Trader Joe's Bean & Rice Burrito

I had one of these for my lunch on Monday, and liked it so much that I immediately cooked and ate the second one. Though a little over-full from that, I was still liking them enough that on Tuesday I bought another pair of them, which I served for dinner with Nina on Wednesday.

No frozen burrito will ever be as good as the ones made by the better burrito places, but I think these are the best frozen burritos I've ever had.

The beans, rice, cheese, and sauce inside are in just the proportions I like, and the degree of heat is exactly what I would build in if I were making them myself. Which is to say, the makers have neither been heavy-handed with the hot sauce in order to compensate for lack of flavor in the basic ingredients, nor have they beat the things silly with the bland stick. The latter has been a problem with several of the other TJ's frozen Mexican entrees I've tried.

The heating instructions changed in the time (a couple of months) between when I purchased the two packages. With the first, it was just 25 minutes in the oven (though I found that they needed a little more than that). Now it's a more complicated, three-step process. I'm guessing that this is because they had complaints about the outside getting too dried out, which was my impression on first eating. But it didn't bother me enough to adopt the more complicated reheating plan for the new package. I suspect they would come out with a somewhat moister wrap, more like a freshly steamed tortilla. I'll probably try the new-and-improved method for my third go-around.

Will I buy it again? 

Already on the shopping list for my next TJ's trip.

Nina's View

Once again, Bob and I are gazing into opposite ends of a telescope. He's all zoomed in and I'm all zoomed out. 

I am at a complete loss to understand why Bob likes these. The tortilla is dry and tasteless. The filling is an indeterminate brown mush of no particular flavor with some bits and pieces of other uninterestingness in it. There's a vague taste of heat, but no discrete or lively flavors of any sort. To be properly edible, they would at least need some kind of sauce, salsa, or cheese. And even then: I could open a couple of cans, chop a vegetable or two, wrap in store-bought tortillas and in 5 minutes I'd have something overwhelmingly superior to this.

In case the previous sentences are unclear: I do not like these burritos AT ALL. I also think the concept of a frozen burrito is idiotic. I am going to have to make Bob a burrito or six just on principle.