Looks: Nothing about the way this looks makes me want to eat it. The gravy is translucent (not thick like on the cover), yet there’s so much of it that you can’t see through it to the potatoes below. The potatoes appear to be a single solid mass, rather than fluffy mounds, and the roast beef slab lurks near the surface like the carcass of a dead Loch Ness monster. None of these things are depicted on the box. 1.5 out of 5

Taste: Craptacular. Even with all that gravy, the beef is so dry that I needed to continually drink bottles of water while I chewed it to avoid dehydration. The potatoes are nasty (closer to modeling clay than vegetable), and the gravy wouldn’t stick to them. I managed three bites of this “Compleat” meal before throwing it away – I didn’t feel comfortable feeding it to my dog. I suppose I should have known it would be terrible; it’s roast beef that you store in your pantry… That’s just not right. 0 out of 5