Trader Joe's Peel Away Fruit Leather Buttons

OK, "fruit leather buttons" is definitely a thing I had never heard of or imagined before spotting this trio on the new-products shelf at the Asheville TJ's.

Here's what you get:

I'm not sure why they chose to package these in a manner awkwardly reminiscent of strips of cheap condoms, but nobody asked me.

Once you get past that, you have thin, chewy disks of fruit leather. Other than the unusual shape, the substance is like any other fruit leather.

I liked both the plain mango and the mango-strawberry. But the mango-grape was off; there was surprisingly little grape flavor, and what there was seemed to clash with the mango.


Will I buy it again? 

No. On the rare occasions that I feel like getting something in this general category, it would be one of TJ's several flavors of dried fruit bars. I have a few in my cupboard right now.

Trader Joe's White Stilton Cheese With Mango & Ginger

When I saw this in the store, and realized that they had put mangoes and pieces of ginger into the cheese, two movie clips came to mind:








To be sure, this is not Trader Joe's first time adulterating cheese by adding stuff that doesn't belong. They've toyed with cinnamon, peppers, raspberries, blueberries and vanilla, sriracha sauce, black pepper, paprika, wine, pesto, bacon, apricots, apple pie, rosemary and olive oil, apples and cinnamon. I've tried them all. Plus, I've passed by other examples that I'm pretty sure I would hate, spiked with beer and truffles and onions.

But, surprisingly, the Stilton/mango/ginger combo works pretty well. The mango primarily adds a fruity sweetness (I would have thought they were apricot bits, if the label hadn't said otherwise), while the ginger contributes an interesting edge of brightness. Somehow, the crazy combination...works. Apparently the mad scientists weren't so mad after all.

Sadly, like all Stilton cheeses, this is terribly crumbly. It's impossible to slice; passing a knife through it just makes it all fall apart. To put some on a cracker, I have to scoop up a bunch of crumbs. I find this intolerably annoying.


Will I buy it again? 

No. The texture problem is too much. But I'm glad I tried it once, to be reminded that crazy ideas sometimes work out.

Trader Joe's 100% Mango Juice From Carabao Mangoes

I first heard of Carabao mangoes when Trader Joe's came out with Supersweet Dried Carabao Mango. I declared them the best way to eat mangoes ever devised. So when I saw this canned juice from the same variety, I was ready to love it. After all, as I've noted many times before, when Trader Joe's does a single-ingredient juice, as this is, there's a good chance it will be perfectly executed.

Sadly, this isn't. Even more sadly, the problem is obvious, as is a simple solution that could and should have been implemented before putting this on the shelves. It's the can. There's a definitely metallic off-note to this juice. All of TJ's other superb pure juices are in glass bottles. Do the same for this stuff, and I think it would join that pantheon. I don't understand how the TJ's team could have missed this during product development/acquisition.


Will I buy it again? 

No--at least not until they wise up and use bottles instead of cans.

Trader Joe's Chile Spiced Mango

This is a seriously strange product. It's soft, fairly thin-sliced mango coated in what is basically a mixture of paprika, sugar, and powdered chiles.

Judging by reactions I've seen posted on Twitter, a lot of people fall in love with it instantly. That wasn't me. My first impression was that it was too hot, and the flavors didn't blend well. But as I ate more, it definitely grew on me, and by the end of the bag (spread out over five or six sittings), I was really digging it. It's hot enough that I don't want to eat more than about four pieces at a time, but that's plenty for a nice little snack, jam-packed with flavor and interestingness.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I think this is a winner--strange but good.

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 Soft & Juicy Mango

That's right, folks--this is the fifth day in a row of reviewing versions of Trader Joe's dried mango, and we're still not done yet!

This one does rightfully earn its claim of "soft." It's a lot easier to bite into than the Chokanan or the Just Mango. Juicy? That's a stretch--and what "juice" there is occurs only because mango juice has been added to the product (according to the list of ingredients). I find it baffling that one would take fruit, dry it by removing the juice, then add juice back into it.

Worse, though, is that they've also added sugar. The result is definitely sweeter than the others reviewed this week, but no better than the Supersweet Dried Carabao, which remains, in my mind, the gold standard of the genre. It also stands as irrefutable evidence that you don't need to add sugar (or juice) to make for good dried mango.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Just Mango Slices

Eating this reminded me of that famous scene of Charlie Chaplin eating his shoe. Don't buy it. If you want straight dried mango, the Chokanan variety reviewed yesterday is better--sweeter and less leathery tough. And the Carabao variety is even better than that.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Mango Chokanan Variety

I don't know from mango varieties. But what's in this package is exactly what I would expect from the generic descriptor, "dried mango." It's like the texture of most dried fruit--tough, chewy, leathery. And it tastes like moderately concentrated mango.


Will I buy it again? 

I doubt it. Though they were unconventional, I liked both the crispy-crunchy and the freeze-dried better than this.

Trader Joe's Freeze Dried Mango

Like the Crispy Crunchy Mango Chips reviewed yesterday, this bag was lost and forgotten in my cupboards until I unearthed it while moving recently. It's apparently even older, with a best-by date of September 2015. And again, I don't even know if it's still available. [EDIT: It is--I saw it on the shelves just a few days ago.] I decided to ignore the expiration date. After all, they're freeze-dried and then sealed up to make them last forever, right?

The texture could not be more different from the fried chips. They're sort of the texture of puffed-corn cereal, or maybe circus peanuts that have gotten dried out. You can actually see air spaces throughout, making them amazingly light.

The only ingredient is mango--no oil, no sweeteners, no preservatives. But I would have had a hard time identifying the pieces as mango if I didn't know it in advance. I have a hard time explaining why, but I think it's more the texture than the flavor. It's just hard to believe that anything that so closely resembles Styrofoam packing peanuts is actually fruit.

But they're really good! I kept switching back and forth between these and the fried mango chips, and I couldn't decide which I liked more. They're completely different, but equally successful--and equally odd--presentations of mango.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes.

Trader Joe's Crispy Crunchy Mango Chips

I bought this a few years ago--I don't really have any idea when, but it carries a "best by" date of May 2016. It got buried under other stuff in my cupboards and forgotten, until my recent move. For all I know, it might have been discontinued long ago,rendering this review useless; I haven't checked. But it was still perfectly good.

The chips appear to have been fried; palm oil is the only listed ingredient other than mango. They are extremely crunchy, like the most overdone little French fries at the bottom of the McDonald's bag. This contrast with what my brain expects mango to be was weirdly pleasant, like an intriguing paradox.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes, if they still make it. I found it to be quite a compelling late-night snack.

Trader Joe's Mango & Cream Ice Cream

I remember in the 1980s when the first Macintosh computers hit the market, it was amazing that the font of text you saw on the screen was the same as would come out of the printer. This phenomenon was so out of step with the PCs that had gone before that it quickly developed a semi-pronounceable acronym: WYSIWYG--"what you see is what you get." Nobody uses that anymore because it has now been established as the norm for so long that it doesn't need to be specified or talked about.

Well, I'd resurrect WYSIWYG for this ice cream. Both the name of the product and the photo on the carton perfectly capture what you can expect from it. It's a swirled blend of mango ice cream and unflavored--i.e., "cream"--ice cream.

It's quite good. The mango is neither overpowering nor overly sweetened, but just right. The cream portion tastes like real cream--presumably because it is.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I'm happy to have tried it once, and it's probably as good as a product of this general description can be, but it didn't wow me enough to want more.

Trader Joe's Organic Agua Fresca--Pineapple Mango With Natural Mint Flavor

For the most part, this is what you'd expect--good but unremarkable pineapple-mango juice. The surprise comes mostly in the aftertaste, when the shot of mint kicks in, and it works nicely. I don't think I've ever had juice with mint in it before. It's a different experience, well worth trying.


Will I buy it again? 

No. You should definitely try it once, though.

Trader Joe's Apple Mango Dried Fruit Bar

This is the last of the four versions of this product. Sadly, it's also the least enjoyable. As with the apricot, the balance is off--but even more so. I had to concentrate hard to find any mango here. It was just apple apple apple. This isn't an intrinsically terrible thing; I'd buy a "dried apple bar." But it's not what the wrapper promises.


Will I buy it again? 

In spite of my griping, yes. I don't like this or the apricot varieties as much as the strawberry and raspberry, but I'll keep them all coming home with me.

Trader Joe's Supersweet Dried Carabao Mango

I'll make this simple: This is the best way to eat mangoes ever devised by mankind.

First, there's no fuss with cutting them.

Second, these really are sweeter than regular mangoes and have virtually none of that slightly bitter mango off-taste. And no, they have not been artificially sweetened. In fact, the ingredients list on the back is maybe the shortest I've ever seen: "Mangoes."

Third, they're sliced very thin, so you can eat a lot--or at least have the illusion of eating a lot--without a big calorie load.

Fourth, they're more "dried" than dried; that is, they're sort of partially dried. More like prunes than dried apricots.

I like these a lot--far more than I like eating fresh mangoes. It's one of Trader Joe's very best dried-fruit products--and I've had a lot of them.


Will I buy it again? 

I already have, and will again. I don't think they're quite Top Ten material, but the fact that I had to stop to consider conferring that status suggests that they're pretty damn good.

Trader Joe's Mango Ginger Chutney

I've never bought any kind of chutney before this. In fact, if asked, I would have been able to give you only an extremely vague definition or description of what "chutney" was. I've probably eaten chutney as a condiment on something at an Indian restaurant a time or two, but I have no specific memory of it.

So my reasons for buying this were just that (1) it was on the new-products shelf, and (2) I attempt to buy virtually every new TJ's product, unless it's a food category that I don't ever eat or something I can be positive I won't like.

I had no idea what to do with the stuff. I tried it on a vegetable-patty burger, and it didn't work very well.

My next idea was better: a topping for fake chicken nuggets on a rice bed. I told Nina that this was what I'd be serving for her next dinner at my house. She came up with what proved to be the key contribution: add some lemon juice to make it into sort of a sweet-and-sour sauce.

I did, using a roughly two parts chutney to one part juice--and it was great! I seriously loved it. The mango comes through less specifically as mango and more as a general fruitiness. The ginger adds a definite bite and tingle, especially in a brief aftertaste. The lemon juice makes for a simultaneously contrasting pucker. There are some raisins scattered in the chutney for an interesting texture contrast. Overall, the combination perfectly tarted up the otherwise quite bland nuggets and rice.


Will I buy it again? 

Definitely. It's a new favorite thing in my life.

Trader Joe's Mango 100% Juice Smoothie

This is excellent. Strong mango base, but with a blend of other fruits (apple, orange, banana, lemon) supporting and complementing it. No off-flavors. Maybe a little too sweet, but not to the point of distraction.


Will I buy it again? 

Enthusiastically. (I will not, however, be sharing with Nina, who does not like mangoes.)

Trader Joe's Mango Sorbet

Excellent stuff. Rich flavor, but not too sweet. Smooth texture, not lumpy or crystallized. Really one of the best fruit sorbets I've had from a grocery store.


Will I buy it again? 

Not often, because I'm too fat as it is, but yes, as a rare treat. I wish they offered it in pint-sized containers.

Trader Joe's Roasted Tomatillo & Mango Salsa

This is Day Four of New Products Week. 


This had generally very nice flavors, though surprisingly little mango, given the product name.

However, it's one of the hottest salsas I've had from Trader Joe's. It's lacking the little thermometer heat indicator on the label that most of the others have, but it would clearly be near the top. Too much for me.

It's also a lot runnier than I like--too hard to keep on chips.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Crispy Crunchy Mixed Fruit

This is excellent. Pleasant textures. Vivid and compatible flavors--I liked all of the four about equally, so I didn't care which I picked up next and felt no urge to select one over another. Nicely sized pieces with relatively few broken, tiny bits. There is apparently a small amount of sugar added, and I've previously said that I don't want sugar in my dried fruit, but it wasn't prominent enough to bother me here.

One oddity: The package warns not to eat the included desiccant packet. I didn't notice that warning until Nina and I had noshed our way through the whole bag. So either I had picked the odd package with no desiccant, or one of us ate it without noticing. The latter seems unlikely. The only reason I mention it is that this bag had sat in my cupboard so long without being consumed that we were a full eight months past its expiration date when we finally tore into it. (It had become buried under some other stuff and forgotten.) And yet the contents remained in perfect texture, even without the desiccant it was supposed to have. It kind of makes me wonder why they bother with including it.

I don't know why they make the package with a resealable opening, cuz it's never going to be closed again after it's opened. They even specifically assert that the number of servings included is "1." So it's, like, illegal not to eat the whole bag at once.


Will I buy it again? 

Definitely. This is a superior late-night snack.

Trader Joe's Sweet & Spicy Mango Vinaigrette

I bought this back in June, at the height of the all-mango-all-the-time craze TJ's had going on. Though I was using it regularly, I kept putting off writing about it because I couldn't figure out what to say. Now I've finished the bottle, and I'm still not sure.

I guess the best way to sum up my opinion is this: It's not sweet enough to be worthy of having "sweet" in its name, it's not spicy enough to have "spicy" in its name, and it's not mango enough to have "mango" in its name. There's a generic fruitiness, but I don't think I could pin it down as mango if I didn't have the label blaring at me. It's just underwhelming in every way.


Will I buy it again? 

No. The fact that I consumed the entire bottle should tell you that I didn't hate it, but it's not even in the same universe as what is still my all-time favorite, TJ's Raspberry Vinaigrette.