Trader Joe's Lemongrass Chicken Stix

I was torn about buying these, because it really doesn't make sense for me to keep reviewing chicken products when my conclusion is always going to be that I won't buy them again because I almost never buy chicken products. Maybe I'll stop after this.

Anyway, I heated these in the oven, not with the alternative "deep fry" method. Based on long, unhappy experience with TJ's freezer-to-oven products, I left them in for 15 minutes instead of the recommended 10-12, and was probably correct to do so. They came out just right. The wrapping was crispy but not burned, and the inside was hot all the way through.

I liked the texture. The flavor, not so much. It was very hard to taste anything except lemongrass, cabbage, and green onion. I assume there was some chicken in there somewhere, but if I had been tasting these blindfolded, I would have guessed they were vegetarian.

The portion size seems to assume they're just being used as an appetizer. It says serving size is two rolls, with five servings in the box. (But I was given nine rolls, not ten. Highway robbery!) And I ate five rolls for one lunch, along with a side of fresh veggies and a salad. Plan accordingly.

I threw away the remaining four. I just didn't care for them at all.


Will I buy it again? 

No. And I wouldn't even if chicken were still one of my staple dietary items.

Trader Joe's Chicken & Vegetable Wonton Soup

I had to look at this several times to be sure I was grasping the concept correctly: frozen soup??? Yep.

You take the bowl from the freezer, peel back the plastic film just enough to be able to add water to the indicated fill line, then microwave for five minutes--that's it.

It smelled strongly of onion while it was cooking, which worried me, but the flavor of onion was not enough to be a problem.

If you've paid attention to the discrepancies between manufactured food package photographs and actual products, you know not to expect the soup to look as you see here. It's much more broth and much less solid ingredients. In particular, it's seriously lacking in vegetables compared to the picture. There are some carrot shreds (not cut pieces as shown), and a few flat bean pods, but that's about it.

The wontons are decent, but so big they're hard to eat. I'd prefer if they miniaturized them down to bite-size, spoon-size.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It wasn't as bad as my worst fears, and actually made a fairly nice centerpiece of my lunch. But between having chicken (which I try to avoid), having a hard plastic one-time-use bowl to add to a landfill, and being only OK instead of something great, this will remain a one-time experiment in a little TJ's oddity.

Trader Joe's Mango & Sticky Rice Spring Rolls

The "mango" part of these rolls is kind of deceptive; there's very little mango, so little that I could barely taste it.

The overwhelming sensation is of sweetness--so much that it was kind of a turn-off.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Asian Vegetables With Beijing Style Soy Sauce

Nina bought this bag and cooked it up as part of our weekly dinner at her place. It's something I never would have bought for myself, as I'm not a big fan of several of the components. But it was OK. The veggies had pretty good texture, but little flavor without the soy sauce.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Nina's View

There's nothing wrong with the veggies. The soy-ish flavored sauce was icky. Not even bad-Chinese-food icky, just not good. Stale tasting. Flat. Gummy. My instincts were right, and I only used half the packet, as I feared the worst. That restraint was the only thing that made eating the leftovers the next day even barely tolerable.

Begone, nasty sauce.

Trader Joe's Kung Pao Tempura Cauliflower

This is a brand-new product; Trader Joe's has not yet posted a description of it. $4.99 for a 24-ounce bag.

I liked this a lot more than I expected I would. The cauliflower comes in huge florets that emerge from the oven amazingly tender. The sauce is surprisingly spicy for a TJ's product. As Nina noted, "The Blandification Committee must have been on vacation."

Two quibbles: The packet of sauce contains at least twice as much as needed for the quantity of cauliflower, which just seems wasteful. And the cauliflower pieces themselves come in a plastic bag found within the outer plastic bag, which also seems wasteful.


Will I buy it again? 

Enthusiastically. Me likey.


Nina’s View

As Bob was preparing these I asked him to serve the sauce on the side, rather than stirring it in to the whole batch as prescribed by the instructions. I’m very glad that he accommodated me.

If you used the whole bag of sauce, you’d have a sodden, swamped batch of soggy cauliflower and it would taste mostly like pepper and sugar.

I used very little of the sauce, as I found that it tasted weirdly plain: salt, sugar, pepper. For me, it needed some more aromatics—like maybe some citrus notes (lemon juice, lemon oil). Or more garlic. SOMETHING. The pepper was hotter than I expected too.

Having said that, the cauliflower itself is not bad at all, and the breading (definitely NOT tempura, by the way) is nondescript but cooks up nicely. Were I to buy this, I would definitely tinker with the sauce and use it sparingly.

Trader Joe's Kung Pao Noodles & Sauce

I knew there was trouble as soon as I snipped open the packet of pre-cooked noodles. The directions said to empty them into the box, then pour in the sauce from its separate packet, and microwave the whole mess. The problem was that the noodles were so glommed together and so fragile that trying to separate them with a fork (as the instructions also dictated) basically meant shredding them.

The resultant texture was distinctly gloppy, not nice at all. But I was pleasantly surprised that they tasted better than they looked and felt. If I were served the same dish, but with al dente noodles instead of mushy ones, I'd be a happy man. And, blessedly, this product somehow escaped the scrutiny of the Trader Joe's Blandification Committee. There's honest-to-god spices and flavor here.

I get that they're making a trade-off in favor of convenience and speed--made sufficiently obvious by the box crowing "Ready in 2 minutes!" But this is a case where I would rather take a few more minutes to cook them right than to have them NOW. If I were buying this to zap in the employee room on a work-shortened lunch break, however, I might be glad for the time saving, and forgive the texture of the noodles.


Will I buy it again? 

No. However, I purchased at the same time a second, similar item, this one with satay flavoring. I anticipate feeling roughly the same about it.

Trader Joe's Steamed Chicken Soup Dumplings

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.

Trader Joe's Miso Ginger Broth

This was the second broth that I bought in anticipation of a temporary clear-liquids diet--but it turned out not to be as clear as I had guessed, so I ate only a little of it then, with more following when my restrictions had been lifted.

I don't think I had ever had miso soup before, so I didn't know what to expect. I also have no experiential basis for comparing it with any other miso product. (I have a small tub of yellow miso in my fridge, but I haven't opened it yet.) So all I can tell you is that I liked it. It was salty and delicious, even though I'm not sure exactly what I was tasting. I'm kind of unclear on the whole "miso" concept.

I think I'm going to try some noodles to this stuff and see if I can make it even better.

Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I'm eager to start experimenting with it.

Nina's View

This is miso soup for beginners, which is a good thing. I suspect it would even be kid-friendly. It's not especially traditional (no bonito flakes, for example). It's *very* gingery and almost sweetish. But an experimenter needs to start somewhere, and this is as good a place as any.

It was nice with the rice noodles Bob chose to serve it to me with. It would also be good with tofu and some scallion and maybe a shiitake or some other mushroom floating in it.