- I dunno if lunch has ever been so exciting,
I'm quite fascinated by this.
Will we have wilted spinach?
Will we get home?
Find out.
Mrs. B said some things that would change you.
(dramatic intro music)
(popping sounds)
Hello everybody, it's Barry here.
Hope you are well, wherever you are in the world.
Today, we're doing a very unique kitchen gadget testivity.
We're doing a little bit in the kitchen
and then we're actually having a mini road trip
to see if an electric lunchbox, yes,
that's a thing, actually works.
Now, this thing doesn't cook the food.
It kind of just reheats it.
So you can't put raw steak and chicken in it
and thinking, yeah, I'm gonna cook dinner in it.
It's literally a device for taking to work
and plugging in and reheating your lunch
if you want something warm or on your way,
if we're travelling somewhere, for a picnic
or you're a salesman travelling on the road or whatever,
or a trucker, and you want your dinner warmed up,
you don't want a sandwich.
You want something more than that.
And that is where this, comes in.
This is the Timker, The Electric Lunchbox.
Now there's actually lots and lots
of different versions of this.
I went for this one because it was actually only £20
on Amazon, quite a bargain I thought,
for what it was compared to the price
of some of the others and they seem to do a similar job,
but you can use it in a house.
You can use it in a truck.
I don't have a truck.
(Barry laughing)
I have a car, but apparently
you can use the cigarette lighter
and actually warm your food in this lunch box.
"Anytime and anywhere, fresh, hot meat,
you can eat", I like that.
I don't know if you can see there on the packaging,
there is possibly the world's three worst photos of food.
I actually have no idea what they are supposed to be.
One looks like a pizza.
I don't know what that is, that looks like a squid?
With a toupee on his head?
But I thought if we're gonna check this out,
we need to role play.
Mrs. B wants to go to Ikea later.
Hopefully while we go there or on the way back,
we can warm our leftovers from last night.
But I wanna see, first of all,
before we even try and take it to the car,
if it will work with a mains outlet,
because some of you guys might go, oh,
I really want to get this and then I'll go to work
and I'll warm up my soup, and soup is what we'll try,
but let's have a little look at it first.
(upbeat animated piano music)
Oh, it was available in different colours.
They had an orange one and also a red,
but Mrs. B quite likes this colour.
I'm gonna go for like mint or Sage.
It has this sort of soft plasticky thing here,
which is called the steam vent.
Now this once it's on, must be removed
because otherwise the steam will go back in there
and apparently destroy the appliance,
they've learned from previous ones.
Apparently their reviews were really bad originally
that they needed to put this on,
so steam should escape as it warms up.
Ah wow! (Barry laughing)
It's called the spoon cover,
but they've been very generous in giving you a fork
and a spoon, look at that.
Brilliant. We've got this thing,
this is actually for something that doesn't reheat.
So as it's a lunchbox, you might have your warmed food
in here and then you can have say a side of fruit.
So when you're warming, you would kind of, I don't know,
no one really wants a warm soggy strawberry, do they?
And then you've got this removable heating plate.
So this is the main thing that warms up.
This goes in there. Clamp it down.
Even the cutlery has got like a little indentation hole
for it, where the spoon sits.
The other thing to say actually, with it on like this,
you can apparently tilt it up to 45 degrees
with water in it and it won't spill.
After a while, it's not designed to and it will fill out.
I mean, especially if you've got that on,
but for bumpy rides and things, which we'll hopefully try,
but we're gonna start off, I've got some soup,
I've got some carrot soup left over.
And I think we'll probably just imagine that we're doing,
going to work, but we'll put some buttered bread in here,
take it out, but then we'll put soup in here
and just see by using the mains first,
just the standard UK mains, if we can get this thing
to heat it up.
Apparently it can take anything from five minutes to 45.
And for another random fact for you,
this will be me having soup at 9:00 AM.
This is the bit where you can store your things
that you do not plan on eating and wow, it's scratched.
It's almost broken. Okay.
I've treated you fairly.
But that is gonna be our holster for our bread,
to dunk it in, everyone eats bread
with their soup, don't they?
So let's just see, will it fit in there?
Oh my gosh, it might if I wedge it.
(Barry laughing)
Yes it will, I don't even need to slice it.
Now what I am gonna do,
I'm gonna make sure the buttered slice down okay?
It's a little bit overkill, but there we go.
Three, I didn't even like measure that,
but that's fitted in perfectly and the height as well.
Three nice slices of giraffe bread.
So that is ready to be dumped in our soup,
which we'll get out of the fridge now.
This is gonna be cold.
There it is, in a Tupperware tin as standard.
All right, nice.
But I'm just seeing, ooh,
see that is only 10 degrees,
but this can get it to 70.
So let's go for it.
We're gonna push this in to the tin
like so, oh my gosh.
Carrot soup is amazing by the way.
And on the side is there's two different power points.
Now one is a slightly lower voltage.
One is 220 and the other is more for your cigarette lighter.
So we wanna go for the larger one on the left-hand side.
(plastic snapping)
There is a light on, it is orange.
I will refer to the instructions to see what that means.
Maybe it means that it's heating, I think it does.
Does say here, it takes about 45 to 50 minutes
to heat the food at 25 C and ours was at 10.
"It takes a relatively longer time when heating food
that is taken out of the fridge."
Nice. "After heating to 70 degrees,
the lunchbox automatically turns to keep warm."
That's great, I really do like that function.
That seems to be literally it.
So let's wait 45 minutes, but we'll come back in a bit.
We'll take the lid off and give it a little scan
in about 20 and see where we're at,
or if anything exciting is happening.
I dunno if the lunch has ever been so exciting.
I'm quite fascinated by this.
Do you think it's gonna work?
I actually do think this will work.
All right, so we're just about to hit 20 minutes
(thermometer beeping)
and it is at 25 degrees.
So it's increased by 15 and the plate
at the bottom of the lunchbox
is actually got a steady, nice heat.
We're getting there, I'm quite hopeful now.
It's just, patience.
I feel like you're gonna have to go to work
and go right, time for lunch.
Barry, you've only just arrived.
I know. (Barry laughing)
So we're at the 45 minute stage
and I'm starting to get a little bit worried
'cause I'm only getting a 40 degree reading,
but that is warm, I can feel the heat.
Maybe it's my, thermometer thing here.
(thermometer beeping)
Oh. (Barry laughing)
It's now saying 55.
It's nearly been an hour.
I'm so bored that I've just Googled the perfect temperature
for soup, apparently it's 153 degrees Fahrenheit,
which is 67.2 C, just under what this thing
should take it to, but there's no steam yet.
(Barry laughing)
Oh my gosh, apparently soup loses umami and flavour
as it gets colder, which is true.
So we really, really do want this to be hot.
I was just expecting it to be done by now.
(Barry laughing)
Folks, I found out that this steam vent cap thing,
if I just loosely put it back on top,
that actually accelerates
the temperature increase massively.
The really disappointing thing is you can't really
see much steam coming out, but that is 70 degrees right now.
The light hasn't changed, but if I go like this,
(plastic snapping)
bear in mind this has now been in 90 minutes to do this.
(plastic snapping)
Look at this.
Can you see that come up?
Hopefully you can, hopefully the camera's showing that.
But for some reason I put this on,
you can't see anything. (Barry laughing)
But I think it's worked.
On one of the photos on Amazon,
it was literally like, it was like the Titanic.
It was like steam coming up, well sorry.
Yeah, just steam coming out.
- Can we go to Ikea yet?
- [Barry] I'm just making some soup.
- Okay.
- 70, 70!
So you would take this to work.
- Yeah. - Plug it in.
And you've got your hot soup
(plastic snapping)
take that off, ah look.
- Wow.
- That has taken, no joke, nearly two hours.
Mm, that's warm and nice. - That's good.
- That's warm, it's a nice temperature 70's.
- It is? Nice temperature 70.
- It's a nice temperature 70 or 68.1 or whatever it was.
It's just taken a lot longer than I hoped.
Now you want to go to Ikea.
It's about 40 minutes away.
We're gonna have a bit of a road trip.
Last night I made some peri-peri chicken.
It's gotta be cigarette lighter as well.
- Okay.
- I don't think this is gonna work.
It's gonna look completely legit off camera.
We're just getting the peri-peri chicken out.
And Mrs. B's like, oh what do we want?
We need to take an emergency bag with us
because if this explodes, we need to stir it.
We need kitchen towel.
But what I wanna do to try and prove that it's gonna heat,
is add a little bit of greenery.
So I've got some spinach here,
just a little handful like that.
The good thing with spinach is it wilts really easily.
So if it does heat and steam,
this should shrivel up and we will stir it
as we cook as we drive.
- So this could really only work
if you've got a passenger with you.
Or you keep pulling over to keep stirring it.
(plastic snapping)
- Let's go.
- I got kitchen roll, thermometers, tea towels, spoons.
Would you really take this stuff
if you're on your way to work?
- [Barry] All right.
- Hey. - [Barry] Hey.
- It's a bit wobbly, better not brake too hard.
(Barry laughing)
It'll go all over the windscreen.
- [Barry] Oh my gosh. (plastic clicking)
(Barry sighs heavily)
Is it on?
(Barry gasps)
So let's just ease that vent
so it's at an angle still so that it can get out
and hopefully Mrs. B, at some stage today,
no Ikea meatballs.
- Okay, peri-peri chicken. - Peri-peri chicken
with wilted spinach.
All right, let's go.
English country lanes folks.
Oh my gosh, we just turned,
just turned and it fell over.
- [Mrs. B] So let's stop.
- [Barry] Don't worry.
Where's the lid gone?
- [Mrs. B] Shut up.
- No, not the main lid, the little,
you carry on driving.
Okay, so we've decided to tilt the lunchbox.
Very exciting.
Just wondering if that might affect
the heat plate a little bit.
So we're gonna to Ikea, it's about a 40 minute drive.
It could be ready by then, we'll see what it's like.
It's been about 10 minutes
and there is no waft of peri-peri chicken right now.
Put my hand just on the heating plate there
and there is a slight lukewarm heat coming out.
It doesn't feel as warm as the soup one did,
but I'm just glad there's some sort of heat
coming out of it.
I bet if we can get wilted spinach, that's outstanding.
That's how low our levels have sunk.
Look, trees.
Trees, trees, tree, tree, tree.
- Gonna get stuck on the motorway.
- [Barry] This is good.
- Okay.
- [Barry] It's increasing the cooking time.
Okay, we're coming into the Swedish entrance of Ikea.
All right, we have just parked up.
Where's the bumpy bit gone?
Okay. (Barry gasps)
- [Mrs. B] Oh. - [Barry] Oh no,
the cap still gone in there.
Now the spinach has not quite wilted.
- [Mrs. B] It feels warm.
- [Barry] Yeah, it is warm.
I think we give it a good stir around
just to try and evenly spread it around
'cause that plate is yeah, we wanna get as much coverage
as we can on those, don't we?
If we have another long drive home,
we go in Ikea, should we?
- [Mrs. B] Okay.
- [Barry] Keep the lid on it, keep it nice and warm
and then give it another bit of cooking time.
What do you think?
Otherwise, I'll just sit in the car for the rest of the day.
- What, with the engine running all night.
(Barry laughing)
- [Barry] Yeah, just listen to music.
Cooking my dinner.
- You're gonna have to just keep driving round
and round and round.
(deep base music)
- [Barry] All right, it's Ikea cam okay?
- Okay.
- [Barry] I can smell the Swedish meatballs
and potatoes. - Me too.
- Come all the way to Ikea, she's on her phone.
I think I've spent most of my time just sat on a sofa.
Nothing better than a nice cold glass of Dryck Blabar.
She's in her element folks.
Do not disturb the rare Mrs. Barry in the wild Ikea.
All right, we're done in Ikea.
And we're just about to hit a traffic jam on the way home,
which means we are amazing parents
and missed the school run.
Luckily the mother-in-law is helping us out with that.
Which means another good thing
is that we're still warming this up.
It's actually really, really hot as well.
So I don't know if it's the car heat or this as well,
but this could work.
Will we have wilted spinach?
Will we get home?
Find out, in hopefully an hour.
'Cause it is, oh it's starting to slow down.
We're at a supermarket now 'cause we were stuck in traffic
for over two hours.
This thing is piping hot.
Mrs. B's just gone in the supermarket
so I haven't opened it yet.
We've gotta go pick up Chloe.
If that spinach is not wilted,
then there is something wrong.
I don't know if it's the heat in the car
that might've done it, but it smells so good.
Two hours in traffic was not fun.
And I did not need to document that
because Mrs. B said some things that would change you.
But despite all the pain, this has held strong.
This has held strong.
Hello Chloe.
- Stinks in here.
- All right, how was your school day?
- All right.
- It stinks, does it?
- One hundred percent.
- [Barry] Oh my gosh.
- [Mrs. B] Oh wow, the spinach has wilted.
- [Barry] That has properly wilted, hasn't it?
- [Mrs. B] Yeah.
- [Chloe] That looks amazing.
- [Barry] Look at all the moisture there.
- Yeah, I call feel the heat. - That is warm.
- [Chloe] We allowed to eat it?
- Yeah.
There's couple cut out still Phoebe says.
That's because we've been filming all blooming day.
The house smells of carrot soup.
Mrs. B's lovely car smells of peri-peri chicken.
But, this has worked.
It's warm, I'm not even gonna check the temperature on it.
It's warm and I feel like delivery drivers,
truck drivers, people that are in a van a lot.
If they've got some food and they wanna have it hot
and they're not too bothered when they have it
wanna keep it in the heat.
- Yeah.
- This would work.
- It would yeah.
- And if you go to work and you wanna have a soup,
for example, like we did at 8:30 this morning.
- Or camping.
- Camping camping.
- And you've got electrical - Yeah.
- Socket. - And you're not in a rush
and you're like, I just want this to warm through
and it will sit there.
- Yeah.
- It kinda works.
- Yeah it does.
- The good thing is we can come back in,
and just sort of plug it back in the mains
to give it a bit more of a boost if needs be.
- Whoa! - Oh my gosh.
The cutlery fell out.
- It's steaming.
- It's hot, it is, I mean,
I think we've literally incinerated this.
- The spoon's warm.
- [Barry] It probably is, yeah.
- 'Cause it's been in the lid.
- Yeah. And it's warm.
Taste aside, it's a teeny bit dryer maybe,
but there's a moisture within it.
- Yeah.
- I like that.
So yeah, I think I would actually
recommend getting one of these.
There is something called a cigarette lighter oven.
- No.
- I'll use my car for that.
- Go on your own.
(both laughing)
- Barry, you've been five days.
(both laughing)
I'm trying to bake a cake and it's not working.
- Is there really?
- Yeah, there is.
So I think is a nice introduction to that
and I will look at that soon.
(Mrs. B laughing)
On a day when Mrs. B's working.
- The cakes like that.
(both laughing)
- Yes, I slam the brakes on and it's all gonna mess.
Please can you pick up some eggs for me?
Right. Thanks so much for watching guys.
(both laughing)
Ooh, bonus scene, blueberry Ikea taste test drink, mm.
♪ Check your level player ♪
♪ No matter what your style ♪
♪ The kitchens for me ♪
♪ Sideburns, moustache, goatee ♪
♪ Maybe all three ♪
(upbeat rap music)
Okay, some Dryck Blablar.
I love that name, Blabar.
Blueberry drink concentrate.
So not so common in the US actually
when I was over there,
but concentrated drink is very popular here in the UK.
(water sploshing)
- Oh, that's weird.
I just got like a sweet taste and then it goes a bit sour.
- Oh that is lush, mm.
- A glass of hot blueberry
- Oh that warmed,
- Ya.
- Bit of cinnamon in there in the winter.
- Remember that as a kid, hot Ribena?
- I was nah, I came from a poor, poor background.
I wasn't silver spoon like you Mrs. B.
I didn't have a Coca Cola till I was like 15.
- Did you not?
- I wasn't, I didn't have fizzy drinks.
Mom didn't believe in them.
- You mean you didn't have avocado every day for breakfast?
- Avocado isn't a fizzy drink Mrs. B.
That is actually a really nice drink though.
- Mm.