Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Caramallows
Posted: December 17, 2013 Filed under: Candy, Chocolate, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: holiday, marshmallow 3 Comments
Ohhh yeahhhh.
Brother, cousin, or just close friend of the family to the chocolate covered marshmallows that I reviewed on an ill-fated day previous, Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Caramallows are as delicious a confection of a word as they are a delicious confection.
If you’re still with me after that bit of tortured grammar, than you must be wondering what Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Marshmallows did wrong that Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Caramallows did right.
Well, for starters, they put caramel in it. A bunch of caramel. When you bite into one of these it’s pretty much half caramel half marshmallow. Mankind has wrought many a sweet treat but, with the possible exception of cookie butter, we have never made anything so tasty that a little caramel doesn’t improve it.
Second, obviously, is the wonderful product name, so whimsical that it makes me chuckle with mirth whenever my twinkling eye lights upon it.
And that’s all well and good, but as my most fervent, dedicated and imaginary readers have no doubt already noticed, neither of these two points refutes my argument against TJ’s regular old chocolate covered marshmallows – that they’re essentially just repackaged Easter candy. And, honestly, that criticism still stands, the only difference is that this is repackaged Easter Candy done right.
The thing that I really enjoyed about these guys, beside the tooth nuking sweetness of the caramel and marshmallow cream, is the bitter kick of the dark chocolate shell.
The cynic in me wants to chock up this sophisticated touch to the craze of putting dark chocolate on everything that you’re already putting milk chocolate on. Whether or not that’s the case, the bitter undertones of the dark chocolate act as a really wonderful counterpoint to the intensely sweet caramel and marshmallow. Of course, the other marshmallows had dark chocolate on them as well but the extra spongy texture of their marshmallow core made them practically bounce off your tongue. Where those were springy and chewy, the caramallows are ooey and gooey – they really just want to glue themselves to the top of your mouth and melt. That’s when the dark chocolate comes in, blunting the sugary edge of changing the character of the candy from empty calories to confection.
And that, ultimately, is where my preference falls. As death tugs the hem of my bath robe inexorably closer to the grave, I’ve noticed that I can’t just wolf down the sweets like I used to. When I do make room for them on the budget, I like them to be something special. There are a million ways to spin sugar into carbo lumps, and most of them aren’t worth wasting the chocolate on. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Caramallows might be just as cheap, but they’re actually meaningful to eat.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: If you aren’t diabetic yet, pick up a box before the season ends.
Would I Buy Them Again: Yes, my girlish figure be damned.
Final Synopsis: A dark chocolate covered marshmallow that’s worth picking up.
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Caramallows – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Sipping Chocolate Inspired by European Tradition
Posted: December 12, 2013 Filed under: Chocolate, Drinks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: hot chocolate Leave a comment
Europe’s a big place, but apparently this hot chocolate mix was inspired by all of it.
Ah yes, ’tis the season for fancy, dressed up gifts in supermarkets, and Trader Joe’s is positively rising to the occasion. Among their roasted nut oils and artisan mustard sets you might just find the twee, decorative tin of Trader Joe’s Sipping Chocolate – Inspired By European Tradition.
Trader Joe’s is going all out to appear fancy with this one, to the point of actually putting “European” in the title, but what they really mean by “sipping chocolate” is powdered hot chocolate mix. Pretensions, however, may be excused in this case. Trader Joe’s really does provide a richer, more chocolaty hot chocolate that puts generic hot chocolate mixes to shame.
Hot chocolate has come a long way since the ancient Mayans first ground cocoa beans into paste and mixed it with cold water, cornmeal and chili peppers. In fact, the history of drinking chocolate stretches so far back that it precedes the notion of the chocolate bar by 1,400 years or so. In fact, for centuries the word “chocolate” simply meant hot chocolate. It wasn’t until the 1800’s that enterprising food scientists figured out a different way to get the chocolate out of the cocoa bean other than smashing it up and mixing it with water. In the intervening 1.5 millenniums hot chocolate, not unlike hard cider, rained supreme.
It wasn’t until the concept of hot chocolate sauntered its way into Western Europe in the 17th century that people finally struck on the notion of adding sugar to the previously bitter and unpalatable hot chocolate mix. This ushered in the age of foppish aristocrats sitting around, sipping rich hot chocolate in “chocolate houses” from dainty cups. It is to this “European tradition” that Trader Joe’s sipping chocolate appeals.
It might just be a powered cocoa mix, but this sipping chocolate is so rich and intense that you’re only supposed to make up a 1/3 cup of it at a time. Trader Joe’s alleges that you’ll experience a “velvety richness”, and actually manage to deliver on the promise.
Follow the instructions on the tin (1/3 cup milk and 3 tablespoons chocolate mix) and you’ll find yourself with a sweet cup of hot chocolate that absolutely blows Swiss Miss away. This is a hot chocolate with body – you really will want to limit yourself to tiny sips as the thick, deep chocolate flavor (not to mention the concentrated sweetness) washes over you.
For those who are not necessarily into daintily sipping hot chocolate from wee cups, TJ’s also includes the recipe for a more dilute version (2/3 cup milk or water). This makes for a good hot chocolate as well – certainly better than any given cup of Nesquick or Swiss Miss – just without the velvety richness.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Yes, this is a sumptuous hot chocolate.
Would I Buy It Again: Sure, I enjoy a good cup of hot chocolate.
Final Synopsis: Hot chocolate on steroids.
Trader Joe’s Sipping Chocolate – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Marshmallows & Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Minty Mallows
Posted: December 10, 2013 Filed under: Chocolate, Desserts, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: holiday season, marshmallow 6 Comments
Both types! Though the box on the left is obviously cooler.
Brace yourselves readers, for a rare double post – reviewing both Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Marshmallows and Dark Chocolate Minty Marshmallows. And baby, how could I pass up these sweet little snacks – the holiday marshmallow display at Trader Joe’s this week looked so good that there was no way I couldn’t pick up both types. Unfortunately, that was as good as things got.
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Marshmallows are exactly what they sounds like – big blobs of marshmallow “enrobed” (as they like to say) in a dark chocolate shell. The sizes between these two types vary dramatically for some reason. The regular marshmallows are hemispheres about the size of a half dollar, while the mint flavored ones are rectangular and about 50% larger.
Both sound pretty much exactly like what you think you’re going to get, and that was something of a let down. It was the newness and novelty of these items that drew me to them – chocolate covered marshmallows weren’t something I’d ever seen in a grocery store before, let alone Christmas themed ones. I was absolutely ready to get blitzed by some brand new, delicious holiday treat. I mean, for all I knew these could be the next toffee popcorn or peppermint bark.
When you first bite into one of these, however, you quickly discover that there’s no secret holiday magic here. The chocolate shell is brittle and thin, and sticks to the under laying marshmallow as you chew it. Over all, the taste was strangely familiar for something I’d never had before. The chocolate, despite being “dark”, is still quite sweet and, to be honest, slightly cheap tasting. The same can be said of the marshmallow filling – sweet and a little cheap tasting.
Then, suddenly, I remembered why it was all so familiar – I have had these before, for Halloween and Easter. Chocolate covered marshmallows snacks might be a new thing for Christmas, but they’re hardly new to the holiday scene. I’ve you’ve ever had a Cadbury marshmallow egg, you know pretty much what Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Marshmallows taste like. You also know what’s it’s like to eat one – which is to say, a mouthful. These are marshmallows that are going to keep you chewing for a minute or two as you masticate the mallow core and melt down the many little chocolate shards.
While I wanted to like these, I found myself facing the fairly tricky question of what to do with them. Eating them straight out of the box is a less than satisfying experience. They taste good, in the same way a Cadbury Marshmallow Egg tastes good, but it’s also not a taste you’re going to be hankering for bite after bite.
The big idea printed on the side of each box, and I grant that it’s a good one, is to add these guys to hot chocolate. In theory this is brilliant – marshmallows in hot chocolate are great, so dark chocolate covered marshmallows must be even better, right? Unfortunately, that’s not really what I found. The marshmallow, once dissolved in the hot chocolate, is just as good as any other marshmallow I’ve had. The problem is that the chocolate coating slows down the whole marshmallow melting process. I placed one regular dark chocolate marshmallow in a nice hot cup of hot chocolate, and by the time it was half dissolved the hot chocolate had cooled to tepid. There’s a good reason someone invented those tiny little marshmallow to go in your hot chocolate – waiting for a big marshmallow to dissolve is tedious, covering a big marshmallow with a protective shell only slows things down further.
Of the two, I think the minty mallows were the ones I preferred, simply because they performed an actual function. The mint in these is strong and fresh, and they perform admirably as after dinner mints. On the other hand, unlike after dinner mints they’re a big mouthful to chew on, which isn’t exactly what you’re looking for after you’ve just stuffed yourself on potatoes au grautin. Outside of that function, and despite their holiday whimsy, neither of these marshmallows really gave me a reason to care about them.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: There’s just not much to recommend here.
Would I Buy Them Again: I think I’ll just buy those little marshmallows instead next time.
Final Synopsis: Christmas should leave the chocolate covered marshmallows to Easter.
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Minty Mallows – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Marshmallows – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Croissants
Posted: December 5, 2013 Filed under: Pumpkin, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: croissant 7 Comments
My simple breakfast of pumpkin croissants, turkey bacon, Greek yogurt, and left over Arby’s.
I know that pumpkin season is technically over now, so writing about Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Croissants may not make much sense, but in a certain sense isn’t it true that pumpkin season never ends? And, in another, even more accurate sense, isn’t true that I forgot I had these croissants in my freezer and ran out of other things to make for breakfast? Yes, yes it is – and lucky for you, because these croissants kick ass.
This is my first foray into Trader Joe’s world of croissants, a magical region that contains chocolate, almond, and mini varieties. I’m terribly sorry that I’ve missed out on them for this long. The croissants bake up easy into light, crispy, buttery crunchy breakfast pastries that trounce the bakery output of your local supermarket. The pumpkin croissants are thus named for two reasons – one they come sprinkled with a handful of hearty pepitas, or pumpkin seeds, and two, they are filled with a sweet and rich pumpkin custard. The custard is a wonderful accompaniment to the flaky croissant, very similar in taste and sweetness to pumpkin butter, but with a creamier texture. Yes, essentially it is just a fancier type of jelly donut, but when you’re picking one up, warm, and golden brown off the baking tray, you’ll be happy you bought them.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say the reason I bought these was because of the use of the word “proof” in the title. “Just proof over night and bake”, you’re informed. Having never heard of “proofing” dough before, I immediately threw these in my cart. Any excuse to learn!
As no doubt many of you know, “proofing” (or “proving”) is is the specific term for allowing dough to rise after it’s been shaped but before it’s been baked. Why do we do it? I don’t know, dough is just a mysterious thing. In fact, dough is often left to sit and rise several times prior to baking. As you’ll see when you leave these little cuties out to proof, they’ll expand in size to almost double. What we’re seeing is fermentation, specifically the yeast in the dough is converting sugar (glucose) into carbon dioxide gas and carbohydrates – it’s literally inflating from the inside. What’s more, and this was shocking for me to discover, the yeast is actually fermenting the sugars in the dough into trace amounts of alcohol, and it’s this alcohol that, when baked, is responsible for the rich flavor of bread. I’d always thought that beer tastes kind of like bread – it turns out that it’s actually bread that tastes like beer.
In any case, these croissants bake up delicious and flaky – the only issue is that you’ve got to plan for them. The proofing process takes between 6 and 7 hours, followed by 20 or so minutes in the oven. That’s a considerable time expenditure for just 4 croissants, but in my humble opinion it was well worth it.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Yes, these are some excellent croissants.
Would I Buy Them Again: Next pumpkin season, I’ll be all over them.
Final Synopsis: Tasty, flaky croissants for breakfast, just make sure you leave them out the night before.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Croissants – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Meatless Breakfast Patties
Posted: December 3, 2013 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand, Vegetarian 5 CommentsTrader Joe’s Meatless Breakfast Patties are not sausages, but they’re not bad. I’ve reviewed Trader Joe’s vegetarian cuisine before, but I find it always puts me in a tricky position seeing as how I’m an unapologetic meat eater. Not only am I content to sit by while the lambs are, literally, led to the slaughter, but I’ll grill their corpses and eat them afterwards. This means that I’m not the target audience for things with names like “meatless breakfast patties”. Nevertheless, Trader Joe’s vegetarian output intrigues me – on both intellectual and gustatorial levels. Intellectually, I’m intrigued by the idea of vegetarians who want their food to look like meat, smell like meat and taste like meat, but find eating actual meat repugnant. Such internal conflict! Gustatorially, I’m curious about how close they can actually get these plant-based simulacra to the real deal.
The taste is close enough to real sausage that you might be fooled if you had to get up early enough. The smokiness and savoriness of roasted pig is somehow magicked into the wheat/soy patty via a variety of artificial flavorings. It’s not an exact match, but it’s close enough that even an inveterate meat eater like myself found it a reasonably pleasant breakfast substitute – closer to enjoyable than to tolerable. The flavor is helped in a big way by the very meaty smell, which is probably the closest match to an actual sausage product. Close your eyes as you cook these up on the skillet and you can loose yourself in the illusion of real pork.
The texture is where things break down, literally. While the taste is admirably close, nothing of the chewiness of real meat is present in the patties. The patties are surprisingly fragile, with a tendency to break in two or crumble while cooking. The skillet approach is particularly prone to disaster. As soon as the patties thaw they need to be flipped with great delicacy – too much handling and they’ll bust up into crumbs.
The microwave proved to be better for the integrity of the patties, but even then – once the cooked patties are removed you’ll notice that they have a tendency to break up under the fork. It’s this fragility that really breaks up the illusion that you’re eating meat. Under the pressure of tooth and tongue the meatless patty gives way immediately without any of the chewiness or resistance of actual meat.
This simply means that, as a meat eater, I have no reason to buy this product. As a hypothetical vegetarian, on the other hand, this is a surprisingly good bit of simulacra. While a more robust texture would be nice, I’m happy to trade chewiness for some pretty realistic flavor. Not unlike using turkey bacon in place of regular bacon, it isn’t exactly the real thing, but it’s close enough to get the job done.
The nutritional profile warrants a quick look as well. While not health food by any means, the meatless breakfast patties have it over on their meaty kin in a big way. 56% of the patties calories come from fat, which sounds like a lot, but is a world of difference from the ~90% fat you’d expect from a good ol’ Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage. Consider as well that each meatless patty only offers a meager 80 calories per patty and 56% fat isn’t all that terrifying. The bigger problem is eating enough of these to make it to lunch.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend These: Yes to vegetarians, no to meat eaters.
Would I Buy Them Again: Not unless my girlfriend joins PETA.
Final Synopsis: Good, for fake sausage.
Trader Joe’s Meatless Breakfast Patties – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Himalayan Salt with Truffles
Posted: November 29, 2013 Filed under: Salt, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Himalayan salt, truffles 16 Comments
Fancy truffles in a fancy tin.
I’ve never really had truffles before. I’ve had things with truffle in them – subtly worked into the background of the dish as an transient grace note – but nothing that really plays up to the full truffle flavor. Thanks to Trader Joe’s Himalayan Salt with Truffles I can no longer say that. I have been thoroughly overwhelmed by intense truffle flavor.
Before I start jibber-jabbing about the salt itself, the let’s define terms and make sure we know what we’re actually taking about when we say “Himalayan Salt with Truffles”.
As we all know, truffles are that subterranean fungus rooted out by hogs and dogs in Europe. A firm fixture of haute cuisine, these lumpy tubers go for up to twenty two hundred dollars per pound for the finer species – the so called, “diamonds of the kitchen” and so on. That’s all proper and good and fancy.
Himalayan salt, often billed as “pink Himalyan salt”, is a fancy marketing term that stores like to sling around instead of the more technically accurate phrase “rock salt from Pakistan”. The second largest salt mine in the world just happens to be located in Punjab, Pakistan, a mere 186 miles from the Himalayas, and is the source of practically all the “Himalayan” salt you see in America. This sort of labeling that makes one think that marketers have much more of a loosey-goosey approach to geography than the rest of us, the sort of approach that might lead to vague geographical generalizations with things like balsamic vinegar as well. The salt from these mines is often imbued with impurities of iron oxide (aka, “rust) which results in a pinkish, or at least off-white, color.
If, like me, you’ve never really had truffles before, you’re probably wondering what truffles taste like. What does this underground fungus offer that we feel the urge to shave it into our luxury condiments? Like most percepts in this world, for example the color blue, or the feeling of tilting just slightly too far back in a chair, absolutely novel tastes and smells are difficult to describe without referring to the experience itself.
Blue, you might say, is a bit like green without so much yellow in it, and tilting just slightly too far back in a chair is said to feel like your stomach does a little flip and drops into a void. The point is, in the same way it’s hard to describe a persimmon, it’s hard to describe the odor of truffles. Nevertheless, I’ll try.
The odor of truffles is a bit like sticking your nose in a sweaty tennis shoe and taking a whiff, but in a good way – in an elegant way even. Truffles don’t stink – not in the least, but they are intensely musky and pungent. In the same way the musk of a good, hot tennis shoe is going to linger in your nose for a few minutes, so too does the truffle odor here. What’s true of the smell is even truer of the taste. Though this truffle salt is about 99% salt to 1% truffle, it’s the taste of truffle that’s going to hit you first, and last longest. After dusting my eggs with a pinch of this stuff I was tasting that elegant truffle musk on my tongue for 15 minutes after I finished the plate.
The take away here is that truffle are not to be screwed around with. Normally I would have written “truffles are not to be triffled with”, but the flavor of these things is so damn intense that cute wordplay simply has no place. If you’ve tried truffles before, you know what you’re getting into with this stuff. If you haven’t I’d recommend you give it a shot – it’s a flavor unlike anything you’ve experienced in your grocery store before, and hate it or love it it’s going to expand your horizons at least a little bit.
I do have one big gripe with Trader Joe’s truffle salt. Despite the outlandishness of the product origins, the craziest thing about this salt is that the decided to package it in a little tin with no shaker built in. You simply take off the top and have to do your best to shake a tiny bit out the widemouthed opening. Trying to do this with regular salt is crazy enough, but when we’re talking about a seasoning that’s been supercharged with the culinary equivalent of nitro glycerin it’s downright absurd. It’s unfortunate that the packaging is so pretty, because if you buy this you’re either going to want to dump it a different salt shaker that actually has holes or take your chances dancing with the devil every time you want to season your potatoes.
Trader Joe’s has brought in their salt as part of their holiday gift roll out – sticking it on the shelves alongside their exotic chocolate and tea collections. On one level I understand this, truffles are fancy and it makes you feel good to give things that people think are fancy. On another level however this makes a terrible gift – or at least a very specific and niche gift. The truffles taste so strongly that it’s bound to polarize people into love it/hate it camps. If you don’t know that the person you’re giving your gift to is into truffles, you’re risking getting them something they’ll just chuck into the trash. Chocolate’s going to be much safer. On the other hand, if you know they are into truffles then odds are they already have a reasonably priced truffle salt on hand or simply don’t want one. Really, the only person this gift is going to work for is the friend who you know is into trying crazy new foods but hasn’t gotten around to truffles yet. In other words, me – and I just bought some.
The Breakdown:
Would I Buy It Again: I like it, but this one tin will last me about 10 years.
Would I Recommend It: Yes, try a crazy salt, live a little!
Final Synopsis: This salt that packs a ton of pungent truffle flavor.
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Triple Ginger Cookie
Posted: November 26, 2013 Filed under: Chocolate, Cookies, Ginger, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Cookies, gingerbread 6 Comments
Once again, the power or dark chocolate has been under estimated.
It doesn’t seem like you could go wrong with Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Triple Ginger Cookies. It’s holiday time, these are gingerbread cookies, it’s a match made in heaven! All you have to do to succeed, in my book, is deliver at least an average gingerbread cookie and I’ll keep you on my kitchen shelf though the New Year. These triple ginger cookies promise to do that and more, so I was pumped before I even picked up the box. Then I got a chance to rady the product copy. Let’s take a look at the promise on the beautiful, holiday themed package:
“Made with 3 types of giner, fresh, ground and chunks of crystallized ginger, then enrobed in a thin layer of dark chocolate, this is a snappy cookei with a acrunchy bite and a rich chocolate finish.”
Sounds sweet, right? But despite all this ginger, somehow, someway, these cookies conspire to taste completely un-gingery.
I think it’s safe to safe that if you’re going to claim that your cookies are not just double but triple ginger you had better put some damn ginger in them. Despite the claims on the packaging, despite even the list of ingredients detailing the types of ginger, these cookies simply do not taste very much like ginger. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that you’d be hard pressed to detect the taste of ginger in these at all. Surely he’s not being serious. Yes, folks, I am. What you get in these cookies is the strong, lingering taste of the dark chocolate (which is, actually, quite good) followed by nothing or, if you’ve bitten into one of the crystallized ginger bits, a faint taste of ginger that last for a brief moment. Trader Joe’s Triple Ginger Cookies are, at best, a lie whose only purpose is to ruin your holiday festivities.
Perhaps I go to far.
After all, these are pretty decent cookies when all is said and done. They may not taste like ginger very much at all (a brutal failure for a gingerbread cookie, to be sure), but the dark chocolate still works perfectly well. If you’re looking for a nice, small bittersweet chocolate cookie this would fit the bill perfectly. If these had been called “Trader Joe’s Super Dark Chocolate Cookies with a bit of Ginger”, I’d be writing a very happy article right now. Should have but didn’t – and it’s too late now to repair my hurt feelings. If stripped of the dark chocolate, I dare say the ginger would rise admirable to the fore. Beneath the thick shell of ominipresent chocolate however, it is pushed so far into the background it nearly disappears.
My only other complaint with these is that the chocolate covering frustrates any attempt at achieving a satisfying dunk. While cookies are perfectly fine taken dry, most everyone can agree that a glass of milk or spot of tea can elevate even a very humble cookie to heavenly realms. Despite my best efforts to dunk these cookies in both tea and milk I was frustrated in every attempt. The same chocolate shell that dominates the taste is completely impermeable to liquid. I thought that a nice hot cup of Trader Joe’s Harvest Blend might melt away some of that cocoa bean carapace and give me a nice soft cookie upon which to sup, but all I got were chocolate smeared fingers and mugs.
Really, this would be an excellent cookie if they left the ginger out or took the chocolate off. Both together seems pointless.
The Breakdown
Would I Buy Them Again: No, without ginger they hold no appeal for me.
Would I Recommend Them: Only to people who want a dark chocolate cookie with a little, but not much, ginger taste.
Final Synopsis: Gingerbread cookies that taste like chocolate instead of ginger .
Trader Joe’s Dark Choclate Triple Ginger Cookies – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Dolmas
Posted: November 21, 2013 Filed under: mint, Rice, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: dill, dolma, grape leaf, mint 21 Comments
Yes, they really open from the bottom. It’s hard for me to express how much this offends my aesthetic sensibilities. Just put the label on the other way around, man!
Ah, the dolma. It’s easy to over look the Greeks as purveyors of strange delicacies, but the dolma is certainly that. It’s rare, outside of Asia (and, I suppose, salads), to be fed straight up leaves as food, yet that is precisely what a dolma is – a broad, boiled grape leaf rolled into a tube and stuffed with seasoned rice.
The dolma is something of an acquired taste thanks to an interesting mingling of flavors. Like any local, traditional dish, the stuffing of a dolma can vary dramatically from region to region. Most commonly, however, you’re going to find them looking like the Trader Joe’s variation here – with plenty of dill and mint mixed into the rice. Dill and mint are not two tastes that are generally thought to go together very well, justly I might add, and complicating matters further is the grape leaf itself. Something of the wine-ness of the grape is also present in the grape leaf. Even after being boiled and stored in oil for god knows how long, the grape leaves have a subtle but lingering wine-like taste that muddles into the dill and mint scrap up. Essentially, a dolma is a tiny flavor battlefield where different flavors keep coming out on top. The amazing thing is this is one of those flavor combinations that actually works, making for a fascinating side dish and excellent compliment to tzatziki sauce.
I’ve only had a few experiences with domas before now – one particularly favorable memory involving a nice Greek salad – so I was game to try them again when Trader Joe’s presented me the chance. This initial willingness was first checked when I picked up the tin they were packaged in. I have very few iron-clad eating guidelines, but one of them is not to neat anything that comes packaged in a sardine tin. I was willing to bend that rule this one time based solely on my regard for the Trader Joe’s name – so much have I come to respect this gentle, supermarket giant.
No sooner did I peel back the metal tab on top (or bottom, strangely) of the dolma tin then did I regret making this exception. Trader Joe’s dolmas look positively unappetizing – shimmering, glistening leaf rolls swimming in the viscous soybean oil which fills the canister to the brim. Soybean oil is just straight vegetable oil – which is to say, it’s 100% pure liquid fat – and while I understand that soybean oil is, in some ways, more healthy than other vegetable oils, I also know that no food should be served in so much oil that it makes Dubai look poor.
The taste of the dolmas themselves was more or less on target – but the texture and execution turns them from something I should enjoy snacking on into something I had to force myself to eat. The soybean oil completely permeates the dolma, bloating every grain of mushy rice with pure oil and running off the leaf to pool on your plate. Combine this with the no-frills, low-quality, upside-down tin and you’re left feeling like you’ve just picked up something from the bottom shelf of the off-brand supermarket.
From the weird tin to the copious use of oil, this just doesn’t feel like a Trader Joe’s product. It’s well known that Trader Joe’s sources nearly all their offerings from various manufacturers around the world, but in general the quality is so uniformly high that I never think twice about it. It’s only when I pick up something like this that the illusion starts to show at the seams and I suddenly get a vision of the crappy factory in Turkey where leaf rolls are dumped off a conveyor belt into tins alternatively marked Trader Joe’s and Tesco.
Dolmas are great and delicious, and I’d recommend you try them sometime – just not here, not like this.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: To Eastern European grandmothers who grew up during the Cold War and other people who don’t mind oil-packed, tinned foods, yes. To everyone else, no.
Would I Buy Them Again: No, There have got to be better dolmas than this out there.
Final Synopsis: A tasty dolma brought low by a cheap, oily presentation.
Trader Joe’s Tempura Shrimp Crunch Rolls
Posted: November 19, 2013 Filed under: Fish & Seafood, Shrimp, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: rice, sushi, tempura 3 Comments
Notice how the word “sushi” is carefully avoided. “Sushi, what’s that? You mean shrimp crunch rolls?”
Trader Joe’s Tempura Shrimp Crunch Rolls – well, these are interesting. I fully intended to never buy another clammy lump of Trader Joe’s sushi ever again. This isn’t a Trader Joe’s problem, this is a general supermarket problem. Supermarkets (the places that keep food for weeks on refrigerated shelves) simply do not match well with sushi (the delicate slices of raw fish mean to be eaten as fresh as possible). The problem is I love sushi, and even the most lopsided of supermarket california rolls call out to me with plaintive little voices, begging to be eaten.
Like a man in a bad relationship I kept going back for more – and every time I did I was left with a bad taste in my mouth, swearing I’d never do it again. The supermarket sushi experience, though universally bad, never quite broke my eternally hopeful nature that this time, surely, they were going to get it right. The vicious cycle continued until I found myself staring at the mealy, flavorless, half-eaten mass of a Trader Joe’s Quinoa Roll and realized this had gone on too long. I was never going to let sushi treat me that badly ever again. I was done with supermarket sushi, and I meant it.
I was doing good – walking past the sushi aisle without so much as a second glace, developing a sense of self-worth – until yesterday when I saw the tarted up, trashy glory of Trader Joe’s Tempura Shrimp Crunch Rolls and my willpower just gave way. Grasping at the flimsy excuse that is this blog (“I have to buy this terrible thing, I owe it to the public!”) I clutched the sushi rolls to my chest and sped home. Why do I do it to myself? Do I crave the abuse? Whatever the case, I found myself there again, off the wagon, staring at a polyurethane tray filled with damp rice wads.
Only this time, my friends, this time it’s actual good. How is that possible, you ask? How did Trader Joe’s manage to make bottom rung, low grade sushi worth eating? Quality ingredients? Magic? No – the answer is much simpler. Trader Joe’s simply identified the weakest link in supermarket sushi (the way it tastes) and came up with a brilliant solution – drown it in delicious sauces!
It’s honestly surprising that it took a supermarket so long to hit on this elegant solution. “Fusion” sushi restaurants have been doing this for years – smothering their otherwise mediocre fish with cream sauces, spiciness and bread crumbs. Trader Joe’s does the exact same thing. In each package of Tempura Shrimp Crunch Rolls you’ll find three tubs of savory toppings – a tub of “Sweet Sauce” (aka soy sauce thickened with sugar), a tub of “Dynamite Sauce” (aka spicy mayonnaise) and a tub of tempura crisps. The Sweet Sauce and Dynamite Sauce are nowhere near healthy, and Trader Joe’s gives you enough to lay a heavy drizzle on each pre-cooked tempura shrimp roll.
How do the tempura shrimp rolls taste by themselves? I have no idea, I never tried. Why bother setting myself up for yet another bad experience when I have thick, delicious sauces to ladle on? I will say that they are relatively crispy and crunchy, and hold together well enough for either a chopstick or fork to take them on a fantastic voyage through the world of sauce and into your mouth without falling apart.
When you do get to your mouth, you’ll be surprised at how good tasting these sauces actually are. The Sweet Sauce is akin to a sweeter form of teriyaki sauce, dripping with syrupy goodness, and the Dynamite Sauce is mildly spicy and endlessly creamy. Liberally apply the crunchy, round tempura crisps to the outside of the sauced up sushi for some enjoyable texture and you’re in for an eating experience that’s a powerful taste explosion, if not exactly the paragon of elegant dining.
Some of you purists out there might protest that fully-cooked shrimp dripping with tempura crumbles and mayonnaise is not, strictly speaking, real sushi. You are, of course, absolutely right, but you’re also missing the point. Criticizing the authenticity of these products is like getting upset about the representation of physics in Scooby Doo. You’re just setting yourself up for a bad time. Supermarket sushi is, and always has been, little more than junk food. By adding sauces, Trader Joe’s has merely helped complete that apotheosis.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Not to anyone who likes actual sushi.
Would I Buy It Again: Yes – whenever I want to indulge my trashy side.
Final Synopsis: Not exactly sushi, but the sauces sure are delicious.
Trader Joe’s Tempura Shrimp Crunch Rolls – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Turkey Gobbler Wrap
Posted: November 14, 2013 Filed under: Sandwich, Trader Joe's Brand, Turkey | Tags: Thanksgiving, Wrap Leave a comment
Nothing stokes a hunger like “festive dipping sauce”!
Surely we can all agree on a good Thanksgiving dinner – complete with juicy turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings. But what if that dinner was served in the form of a wrap? Would that be just as agreeable? Trader Joe’s is certainly hoping so, with their sandwich, the Turkey Gobbler Wrap.
Trader Joe’s Turkey Gobbler Wrap is not the first sandwich to try and cram an entire Thanksgiving feast into a sandwich, not by a long shot. This is America after all, if there were only two thing we like they’d be commemorating our nations founding and compressing whole meals into fast-snacking cylinders. What Trader Joe’s does different from these other sandwiches, however, is loose the bread. I’ll save you some time and tell you right now: that was a misstep, but let’s take a look at what’s actually inside this wrap before passing sweeping judgement.
Turkey, as you may expect, makes up the bulk of the filling, along with a combination of stuffing, real cranberries and, surprising to me, cream cheese. This mish-mash works together okay – satisfactory, if not tasty. But who does turkey all that well in a pre-packaged sandwich, really? Who picks up a turkey sandwich, even from Trader Joe’s, and goes, “Oh boy – this is going to be some amazing turkey!” No, you know it’s going to be dry, the only question is how dry. This turkey? Only a little dry. That practically deserves praise.
The stuffing is equally satisfactory, only the cranberries really stand out as notable with their big bold flavor. Thanks, no doubt, the the fact that TJ deciced to use big, whole cranberries in the wrap.
On two slices of bread, this would be a good sandwich. Wrapped in a whole wehat tortilla on the other hand, it tastes a little off. There’s a certain taste and texture to a cold tortilla that goes wonderfully with some foods,v but just does not favors for most others. A Thanksgiving meal is just one of these that doesn’t go very well with the smooth, chewy, gluey walls of a big, floppy tortilla.
There’s another interesting facet to the Turkey Gobbler Wrap – in fact it was the reason I was drawn to it in the first place. Along with all the fixin’s in the wrap itself also comes a serving of “Festive Dipping Sauce”. That phrase is blazing brand new avenues of nebulous terminology. “Festive dipping sauce” is one of those descriptors so vauge and pointedly undefined as to be actually frightening. It’s the kind of name that’s a mask, hiding the real nature of the food you’re about to eat behind a meaningless collection of words. It’s what you do when you realize the chicken you’re serving isn’t actually an identifiable part of the bird so much as it is a slurry of heavily processed ventrical matter, so you just call them “chicken nuggets”.
Opening up the little tub, you will discover that it’s an opaque tan liquid which, on taste, strongly resemles a milky gravy. It’s not bad tasting – it might acutally be the tastiest part of the sandwich and it’s certainly a tasty way to combat the dryness of the turkey – but it’s important to remember that it’s not actually gravy. If it was gravy, you can bet they would call it gravy, in the same way that if you could get away with putting “STEAK” on the cans of meat you sell you would. That’s why the FDA has regulations for these things and you’re forced to put “Mechanically Separated Pork” on the label instead.
The “sauce” as it turns out, is a mixture of turkey broth, milk cream, sherry wine and roux (a flour/fat mixture), and while lip-smackingly good also remains strangely uncongealed even coming straight out of the fridge.
Apart from the tortilla, Trader Joe’s does a good job replicating the Thankgiving dinner – right down to the calorie count. You’ll notice the nutritional information below is only for ½ of a wrap – which means you’re getting 98 grams of carbs and 20 grams of fat along with your 800 calories. That’s an audacious wrap, people. The only aprt of the wrap that didn’t really stand out to me, the cream cheese filling, is the party responsible for much fo the fat and calories. It seems that Trader Joe’s could have subsittued this out for something lighter. As it stands, you’ll want ot substitute out the wrap for a healtheir meal if you’re concerned about your waistline.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Not really, unless you’re jonesin’ for Thanksgiving.
Would I Buy It Again: I’d go for the equivalent 1.5 Big Macs instead.
Final Synopsis: Not bad, but not nearly good enough to justify 800 calories.
Trader Joe’s Turkey Gobbler Wrap – Nutrition Facts
Eating At Joes 
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