by carrot cake, which proved to me how utterly spoiled I have been by the St Mary’s because my first thought was “that’s a bit of a small piece of cake” 🙁. Flavour-wise, not bad at all: proper spice flavour, not too sweet, a decent layer of cream cheese icing / frosting, some nice crunchy nuts on top for a contrasting texture. The cream was of the variety we call “squirty cream” in our family (as in it comes from an aerosol can. In writing it down as an adult, I can see a far dirtier interpretation of the phrase which I promise was never intended!), but none the worse for that.

What let it down was an odd, grainy texture to the cake: maybe an attempt to make it healthier by ‘hiding’ some wholemeal flour in the cake mix? If so, consider the attempt a failure, both in hiding the flour and in making a fully successful cake. I ate it (of course I did- cake has to be truly terrible before I refuse to eat it) but wouldn’t / won’t order it next time it appears on the menu.

So, scores (I know I didn’t do these in my RMHP reviews, but I’m trying them out here):

• Salad: 0/10 – didn’t exist
• Jacket potato: 9/10 – needed a bit more butter, but otherwise near perfect
• Carrot cake: 5/10 – nice flavour, shame about the texture
• Overall average: 7/10

If I’ve done this right (🤞), there should be space below for you to comment, and please do: I would like to know that my fellow RMHPers are still with me!