[Skip to main content](#main-content)     [Kevin Lewis](/)  [Blog](/blog)      # We Smuggled a Suitcase of M&S Dips Home and Made Our Friends Rate Them

 [2026-09-04]    Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d say out loud: I flew to the UK, filled a bag with plastic tubs of dip, flew home, and hosted a brunch built entirely around rating them.

M&S has apparently gone all-in on the “topped dip” trend lately, and the one place that ships M&S products abroad only stocks the ambient stuff, nothing refrigerated, which rules out basically every dip that made this list. So the only option was to bring the good stuff back in checked luggage myself.

We set everyone up at the table, dip by dip, and handed out post-its instead of a shared scoresheet. Each person wrote their own score out of 10 plus a comment, then read it out loud once everyone had tasted. What follows is the full, occasionally emotional, occasionally unhinged result. Grouped by category. Sweet stuff saved for last, because we’re not monsters.

No photos of the actual spread, unfortunately. Whatever the cargo hold did to that suitcase on the way back, most of the tubs arrived looking less like food and more like abstract art, so we’re going with descriptions only.

## [Vegetable: the one everyone agreed on](#vegetable-the-one-everyone-agreed-on)

**Edamame and Butterbean Crush**

There is a version of this post where every category is contested and nuanced. This isn’t that section. The Edamame and Butterbean Crush got dragged from every direction, scores hugging the floor and comments ranging from “tastes like garbage” to “too vinegary” to, memorably, “smells like it’s gone off.” One person, in what counts as the review’s high point, offered “not bad but not good” and a 3/10. Nobody defended it. Nobody tried. It sat there, virtuous and green and universally rejected, a reminder that being good for you is not the same as being good.

## [Creamy and herby: the reliable middle class of dips](#creamy-and-herby-the-reliable-middle-class-of-dips)

**Green Goddess Dip**

This one actually earned its name. Minty, lemony, fresh, and it kept getting compared to things people wanted more of, not less. Scores swung from a rogue 4 up to a full 10, with most people clustering happily near the top and at least one demand to “give me 5 immediately.” A genuine crowd-pleaser, and possibly the only dip of the day that made someone want to go grocery shopping afterward instead of lying down.

**Garlic Aioli (regular and roasted)**

Garlic is a love-it-or-flee-the-room ingredient, and this dip made sure everyone declared a side. One taster wrote, with total sincerity, “garlic is love, garlic is live,” and gave it a 9. Someone else warned that it was so potent “you’ll smell me for days” and marked it down for being thin. Scores ranged from 2 to 9, which tells you less about the dip and more about how differently people feel about smelling like garlic the next morning.

**Sour Cream and Chive Dip**

This one produced the widest range of any dip on the savoury side. Some tasters loved it, calling it creamy and tasty (7 to 8.8), with one docking a point for “lacking complexity” but still enjoying it enough to call it their favorite sour cream dip of the day. Others found it too whipped and not sour enough, landing scores in the 3 to 6 range. Same tub, wildly different verdicts, though the chive itself went largely uncriticized either way.

**Buttermilk Ranch Dip**

Solidly fine. Most people landed it in the 6 to 9 zone, a comfortable middle-of-the-pack result. One dissenter called it “squishy” with a bad aftertaste and gave it a brutal 1, but that felt more like a personal ranch grievance than a fair trial.

## [Poultry: the overachievers](#poultry-the-overachievers)

**Chicken Tikka Dip**

This did unexpectedly well. Spice, tang, the kind of dip that makes you reconsider your loyalty to everything else on the table. Scores mostly sat in the 7.5 to 9.5 range, with one lone objector docking it for a “wrong” mouthfeel and comparing it, somewhat damningly, to sandwich filler. The rest of the table disagreed hard enough that the sandwich-filler take can be safely filed under “personal problem.”

**Chicken Caesar Dip**

Solid, unspectacular, exactly what you’d expect from something inspired by a salad that mostly exists as a vehicle for croutons. Cheesy and creamy scored it into the 5 to 8 range for most people. A couple of tasters were less charitable, throwing around the word “gross” and citing poor mouthfeel, but Caesar dips have survived worse reviews and will survive this one too.

**Chicken Kyiv Hot Melting Dip**

The chicken category’s clear winner, and arguably the whole afternoon’s. Scores ranged from a respectable 7 all the way to a perfect 10, with people calling it garlicky, homely, and their favorite of the day. The one letdown came from an air-fryer attempt that apparently produced something closer to soggy bread and earned a well-deserved 1. Lesson: reheat it properly or don’t bother.

## [Indian-spiced: the flavor explosion, literally](#indian-spiced-the-flavor-explosion-literally)

**Indian Dip Selection (Layered Mango Chutney style)**

Mostly landed in the 6 to 9 range and got called a “flavour explosion” more than once, with people specifically praising how layered and subtle it managed to be despite being eaten straight off a fork at brunch. A few wanted more spice. One taster, undone entirely by the smell alone, gave it a hard 0 without apparently tasting it. Democracy in action.

## [Fish: the one that made people cry](#fish-the-one-that-made-people-cry)

**Hot Smoked Salmon and Dill Dip**

We need to talk about this one. Two separate people wrote, unprompted, that this dip made them sad. Not “disappointed.” Sad. One taster reportedly cried. Scores swung wildly from 0 to 7.5, with fans calling it “a classic” and detractors calling it stale, overly soft, or simply “too dilly.” I don’t have a tidy explanation for the emotional damage here. Salmon and dill is a genuinely classic combination. Something about this particular tub apparently unlocked something in people. Proceed with caution and maybe a tissue.

## [Meat: the Reuben’s estranged cousin](#meat-the-reubens-estranged-cousin)

**Pastrami Dip**

Inspired by a Reuben sandwich, executed as a dip, and received with the kind of ambivalence you’d expect from that description. Most scores hovered in the 5 to 8 range, described as moist and creamy, though several people felt the mustard or mayo had taken over the operation entirely. A couple of 0s came in specifically over mayo excess, which feels like a hill worth dying on if you’re a mayo minimalist.

## [Sweet: the dessert round, saved for last as promised](#sweet-the-dessert-round-saved-for-last-as-promised)

**Chocolate and Pistachio Velvety Dip**

This got more written reaction than anything else on the table, and it was all over the place. Scores ranged from a 6, dismissed as “kind of boring,” up through 8 and 8.6 for its rich flavor and light texture, up to a full 9 with a wish for more pistachio, and even a 10 from someone who admitted they couldn’t taste any pistachio at all but loved it regardless, comparing the chocolate to an eclair. One taster rated it 8 for the mousse-like texture and then confessed, in writing, that they disliked it anyway because “it’ll hurt me later.” Another called it perfect enough to marry. Somehow the same tub produced all of those opinions.

**Strawberries and Cream Dip**

The widest spread of the entire brunch: a full 0 out of 10 (jam described, unkindly, as tasting “fake,” like “a scone from a cheap supermarket”) all the way up to 9.5 (“love a good strawberry dessert with biscuits”). Multiple people reached for the scone-and-cream or trifle comparison, and one strong opinion held that the strawberry and cream should have been served separately rather than pre-mixed. A genuinely contested dip, and a fitting way to end a brunch that started with a suitcase full of British supermarket dairy and ended with someone crying over salmon.

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Final scoreboard, roughly: Chicken Kyiv and Green Goddess were the heroes of the day, Edamame and Butterbean Crush was the unanimous villain, and the Salmon and Dill dip owes at least one person an apology. Next time, we’re bringing more suitcases.

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