Calling All Gruel Lovers!: A Review of the Boston Market Beef Steak & Pasta

I would not eat this one again.

Wee-ooo, wee-ooo, Calling all Gruel Lovers!!!!!!!!!! 

Whether you’re a steerage passenger on the Titanic, an 18th century farmer, or simply a lovable scamp singing your way through a Dickens novel, you are going to absolutely lose your mind over this Boston Market Beef Steak and Pasta frozen meal! 

Gruelies rise up! This dish has everything the modern day Gruel-on-the-Go needs - mush! Salt! An indescribable color! (Is it gray?? Is it brown?? Don’t worry about it!)

The rest of us…may want to skip this one. 

Let’s dive in. 

Taste: 1.5/5 

I know it’s a pre-existing phrase, but there’s just something about the use of the term “Beef Steak” here that gives me pause. 

In a meal this mushy, this gray, the marketing team slapping “Beef Steak” on it feels like they’re trying a little too hard to be reassuring. 

“Um…it’s…beef….steak,” I imagine the Boston Market Executives saying, sitting around a long boardroom table wearing matching pinstripe blazers, nodding their heads, eyes darting back and forth. “You know how steak is beef, right? Well, so is this! It’s just like all the other steaks and it’s no different and make sure you tell that to anyone who tries to say anything differently. You look them right in the eye and you tell them it is beef steaks, the thing they’ve definitely heard of before. BEEF. STEAKS. End of story.” 

That being said - in a meal that a salt farmer would describe as “way too much,” (work with me here, not every analogy is gonna be a good one. Let’s just all pretend a salt farmer is a thing! What an idyllic job it probably would be!), the steak - whatever kind it actually may be - is kind of the best part. (And that’s saying something.) 

Appearance: 2/5 

I’m bumping up the rating in this section because - although, please don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t resemble edible food - it gets extra points because the photo on the box also looks bad. At least our expectations were realistic!

It’s not like they took a picture of Beef Steak and Pasta (sos) at golden hour in a meadow, with soft lighting and beautiful angles and that glam filter that everyone on TikTok uses when they’re claiming to be “make-up free.” No, this photo is realistic, like the food photographer also kind of gave up. 

This meal looks like something from a 7th grade science fair. Specifically it looks like something from a science fair made by a kid who woke up at 11 pm and realized their project was due the next day. (they called it BEEF STEAK AND ITS RELATION TO PASTA: THE DICHOTOMY OF DISALUTIVE SUBSTANCES and they got an A+ because whatever this is came alive at night and smashed all the other kids’ projects. Impressive!) 

Overall: ⅖ 

Look, I take some of the blame for this negative review. Through no fault of its own, Boston Market just doesn’t hold a special place in my heart the way that other chain restaurants do. This was doomed from the start. 

I’m deeply Midwestern, so to me, there’s a specific hierarchy with casual chain restaurants: 

There’s just no room for an East Coast Elite establishment like Boston Market! 

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a national brand, but regardless! In my mind, Boston Market the kind of restaurant that the Ivy League snobs in Good Will Hunting eat at before they buy new sweater vests or - to reference a movie I’ve *actually* seen - a restaurant that Selma Blair from Legally Blonde would go to before she got another severe haircut. 

I would not eat this again. 

THINGS I LIKED THIS WEEK 

• My upcoming book that I co-wrote with my pal/biz partner/neighbor Josh Linden - Tiny Pep Talks: Bite-Size Encouragement for Life’s Annoying, Stressful, and Flat-Out Lousy Moments - is now available for pre-order! AHHHHHH!! It’s exciting and terrifying all at once, much like the experience of eating frozen meals actually. I hope you like it! Pre-orders are so deeply helpful for new books - it helps show bookstores, “hey, look, this is selling! You should carry it!” and I am so, so appreciative!

• I got to visit Eli’s Cheesecake HQ this week (which I will be posting a LOT about, get ready, it was a literal dream) but in the meantime, you neeeeeed to know that the Chicago factory is also home to a massive bakery that’s open to the public, where you can buy cheesecake by the slice and by the cake and there’s a Cheesecake Throne you can sit on and basically - you GOTTA GO. 

• I put this One Sec app on TikTok and Instagram to curb my love of social media and so far, it’s working! (I’m now just checking it every 2 minutes instead of every 1 minute)

• Don’t worry, I’m still working my way through Entourage. (Team Turtle, rise up!)