Health: OK. 420 calories for the pot, reasonable fibre, low on fat, but v. high on carbs, sugars and salt.

Taste: OK. Not brilliant – tasty as the gyoza are, they kind of dissolve in the broth so the texture is a bit odd. had chilli in (Eat’s ‘extra spicy’ option), which gave it a pleasant kick but might have been overkill, and some of the vegetables were a bit odd – the edamame-esque beans were crunchy in a weird way. Not bad on the whole, but… lacked a certain ‘oomph’.

Full-o-meter: OK; not too shabby at all but I was slightly short-brothed today, and the ‘hot hot’ broth was either tepid or the freezing wind chilled it over the 3 minute walk back to the office. Still, better than Eat’s Tom Yum’s…

Verdict: 3.5/5.

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Health: Heavy on the carbs, but OK protein and good fibre, and a mangeable amount of fat and not too bad on the sodium front. 420 calories in all, for the pot, which is OK.

Taste: Wow. The best of M&S’s soups by a long way, so far. Deliciously thick and tasty, well-seasoned with a good amount of spice, you can feel the cayenne and the cumin giving it a little edge whilst the creamy tomatoes and burger-licious meatballs square off on your taste budes.

Full-o-meter: Not too bad at all. Good amount of fibre in there, and the thickness of the soup will keep you going for a while.

Verdict: 4.5/5. With this soup, M&S, you redeem yourself for some of your previous efforts…

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Health: 272 cals for the pot, but decent protein, low sat fat, OK fibre. Bad on salt, as you’d expect…

Taste: Moreish; good level of gentle spices, tasty bacon… maybe a little too salty. Pretty well headache inducing, actually.

Full-o-meter: Good. Good lentil/protein kick. Eaten with artisan roll, taking overall calorie count to about 440.

Verdict: 4/5. Oversaltiness lets it down, but would have it again nonetheless.

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Health: Erm, not great. 460 calories for the pot, loads of fat and sat fat, quite a bit of sodium. On the plus side, reasonable amount of fibre and protein.

Taste: Awesome! You can smell the lemongrass from across the room even as it microwaves, and whilst the texture seems a little weak on initial pouring it thickens as the soup cools from boiling (the all important “let stand” period). This soup is tasty, well textured, spicy, meaty and full of useful chunks of veg – deliciously soft and tasty choi sum and still-crunchy water chestnut that actually serves a purpose in this context!

Full-o-meter: Good, as you’d expect from a more substantial soup.

Verdict: 4/5. It loses a point for health. Otherwise this soup is outstanding.

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Health: 245 calories for the pot, with a pretty good amount of protein, relatively low on the carbs and fat, and a decent score on fibre. A fair amount of salt but not bad by Eat standards! In essence: pretty good! It’s also gluten, wheat and dairy free for people who care about those things, and organic too!

Taste: Impressive meatiness from the ham, great texture from the lentils and cabbage, satisfyingly fresh and crunchy. A really good flavour combination for savoury lovers. Only criticism, and its minor, is that the soup is a little brothy… could use a bit more thickening… but a very minor complaint!

Full-o-meter: Not bad. Whilst a relatively low calorie count and a slightly smaller pot than your typical supermarket soup pot (500 vs 600g) the decent amount of fibre and protein should keep you going.

Verdict: 4.5/5. Will look out for other tasty soups from the YP folk, although they do seem to be focussed on organic veg-only options which I’m not a huge fan of…

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But damnit, I’ll bet that whatever Apple release tomorrow I’ll want. Because smug and self-satisfied as Mr Jobs is, his company is awesome at design and fantastic at getting us to ‘need’ things for no reason other than they’re beautiful and elegant. I’m not a Mac, though… that’s one thing I’ve managed to hold firm to.

Cross posted at Chivalry House.

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Health: 398 calories for the pot, which is OK, but reasonably carb heavy – relatively low protein and fibre – and a decent score for sodium.

Taste: Wow. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this that much, having only barely liked Eat’s Goulash… but this is really nice, bolognaise esque (well, the way I make it – which is tomato intensive), with tasty morsels of beef and good quality tomatoes making up the majority of the flavour with the occasional lump of potato for the occasional dose of bland (not a massive fan of the potato when it hasn’t been fried or roasted).

Full-o-meter: OK. Not great. The texture and consistency fills you up on eating, but I have a feeling the nutritional content will mean it doesn’t last the afternoon.

Verdict: 4/5. It’d get a 4.5 if they had a way to get more fibre and protein in there without substantially upping the calorie score. Good on you, Waitrose.

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A little Googling this morning found me App Tabs, a great alternative. Recommend it.

Whilst I was searching, I also found this info on how to turn on the CTRL-TAB tab preview feature in FF 3.6 – which is pretty awesome.

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Health: OK – only 236 calories for the pot so additional sustenance required, but good on all key vital indicators.

Taste: Meh. No interesting spice, no meat for texture – nothing wrong with it for what it is but just totally uninspiring. If they’d swapped out sweet potato or butternut squash for the regular potatoes in there that would have been something.

Full-o-meter: OK. Not great. Too low-cal, not enough protein to really carry you.

Verdict: 2/5. I’m sure it’d rate higher for someone that liked plain vegetable soup, but for me it was a bit dull.

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Health: Not bad – 394 calories for the pot, good amount of fibre. Could have more protein…

Taste: Better than the other two MPW’s I’ve tried recently – good texture, flavourful, tomato-based soup, delicious morsels of sausage and the beans are nice too. I know Rick Stein loves a good cassoulet and suspect he’d struggle to recognise this as one, but it is nonetheless good and hearty as a fresh soup pot.

Full-o-meter: Not bad. Better with more meat…

Verdict: 4/5. The first MPW soup properly worthy of the name. Suggest Mr White has a chat with the people at Glorious Foods swiftly…

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Over at the Independent, Arifa Akbar interviews David Baddiel giving him the opportunity to explain some of what he was trying to achieve with the film:

“I wasn’t interested in writing about Muslims and Jews per se, but I am always interested in tackling subjects that aren’t being tackled, just for the sake of newness,” he told The Independent. “Because people have become terrified of giving offence, religion and race are now rather left out of comedy.

“For me, it becomes fertile ground. It’s very much about race and culture and ethnicity, in a very gloves-off way. But it’s not trying to cause offence: I’m very uninterested in that as a writer.”

Sideways News and The Daily Telegraph talks through similar issues, whilst George Pitcher, The paper’s Religion Editor, calls it “…almost the most important film of the year,” in a blog post.

I’m totally excited. For those who haven’t been keeping up, this is my brother’s latest film, starring Omid Djalili and Richard Schiff, written by David Baddiel. It’s out in April and should be awesome. My review, such as it is, lives here.

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Health: Not bad – about 390 calories for the pot, high fibre, low fat, but quite low protein too and reasonably high levels of sodium.

Taste: Bleh. I’m beginning to wonder if the addition of “-inspired” or “-style” to any description is an admission that they don’t really know how to spice the soup properly. This soup, whilst well-textured, is pretty bland and the absence of any proper spice or meat makes it a slightly tedious meal. In the interest of full disclosure I should confess that I gave up on it half way through and nabbed a passing sandwich from a lunch meeting I was in.

Full-o-meter: Not bad, was the impression I was getting before I lost interest…

Verdict: 2.5/5. Not getting the strongest impression of the MPW range…

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Health: 404 cals for the pot, which is OK, but low fibre, high sodium, middling protein makes this a bit average.

Taste: Less good than the first time I tried it, I think. The soup is a bit thin and suffers from the absence of a strong binding veg in there (some potato or some curried squash or even a few more lentils). The salt-level, whilst not overbearing in the taste, is headache inducing.

Full-o-meter: Not brilliant. Not thick and substantial enough without bread.

Verdict: 3.5/5. Downgraded on original verdict now that I’ve given it a full review.

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Le Pain Quotidien, those Belgian bakers that make our daily bread, also make soup. This was my lunch for today – organic red pepper and carrot. No idea on calorie count, so can’t do my standard review but…

Taste? Meh. It was OK. Not enough spice. Carrot marries to coriander so well, its kind of a mystery to me as to why anyone would leave the carrot unpaired with some healthy spice.

Fillingness? Generally sceptical of pure veg soups without meat or a pulse in there – just not substantial enough. The bread it came with is awesome though, a nice walnut rye and a really lovely piece of artisan white french stick.

So I’ll probably try their soup again… but maybe not this one.

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I was honoured, as ever, to be included in the audience which included not a small number of celebrities, luminaries, writers, producers, directors and friends, and delighted and proud to enjoy this wonderfully heartwarming, funny, tightly orchestrated, beautifully soundtracked film.

For those not in the know, it’s the story of MAHMUD NASIR (Djalili), the ‘Homer Simpson’ of Islam, finding out that he has to impress his son’s father-in-law-to-be (a fundamentalist Islamic cleric) within an hour of discovering that he was adopted, and his real/birth parents are actually Jewish. He seeks council from his nemesis, Yank Jewish London Cabbie LENNY (Schiff), and tutelage in what it means to be a good Jew.

As controversial as that might potentially sound, the film manages to handle the tension and controversy without descending into twee-ness; it delivers a happy ending without a Deus Ex Machina, the music and pacing and humour is wonderful, the characterisation is compelling and the story is heartwarming in the extreme. I find myself wanting to go to both a muslim wedding and a bar mitzvah, befriend Richard Schiff and go drinking with Omid (although as a Baha’i he probably doesn’t drink…)…

Anyway, needless to say I recommend it, and I hope you all go and see it in the cinemas when it is released, around April time I think (become a Facebook Fan to get the news as it comes), and buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray when it comes out later in the year.

It is a wonderful movie…

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