My admiration for Tom Aikens is such that I ordered another of his make-aways from Musette by Tom Aikens, even though I hadn’t been that blown away by the first one.  This time round everything was packed and shipped by Finish & Feast, and I wasn’t sure if Tom’s Muse brigade had any involvement in the prep or not, because on the most part the meal didn’t appear to have the input of a Michelin starred kitchen.  In fact I would go as far as saying that some of the dishes in this menu (and the next one I ordered) seemed rather lazily put together.

Notwithstanding my comment above, the first course of Musette’s 3 course Makeaway (£98 for 2 people) was exceedingly good!   “House Made Ricotta, Balsamic Pickled Mushrooms, Dried Herbs, Mushroom Vinaigrette” required me to rub some sourdough bread slices with oil and garlic, and toast them. Then it was just a matter of assembling the many supplied ingredients onto the plate. There was a fresh lemony ricotta, a balsamic reduction, pickled mushrooms, herbs, pine nuts and a tangy mushroom vinaigrette.  The whole dish was light and fresh, with a good blend of flavours. It needed the sourdough for texture, and I actually added some extra bread to the 2 slices supplied.  9/10

The main course, “24 Hr Braised Short Rib, Miso, Honey, Soy, Marmite Onion Tatin, Salt Baked Beets”, was not so good. The beef was ‘OK’, nothing special; I had boiled it in its sealed bag for 15 minutes, then glazed and finished in the oven for 4 minutes.  The Onion tatin featured a very tasty onion, but the pastry was wet and didn’t puff up, so it was a disappointment.  Maybe the written instructions I followed for finishing the onion were wrong, but the video demonstration for the dish didn’t actually cover the cooking of the onion or the beef.  The final element, the ‘Beets’ was just over-salted beetroot, which is why I thought it was a lazy effort; I expected a more cheffy side dish than this. And it was too salty for me to eat.  3/10

Dessert was “Dark Chocolate Mousse, Chantilly Cream, Caramelised Pistachio”. The video demo was appropriate for this course, but my ability to replicate the dessert’s construction was rubbish!  All I had to do was pipe a layer of thick chocolate mousse, then a layer of Chantilly, scatter pistachio crumbs, and repeat until the final topping of candied pistachio.  It sounds simple, but the execution is very dependent on a. the size of hole you cut in the piping bags and b. the size of the vessel you’re using to serve the dessert, yet neither of these critical factors was mentioned in the instructions.  The mousse was very dense and very sweet, the Chantilly was good, but I felt there were too many pieces of pistachio.  3/10

Unfortunately my overall score for this menu is just 5/10