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Her Online Taste-Test

When one of the Webvan shoppers in our weekly supper group discovered that Webvan will deliver prepared appetizers, entrees, side dishes, and salads, we knew it was time to put our money where our mouths were--or vice versa.

It was surprisingly easy for each of us to find something on Webvan's menu that suited our fancy. Even my boyfriend and I, devout vegetarians, found not the usual single meatless entrée but a variety of vegetarian options.

Webvan's site as a whole, in fact, is well organized and easy to navigate. Each major product category, such as Produce, is broken down into more specific categories--Fruit, Mushrooms, Tomatoes--and some further subcategories.

Ordering our feast was easy: We plunked everyone's entrée and side dish choices, plus wine and dessert, into our account's shopping cart (the advantage of virtual shopping carts over real-life ones: no wobbly wheels), entered our payment information (Webvan accepts major credit cards and debit cards), and selected our half-hour delivery window.

Don't Call Late for Dinner

We had to reserve our 7 to 7:30 p.m. delivery slot two days early; by Tuesday, Webvan's open delivery times for our usual Thursday dinner were already dwindling. Here's where Webvan's prepared entrée delivery service stumbles: It would be more useful if you could order a prepared dinner at short notice, in case of unexpected guests or those nights after work when it's daunting to whip up anything more complicated than a bowl of cereal.

Our order did arrive within our selected time, but just barely--by my watch, the truck rolled into the driveway at 7:29 p.m.

Then, the surprise: Our friendly Webvan delivery guy, William, opened a chilled bin to reveal not only the sorbet we'd ordered for dessert, but also all the packaged dishes that were to be dinner. Webvan's site said nothing about how prepared foods are delivered; we assumed the entrees and side dishes would arrive hot, or at least warm, as from a deli counter of a brick-and-mortar grocery store. So much for our no-brainer dinner plans.

The food quality, however, more than made up for the 15 minutes we spent hunched over the stove and microwave in last-minute anticipation. The mashed potatoes, for example, clearly weren't my grandma's, but they had the requisite real-potato lumps to earn this smashed-root-vegetable connoisseur's coveted thumbs-up.

Take It Home

Webvan is more convenient and better organized than your local grocery store: Try finding packaged oyster mushrooms in less than 30 seconds in a crowded produce aisle. The quality of its prepared entrees certainly beats the day-old fried chicken and strawberry-flavored whipped gelatin at your supermarket's deli counter.

But its chef-prepared meal service has additional possibilities for the busy, the culinarily challenged, and the just plain lazy. It will be done to perfection when Webvan can give customers more last-minute flexibility when choosing their ordering times.