Trader Joe’s Ridge Cut Sweet Potato Chips
Posted: October 14, 2011 Filed under: Chips, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Chip, Sweet Potato, Trader Joe's Brand 1 Comment
Sweet 'taters? What is sweet taters?
Another sweet and salty chip, but do these rather more sanely presented chips have anything on the milk chocolate potato chips?
I am, in no uncertain terms, a sweet potato lover, the oranger the better I say, but I’m an old school sweet potato lover. Give me ‘em whole and baked or smushed into Thanksgiving casserole and I’ll eat until I’m sick and all dieting resolutions have been obliterated. While I do enjoy sweet potato fries, I have to wonder if we need to sweet potato-ify everything once made from the common Idaho.
I was ready to abandon this idea when I bought Trader Joe’s Ridge Cut Sweet Potato Chips. It was the “ridge-cut” modifier in particular that caught my attention. Ridge-cutting is, and has always been, the domain of Ruffles (and Ruffle’s knock-offs). A ridge-cut (or crinkle-cut, in more proper kitchen nomenclature) potato chip is saying one thing to me – this is some serious snacky junk food. Ridge-cut chips are not bought to be rationally portioned out, they are bought to cram into your gob in handfuls while sitting in a darkened room, illuminated only by the flickering pale light of a TV screen playing a show designed to insult your intelligence. Also for picnics.
To achive this sort of status, however, a junk food needs to be straight forward and unengaging – not to challenge your taste buds, but to allow your body to slip steadily toward a sort of waking coma. What’s so strange about the sweet potato chip is that it doesn’t allow you to do this. The mild sweetness of the potato mingles strangely with the mild saltiness of the chip. Neither one is particularly forceful, and they allow the natural flavors of the sweet potato to come out. To me this was a disadvantage.
The chip had a strangely confused taste- leading my taste buds partly down one path, then partly down another. The overall effect was that it never really took me anywhere, not clashing, but not quite in harmony either. Because of the flavor mixture, I couldn’t find a dip or condiment that would suit them. Too sweet for ranch or salsa, too salty for a desert dip, it felt like these things were just meant to be eaten plain, but without a single strong taste to suck me in I couldn’t imagine snacking on them over a nice salty chip like Ruffles.
I know there is a lot of love for sweet potato products out there, but this product failed to win me over. It seemed to me it would have been a better product if it had been salt-free, letting the natural sweetness of the potato speak for itself.
Would I Recommend Them: No.
Would I Buy Them Again: I can’t think of a reason why.
Final Synopsis: A novel approach, but fails to do anything better than your average potato chip.
Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Covered Potato Chips
Posted: October 7, 2011 Filed under: Chips, Chocolate, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Chocolate, Potato Chips, Trader Joe's Brand 1 Comment
After yesterday’s disastrous beet and purple carrot juice, I thought I finally thought I had had enough of seemingly preposterous food pairings. Why not judge a book by its cover? You might be wrong every now and then, but you’ll be right about 95% of the time. Surely I could live with that, right? I was fooling myself, of course, as I said before the unknown allure of seemingly insane couplings holds an irresitable draw for me. Here it is, the very next day and I’m back at it again with a treat that couldn’t sound worse to me on paper.
Chocolate covered potato chips. Honestly, I’m surprised this combination even crossed anyone’s mind to begin with. The name easily evokes the sloppiest, laziest summer days of youth when, with one hand, I might casually shove a handful of chocolate into my mouth then supplement it with a handful of chips from the other, not bother with all the effort of clearing my esophagus in between. Homer Simpsons’ famous Gum & Nuts comes to mind, along with any number of childhood’s boderline creations (popcorn and ketchup, apple butter and ice cream). In other words, I was ready for mediocrity at best.
Consider my gob smacked when I actually tried these things. The sweet taste of milk chocolate melts seamlessly into the salty kiss of the potato chip, all bound up in a pleasurable crunchy bite. All but overwhelmingly delicious, this crazy confection literally sat my ass down. After crunching the initial test chip my tongue quickly cited that well known edict “This Is Effin’ Good!” and summarily took charge of all cognitive and motor functions, pleasuring itself with chip after chip. It was only through a great exercise of self-control later on that I was able to salvage about half the bag. We’re talking dangerously good folks. Salty, crunchy and sweet altogether, without being too much of one or another – this chip had everything that I didn’t even know I was looking for.
No downsides here, but maybe a couple suggestions. These came packaged in the same way as Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter thingies, which is to say with no consideration for the inherent meltiness of chocolate. No problems yet, but it’s just not a good idea to sell chocolate all jumbled together in a bag. Also, the bag is quite small, but I’m inclined to consider this a good thing at the moment since these things are guaranteed diet-killers. Overall though, these chips are a sweet, secret surprise.
Would I Recommend Them: Yes sir, I would.
Would I Buy Them Again: So long as I’m not worried about sticking to a diet.
Final Synopsis: Chocolate and Potato Chips – the definition of synergy.
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Roasted Pistachio Toffee
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Candy, Chocolate, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Candy, Chocolate, Pistachios, Toffee, Trader Joe's Brand 5 Comments
Will this fill the void within me?
What do we seek, in this world, beside a little sweetness in our lives? Is it toffee? Today, I decided to find out.
The Trader Joe’s by my house has an impressively diverse toffee selection, but of them all these crazy little buggers always leapt out at me. Pistachio, right on man, sea green pistachio slapped almost drunkenly all over the outside of an otherwise normal looking toffee morsel. The moment I saw them, I was captivated by how off-putting they looked – something about the way the crushed nuts sit on the chocolate coating make them look like they were picked up of the laundry room floor. Overcoming my momentary repulsion, I brought them to the counter and had them rung up. After all, eating strange, off-putting things is what this blog is all about.
As one does when one comes into possession of some toffee, I freely offered it to those around me the rest of the day. Interestingly, everyone responded in almost exactly the same way I did: with an initial chilly refusual followed by a slow change of mind that came almost to their own surprise. I think the thought process goes something like, “Those look weird,” followed by, “Wait a minute, pistachio and toffee?! This could be a brilliant new taste sensation!”
Alas, all high hopes were dashed. Crushed pistachios on dark chocolate toffee taste, basically, like toffee. As one of my fellow taste tasters put it – “it tastes like Almond Roca”, which is basically what it is. But what of the dark chocolate, the pistachios? Do they not elevate this into a more elite form of toffee? Man, I gotta tell you – really they do not. The intense butterscotch blast of the toffee effortlessly overpowers the nuances of the chocolate and nuts, and the nutty coating effectively prevents you from sucking on a piece and appreciating it. Is it still awesome? Sure, it’s toffee – but that’s about all it is. I will say that if you eat a couple pieces then wait – wait until after the butterscotch has faded, then wait until after the chocolate has faded – at somewhere around the 3 minute mark BAM!!!, the lingering taste of pistachios will totally be there.
Is that what I thought I was getting? No. Was I naively conflating the taste of sweet pistachio ice cream with the real taste of ordinary pistachio nuts and imaging some sort of sublime transcendent treat to match this toffee’s awkward exterior? Perhaps. If you are seeking that exotically flavored toffee look elsewhere, it is not here.
Would I Recommend It: Can’t think of a reason to recommend it over any other.
Would I Buy It Again: Naw.
Final Synopsis: You can do what you want to toffee, the toffee don’t care.
Trader Joe’s Super Seeded Tortilla Chips
Posted: September 22, 2011 Filed under: Chips, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Chips, Gluten-Free, Kosher, Organic, Trader Joe's Brand, Vegan 3 Comments
Doesn't the name suggest that this chip has already been outdone?
Okay, let’s get real here again – real about really delicious tortilla chips. Today’s delicious offering are the nuttiest chips you’re likely to find – nutty because they are chock full of organic seeds that make your chip’s crunch crunch. As the bag boldly proclaims – these chips are made with organic flax, hemp, poppy, caraway and chia seeds. That’s right, chia seeds aren’t just for growing afros on novelty porcelain busts anymore – they’re in your chips! Forming the substrate for the seeds you’ll find a mix of organic white corn flour and “expeller pressed” safflower / sunflower oil. Expeller pressing is simply a method of extracting oil from seeds and such by crushing the hell out of it in a big press, as opposed to the more efficient method of dousing it with poisonous chemicals (generally some sort derivative of crude oil derivitve). Healtheir? Arguably, but it definitely sounds better.
So this product gets full brownie points for being hippie-friendly as all get out, but are they good? In this case, the hippies win. The extra crunchy, nutty flavor the chips suits the tongue just right – a welcome change up to the entirely mundane plain tortilla chip. That said, these chips are as all-purpose and utilitarian as your ordinary sack of chips. The caraway seeds, organic or not, still pack that overpowering caraway flavor. Since you don’t taste one until you happen to crunch down right on it, it’s not a taste you can expect in every bite. Eat your salsa with these chips and every few bites it’ll taste like you’re eating salsa on rye bread. Limit these chips to heavier, savory tastes – hummus and guacamole.
Would I Recommend Them: Absolutely, but plan for the caraway seeds or you’ll be sorry.
Would I Buy Them Again: If I needed to casually impress a vegan.
Final Synopsis: Combine a good new taste with a clever pun and I’m sold every time.
Trader Joe’s Dried Fruit – Just Mango Slices
Posted: September 20, 2011 Filed under: Fruit, MANGO!, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Dried Fruit, Mango!, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand 7 Comments
Just mango is good enough for me.
Let’s talk delicious mangoes. My ongoing, free-verse tribute to my intense love of mangoes continues today with this lovely dried, unsweetened and unsulfured variety I picked up.
There is a wide world of difference between the dried green mango I enjoyed the other day and these. Why does sweetened mango abound so? Is not dried mango sweet enough on that it can glide blissfully over our tongues without being pumped full of glucose? Having only rarely seen unsweetened mango, and never tried it, I didn’t know – but eager to find out. The answer is a resounding yes. Not only does the absence of extra sugar make the snack more healthful and diet friendly, but it allows the natural fruity flavors to delicately emerge. Without the disguising taste of a sugar coating, I found I could actually distinguish a different taste in the slices depending on how close to the core they had been cut – sweeter and sunnier from outside, more reserved and green tasting at the core.
The slices themselves are stiff, broad flaps of fruit of drab whitish yellow – very different from the bright candy yellow-orange of sweetened mango. I found the change in color rather appealing, much like with Trader Joe’s Green Protein, if something is going to be healthier for me, I expect it to look more natural to boot. In fact, over all I found these a better buy then your regular, dried sweetened mango. Enough sugar already, I say. Let the mango speak for itself. Plus it’s unsulfured, so that’s a plus, but more on that tomorrow.
Are their any downsides to today’s dried mango? Is it even possible to conceive of a mango-related flaw? Yes, it would appear. Through an astounding exercise of willpower I managed to savor these over two whole days, and had the unhappy surprise of finding the pliable mango slices of the night before become increasingly stiff and leathery the next day. Within 24 hours of being opened, the mango slices had become about as difficult to bite off and chew as an old boot. The taste remained as delectable as ever, but eating them became an increasingly arduous task. If only Joe had packaged these in a resealable bag instead of a disposable one the whole issue could have been avoided. If you buy these, be sure to transfer them to a sealable bag upon opening, that’s my advice.
Would I Recommend Them To You: Yes, with the above proviso.
Would I Buy Them Again: Over sweetened mango? Every time.
Final Synopsis: Sweetened mango’s healthier older brother.
Trader Joe’s Mango! Mango! Fruit and Yogurt Gummy
Posted: September 13, 2011 Filed under: Candy, MANGO!, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Candy, Gummy, Mango!, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand 3 Comments
The sophisticated man's choice for gummy candy.
Mad mango-rama continues with Mango! Mango! gummy candy. Other than being a big fan of the bag’s enthusiasm for it’s contents, I wish I had more to say about these. They are gummy candies that come in a three flavors – mango, mango-yogurt and passionfruit-mango. As is usually the case, the flavors names promise a little more than the factory can put out, and the candy’s actual taste bears only a passing resemblance to their namesakes. Not that I blame them – only some sort of insane simpleton would expect a gummy candy to taste just like the real thing – I’m just saying is all.
Is this good gummy candy? Yes. Is it the best gummy candy you’ll ever taste? No, but it’s reasonably excellent all the same. Does the stupid name put me off? A little.
All three types of gummy are pleasantly fruity and flavorful, and the pieces are large and thick enough that even one makes for a nice mouthful. The texture leans a bit more toward rubbery than gooey, which is what I personally prefer from a gummy candy. In fact, after munching on these for a few minutes I started getting sore temples from the vigorous chewing action. Now that’s a substantial gummy.
What makes these gummies stand out in the battle for your recession dollar? Not a whole hell of a lot, but what they’ve got they do well. They exist mainly to fill that niche in the life of adults who still love the unique, addictive qualities of gummy candy, but feel self-conscious about buying Haribo’s tiny pouches of cartoon frogs and peach rings, or whatever.
Joe can also proudly boost that his Mango Mango gummies are made form real fruit, with passion fruit and mango juice concentrate being the primary the flavorings in the mix. We can add to that one other interesting ingredient – elderflower berry juice – not as flavoring, but as the source of coloring to give the candy it’s fruity hue. Like our Italian Blood Orange Soda, no red 42 is to be found here – just wonderful, all natural secretions of Earth.
How cool is that. Though it may be outlandishly nerdy to admit as much, Trader Joe’s use of non-artificial coloring agents is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to look out for.
Would I Recommend It: For you’re gummy dollar, it’s worth it.
Would I Buy It Again: Though gummy is not my first candy choice, I can forsee these in my future.
Final Synopsis: Mango(od)
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate covered Peanut Butter Wafer Cookies
Posted: September 10, 2011 Filed under: Chocolate, Cookies, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Chocolate, Cookies, Peanut Butter, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand 3 Comments
Such deceit hidden behind such alluring words
I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking what I was thinking. “Oh man, dark chocolate with peanut butter on a crispy wafer? That sounds good.” And it does sound good, it sounds really good, but it’s just not the case. It is simply alright.
Now, in all fairness much of the fault here has got to go to the packaging. In general, you can rely on Joe to come up with clever packaging that’s as effective and efficient as it is eye-catching. Not so here, just a jumble of snack squares tossed into a bag. This is a fine approach for animal crackers and dog food – foods that are heat and crumble resistant. Not so much for chocolate, peanut butter and wafer. The first time I opened the bag I was presented with a gooey mess – peanut butter and chocolate slumped messily over irregular bits of wafer.
In a perfect world this probably could have been avoided, I would have kept the bag perfectly level upon purchase and placed it in a cool, spacious drawer. As is all to clear from the wars, famines and imperfect snack goods that assail us – this is no perfect world. My food cabinet is crowded and located above the stove. Things get cramped and warm from time to time, and there’s not much I can do about that.
The reality of the situation is that there’s no way around ending up with this mess. I stuff my snacks in my cabinet with everything else and the house heats up during the day. I treated these guys no different from anything else I buy, and the end result is a mess that’s as technically difficult to eat as you’re liable to find.
Even if they cookies hadn’t come to me melted, there’s no way they could be indulged upon outside or exposed to the mild heat of a house in summer – we’re talking about chocolate for god’s sake, known to melt at the drop of a hat. Seems to me like ol’ Joe should have taken that one into account. If he knew what he was doing, these’d come in a little, sub-divided plastic tray (like most cookies), and I’d have nothing to complain about but the taste.
What’s wrong with the taste? Not much, to be honest. They taste fine, but fine isn’t all that I expect from a chocolate-peanut butter cookie. The main issue, I believe, is that dark chocolate does not go as well with peanut butter as we’d all hope. That may be shocking to hear – we’ve been conditioned to spring energetically from our seats at the mere mention of chocolate and peanut butter combined, but sometimes it just doesn’t work. Maybe it’s time that we, as a nation, start to break from our all-encompassing, slavish acceptance of the peanut butter-chocolate duo and start examining each instance on its own merits. In this case, I’m sorry to say it just doesn’t hold up that well. If we were talking milk chocolate, sweet and smooth, that’d be another case entirely. As it stands, the strong, slightly bitter overtones of the dark chocolate fight against the peanut butter and render the whole experience average at best. All in all, it’s enough to make you wonder why you even bother sometimes.
Would I recommend them: By no means.
Would I buy them again: Only as a tool of retribution.
Final Synopsis: Your hands will look like you pooped on them.
Trader Joe’s Dried Fruit – Green Mango
Posted: September 9, 2011 Filed under: Fruit, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Fruit, Mango!, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand 4 Comments
The little temptress.
This one’s is easy to explain. Imagine you are eating a piece of dehydrated mango. Now imagine it’s a little more tart than usual. That’s about all there is to say for this simple snack. Green mangoes are, as they sounds like, mangoes which are harvested before maturity. In the wild these would be unedibly tart, but after the miracle of dehydration and with the liberal addition of sugar they hit the spot.
I loved these and ate them up at a pace so dangerously quick that I’m putting a prohibition on myself from buying them again too soon. If I didn’t, there’s more than a small chance that my diet would quickly slide into a sort of all-dehydrated-green-mango binge, and that my friends would soon find me, naked, fat and dead, in a room littered with empty mango pouches, a fistful of dehydrated mango wedged half-way in my mouth. The fact that, if at all possible, I would marry a mango and engage in passionate love making with my mango bride probably makes me more susceptible to the sweet and tangy wiles of this fruity snack than others, but I don’t hesitate to recommend it all the same.
The tangier green mango provides a nice change of pace from the super sweetness of normal dehydrated mango, and does so without losing any of that potent mango flavor. The only small issue I had was that I was hoping for a tarter zing than the green mango delivered. The pack-promised tartness manifests as a subtle undertone rather than a pyrotechnic blast, but it’s hard to get too bent out of shape over a product that tastes as good as this.
Would I recommend it: Yes.
Would I buy it again: Yes, but only while carefully self-monitoring.
Final Synopsis: Like regular dehydrated mango – but better!
Trader Joe’s Roasted Seaweed Snack
Posted: September 8, 2011 Filed under: Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Seaweed, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand, Wasabi 2 Comments
Seaweed, served to you in a cocktail glass
So good, but so far from food. Eating these is like eating firecrackers – a hot, spicy pop that vanishes into empty air.
If you don’t think you’d ever eat a sheet of roast seaweed, try these. Now I, personally, love eating sheets of roast seaweed, giant unflavored sheets that I fold into my mouth like wallpaper, but I can understand that this maybe isn’t everybody’s bag. These f—ckrs are a totally different beast– tiny, bite size seaweed snackers dusted with an invisible layer of burning hot wasabi flavor. They are absolutely addictive, as soon as I got up off my ass after eating the first one I dove for another, and another, until there were no more. The wasabi practically stings when it hits your tongue, then vanishes in a flash leaving just a limp, little flap of seaweed to slide mundanely down your throat.
With a snack this original and tasty and all together rad, it’s a brutal blow to the solar plexus that they’re sold in almost infinitesimally small packets. Trader Joe’s isn’t exactly packing the value into this one either. Popping open the pack, you’ll see that it isn’t exactly packed to the gills. A judicious spacing is alotted each sheet, like a seaweed condo, so that you only get about 20 of the teensy slices. A whole serving (1/2 the pack, by the way) accounts for only 30 calories – about the nutritional content of a gumball.
It’s a shame that such an awesome product is parceled out in such scanty portions; it renders the product nearly purposeless. The flavor is too intense to sit and crunch on all day, and too airy to justify packing jut a couple with your lunch. Short of stocking up on 5 cartons at a time, the only use I can see for these is either as an unusual snack spread at a party, doomed to be gobbled up in a flash, or as a small, critical component in some sort of homemade Asian-Fusion cuisine.
Would I recommend them: To seaweed lovers and the seaweed neutral alike.
Would I buy them again: If I was holding an Asian-Fusion cuisine party.
Final Synopsis: All sizzle, no steak.
Trader Joe’s Apple And Carrot Fruit Crushers
Posted: September 1, 2011 Filed under: Fruit, Kids, Snacks | Tags: 3 stars, Fruit, Kids, Snack, Trader Joe's 3 Comments
Not pictured – the crushing.
What’s behind the intriguing and slightly extreme name? (“Get yourself a CRUSHER!”, Gen-x advertising copy might read, or perhaps “CRUSH it!”). The answer is, basically just applesauce.
Trader Joe looks like he’s trying to straddle the line between kid’s snack and adult snack with this product. As such, I’ll give my review for each demographic.
For kids: A good applesauce source. The pouches are engagingly colorful, the carrots in the apple sauce are all but undetectable, and the bags are fun to squish and play with (both in the titular crushing activity and in the fun of having a built in straw to blow and suck on). Also cool, the sleek, over-sized caps are very satisfying to twist off. The self-contained packaging also means not having to worry about where a spoon will come from, or where it will go afterwards. One small downside, the bag design is abstract in the ugly way, not the interesting way. Overall, an easy add to the sack lunch bag.
For adults: Not really happening. The pouch is just small enough that it doesn’t quite qualify as an adult-sized snack – you can basically just slurp the whole thing and not even notice it. The box of four lasted me two days and even then failed to make a lasting impression. The feeding tube combined with the bag’s soft sides means that you’ll suck the thing dry in about two seconds. With a cup of applesauce there’s the possibility of dawdling over dawdling over it during break time; with the fruit crusher there’s not much else to do but slam it and go. Unless you’ve really got your heart set on carroty applesauce, there are better choices for your snacking dollar.
Would I recommend it: If you had a small child.
Would I buy it again: If I had a small child.
Final Synopsis: Fun to play with, but leaves you hungry.
The wee pouch.
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