This is Trader Joe's newest product; see the company's announcement of it here.
I hesitated to buy this, because the main ingredients, after chicken and water, are "onion" and "green onion." (This is a distinction without a difference. All onions are equally noxious and evil weeds.) But one must make sacrifices for one's loyal readers.
As they were cooking in the microwave, onion dominated the smells that were emanating. This was not a good sign. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that onion did not overwhelm the chicken in flavor as it did in aroma. They were actually pretty tasty.
However.
1) There was zero soupiness. All the liquid was gone by the time I ate them. The dumplings have little holes in them. Some of the liquid part of the soup spilled out into the tray during cooking. The rest spilled out into the bowl I dumped them into. Note to Trader Joe's: holes are not conducive to retention of fluids.
2) The dumpling part was kind of rubbery.
3) The six dumplings in one box constitute one serving. $2.99 seems a little pricey for what you get.
4) You end up throwing away a metric ton of packaging.
Not that it's important, but I have to add this side note: The cooking directions on the box weirdly specify microwave time of "1.45-2 minutes." No, not 1 minute and 45 seconds, but 1.45 minutes, which is 87 seconds. I assume it's just a typo, and they intended to put a colon instead of a period between the 1 and the 45. But I wonder how many people will pull out calculators to figure out how many seconds that is.
Will I buy it again?
Even though I rather liked the taste, that's a no. As I've said many times, my threshold for how good a meat-containing product has to be for me to put it into my regular diet keeps going up. (I make exceptions for trying new things to write about.) These don't pass muster.
Hmmmm... Saw these tonight and was tempted. Sort of glad I didn't put them in my cart now that I read this review!
ReplyDeleteMeh, I'd still give them a try. I read this review and was doubtful of the product at first (I'm from Taiwan so I'm quite dubious of many dumpling products in the market these days) but decided to give it a try anyways since I was in the area to pick up some groceries.
DeleteI'll say this: I'm not completely blown away but I'd say it's a very good option by TJ's in emulating authentic restaurant style "xiao long baos," especially considering it's a frozen product.
But yeah, chicken instead of the traditional pork is a bit odd, but overall mine's retained good amount of juices after heating.
I grew up in shanghai eating real authentic soup dumplings for breakfast, and I have to say I like this new product. Although having chicken as filling rather than pork takes some getting used to, the taste is more than acceptable especially as a frozen item that you don't need to drive all the way to an asian grocery store to get, and I'll definitely buy again. Steam it in a pot (it's not that much work), and you'll get the soup and the right texture for the flour skin. The right way to eat it is to nibble a small hole on the skin with your front teeth and without letting go suck out all the soup inside, before enjoying the rest of the dumpling -- but that takes skill and practice and even a real chinese from outside of where soup dumplings are popular wouldn't be able to do it right the first couple times, so TJ gives a valid suggestion to use a spoon, although picking up each cooked dumpling without ripping a hole is no easy task either. But that's part of the fun. If you have a large enough steamer you could try placing each frozen dumpling in a spoon. The right dipping sauce to go with this is chinese vinegar (dark colored).
ReplyDeleteMy family is thrilled with these soup dumplings. Not quite as good as Joe's in Chinatown but thrilled to have them'
ReplyDeletein Paramus.
We went through 4 boxes in one sitting with unanimous approval.
Thank you Trader John for having them here.
They are MARVELOUS.
A little more soup would be welcome.
Helen and Edwin Meyers
Ridgewood
I'm Chinese and eat at Monterey park,ca where a lot of good dumpling restaurants are and these are pretty good esp if you live no where near dumpling restaurants.
ReplyDeleteThe general consensus among those who have eaten the authentic thing does seem to be that of a pleasant surprise. I, too, enjoyed these. Of course, I did not expect them to be as good as the ones I get in Flushing, they definitely make me happy as an item I can keep in the freezer and bring to work.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I just had these for lunch and we thought these were pretty close to having dim sum at a Chinese restaurant. And even if they aren't the same, they're pretty good! Worth having around.
ReplyDeleteI'm eating them right now and I am pleasantly surprised. I'm Chinese, live in SF where there are tons of great food everywhere and am pretty picky about eating good food. I steamed them as instructed on the package and they are absolutely delicious.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe Blogger does not know how to eat dumpling and may not had soup dumpling before.