Trader Joe’s Greek Whole Milk Yogurt – Maple Brown Sugar & Trader Joe’s Greek Whole Milk Yogurt – Chocolate Mousse
Posted: December 16, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand, Yogurt | Tags: 2 stars, brown sugar, Chocolate, greek yogurt, Trader Joe's, yogurt Leave a comment
Non-seasonal, but still lovely, packaging. Nice work, TJ’s!
Trader Joe’s has never been afraid to “go there” – in terms of yogurt development and placement. Like most grocery stores they offer a virtual cornucopia of yogurt flavors, types, and fat content. Unlike most grocery stores, they’ve been known to put out holiday versions of their classic greek yogurt.
| What it is: | Greek yogurt in two new flavors. |
| Price: | $1.29 for an 8 oz. cup |
| Worth it: | Not really. Both new flavors are only mildly interesting. |
Last year we saw the debut of their Pumpkin Greek Yogurt over the October Pumpkin Madness. It must have worked well, because this year Trader Joe’s has debuted two new flavors for the winter holidays – Maple Brown Sugar, and Chocolate Mousse. Those might not be the flavors that come to mind when you first think “Christmas”, but that’s why we love Trader Joe’s isn’t it? They zig when everyone else is zagging.
Unlike the pumpkin Greek yogurt last of last fall, these two new flavors are whole milk, full fat yogurts. 320 calories wait for you in each 8 oz tub, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of that saturated fat) and 37 grams of carbs.
3 gallons of milk go into 1 gallon of Greek yogurt, so this is the nutritional density you’re paying for – not to mention the whopping 16 grams of protein. If you eat both of these, you’ve basically had a pretty heft meal. So, are these novel yogurt flavors worth it?
What you certainly can expect is what you always get from a whole milk Greek yogurt – thick, smooth, velvety and thick again. A greek yogurt needs to be eaten slowly, regardless whether you enjoy the flavor or not.
The flavors, in this case, are intriguing, but not incredible. The Maple Brown Sugar Greek Yogurt has a wonderfully evocative name, but doesn’t taste particularly special. It’s a combination of real brown sugar and real maple syrup (naturally, this being Trader Joe’s). Sugar and syrup, however, even brown sugar and maple syrup, are just your basic sweeteners. Basic sweetness is about what you get out of them here. The more nuanced notes of the sugar and syrup are lost in the generally yogurtiness of the yogurt. However, the sweetness is a nice counterpoint to the considerable tang of the yogurt cultures. Overall, a nice, fatty yogurt.
The Chocolate Mousse Greek Yogurt is a more complex matter. Some time ago, I reviewed Trader Joe’s European-style chocolate yogurts, and found them intriguing and sophisticated, but ultimately a bit off-putting. This chocolate greek yogurt is a lot thicker than those little yogurt pots, but hte flavor is the same – tangy chocolate. If you can hold those two words together in your head at the same time and not shudder a little, then you will probably enjoy this yogurt. The chocolate flavor comes courtesy of cocoa powder touched up with some sugar and vanilla extract, and it’s done well. The chocolate is strong tasting, bold and verging on the bitterness of dark chocolate, but it comes paired with the strong, undeniable tang of active yogurt cultures. Tangy chocolate folks – it’s here again.
I love novelty, and for some reason I really love novel yogurt flavors, but these two yogurts left me underwhelmed. The Maple Brown Sugar was too generically sweet for me to buy again, and if I wanted to try chocolate yogurt again I’d go with the European versions that are still on the shelves.
I’m tempted to recommend these as a desert surrogate, but honestly if you have room in your dietary budget for 300 calories of sugar and fat, just eat a real chocolate mousse. Aside from that, I think only Greek yogurt fans in desperate need of a little variety can really justify making this purchase.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Only in the faintest of terms.
Would I Buy Them Again: Me? No.
Final Synopsis: Fatty yogurt available in a couple mildly interesting flavors.
Trader Joe’s Whole Milk Greek Yogurt Chocolate Mousse – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Butternut Squash Gyoza
Posted: November 10, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, gyoza, squash, Trader Joe's 2 Comments
These words should not appear next to each other.
Trade Joe’s has a variety of gyoza, from the ordinary chicken and pork gyoza, to the more adventurous thai vegetable and green curry shrimp gyoza. I may have preferred some over others, but personal taste aside they’re all pretty great.
| What it is: | Very weird gyoza |
| Price: | $3.79 for a 16 oz. sack |
| Worth it: | No. A weird mix of flavors. |
The number of success the Trader Joe’s R&D department has racked up in this category seems to have egged them on to Kanyean levels of hubris. Surely only the iron-clad belief that your every move is golden could lead someone to put out a product titled, and I quote, Whole Wheat Butternut Squash Gyoza. That is simply a combination of words that shouldn’t appear next to each in print, let alone on an ingredient label.
In short, out of all of Trader Joe’s delicious gyoza offerings, Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Butternut Squash Gyoza simply does not work.
Let me start by first reiterating my stance that I think experimentation with food is one of finest endeavors undertaken by man. By all means, let us mix, match and blend weird things together. Just make sure you taste test it first before releasing it to the general populous. There are certain elements that make a gyoza (or potsticker) delicious, and to just discard those things is to invite disaster.
Take, for instance, the dough of the dumpling. All of Trader Joe’s other gyoza stick to the same, standard glutinous wheat dough wrapping – and for good reason. More than anything, more than even whatever contents it wraps up, the doughy exterior of a dumpling is what makes it delicious. Chewy, yielding and supple, with a bit of pan-fried crisp along the bottom edge, this is what makes a well-cooked gyoza simply irresistible. Swapping out that award-winning dough for a whole-wheat based variety may be a more healthsome choice, but it simply doesn’t work as well as a dumpling.
The whole wheat wrapping is much thicker and more textured than the usual gyoza dough, and tastes of the bread-y nuttiness of a slice of whole wheat bread. It’s not bad, to be honest, but it certainly doesn’t scratch that gyoza itch like their other offerings.
If the filling of the gyoza where something more usual, I might be able to find a place in my heart (and freezer) or these pot stickers. Unfortunately, they decided to fill them with a strange combination of mashed butternut squash, whole edamame beans, carrots, sweet potato and Japanese green pumpkin (kabocha). The result is a squishy, sweet squash mash with big beans in it. It’s not bad – on its own – but it’s hard to imagine something more wildly different from what is normally put in gyoza. Instead of a filling with a bit of body, maybe something savory or rich, you basically get sweet mashed potatoes – mashed potatoes with whole soy beans stuck in ’em.
It’s a very, very odd combination, and it didn’t work for me at all. Between the weird dumpling and the weird filling there just wasn’t anywhere to get my footing. I couldn’t even figure out a condiment that worked well with them. Typical gyoza dressings (soy sauce, vinegar, red pepper sauce…) simply did not work with these lumpy hybrids – the sweetness of the stuffing, and the squishy consistency, made them clash with everything I tried. Maybe if I had some spare gravy on hand I could have whipped up a batch and eaten them like an Asian-fusion Thanksgiving side.
Overall, I just found these baffling. While the sweet squash filling is fine on its own, it’s not what I’m looking for in a gyoza, and the whole-wheat wrapping feels completely out of left field. Maybe if these had been marketed as a type of whole wheat pirogi, and the soy beans had been left out, it would have been a bit easier to understand. As it is, unless you’re holding that Asian-fusion Thanksgiving dinner I mentioned, I can’t think of a reason why you should pick these up.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: No. They’re not awful… but they’re just not all that good either.
Would I Buy Them Again: Only to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.
Final Synopsis: A swing…and a miss.
Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Butternut Squash Gyoza – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Ghost Pepper Potato Chips
Posted: November 3, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, Chips, ghost pepper, Potato Chips, Snacks, Trader Joe's 4 Comments
The bag looks like they’re being serious – but these chips are a joke.
Now that the season of pumpkin madness has subsided, and the cooling winds of dark November have arrived, I can finally catch up on a backlog of other, truly out-there Trader Joe’s products that they tried to slip onto the shelves without anyone noticing.
The craziest addition has to be Trader Joe’s Ghost Pepper Potato Chips. This new addition to the snack section may well be the biggest let down of any Trader Joe’s product to date.
| What it is: | Not very spicy potato chips. |
| Price: | $2.29 for a 7 oz. bag |
| Worth it: | No, not if you’re looking for spicy chips. |
If Trader Joe’s has a failing, it’s that it sometimes over promsises. That’s unavoidable for a group that dreams as big as they do – bringing us such exotic oddities and far-flung favorites as frozen Kouigns Amann, Tamil Uttapam and, of course, the wonders of Scandanavian Cookie Butter. I’m deeply grateful there’s a mainstream grocery store that regards the average American consumer highly enough to gamble their business on such unusual products. On the other hand, sometimes they come out the gate with what sounds like a great idea but absolutely fail to deliver on it. It’s like the Marketing team gets really excited and doesn’t listen to what the R&D guys are telling them. The result is packaging that signs a check the contents simply cannot cash.
That’s absolutely the case with Trader Joe’s Ghost Pepper Potato Chips. It’s commonly known that the Ghost Pepper is the absolutely hottest pepper in the world. Not just hot, and not just really hot, but like legendarily, pinnacle of the pepper pyramid hot. It’s weird that most people seem to know this, but they do. Every now and then the populous at large latches onto some bit of esoterica that seems like it should otherwise be languishing in obscurity. Keep your jalapenos and keep your habaneros, the people say, if you’re looking for pure, tongue-blistering, utterly unenjoyable HEAT, you want a ghost pepper.
Just in case you need a refresher on the spiciness of peppers, there is a more-or-less scientific scale that was devised to measure the relative hotness of peppers. Called the Scoville Scale, it measures the spiciness of peppers in so-called Scoville heat units, or SHU’s. A nice sweet bell pepper comes in at 0 SHUs. Banana peppers are about 100 units, a good jalapeno pepper is about 1,000 SHUs. The pepper referred to as the “Ghost Chile”, on the other hand, weighs in at 2 million SHU’s or more. Just by way of comparison, some law-enforcement grade pepper sprays only contain about 500,000 SHU’s. Four times hotter than pepper spray – that’s the ghost chile for you.
So what in heaven and hell could Trader Joe’s have been thinking when they released the absolutely mildest, gentlest “spicy” potato chip I’ve ever tasted?
I’ve spoken at length before about my light weight, or “chili wuss”, status when it comes to spicy foods. Pace brand Mild salsa is sometimes a little too hot for me. As a rule, I avoid the jalapeno potato chip. If I happen to munch down a couple by mistake I usually have to take a long break to fan my mouth. My brothers and cousins can all pile them into their mouths by the truck full, but even the gentler brands often leave me sweating.
I bring this up because even I find these ghost pepper potato chips contemptuously mild. They’re only spicy in so far as they suggest the notion of spiciness. If you smell the bag, you might think “Oh, these smell like they might be slightly spicy”. Savor that feeling, because that illusory impression is as spicy as these chips get. Bite into one of these cross-cut “lattice” style chips and you’ll catch just a hint of peppiness that immediately fades out and leaves you with basic, plain ol’ potato chip taste. I’ve had BBQ flavored potato chips that are spicier.
That’s not to say these potato chips are bad – they’re just bad at being spicy. The potato chips themselves are very satisfying to snack on – the thick, waffle-cut chips are very crispy and crunchy and entirely munchable. I found the mild spiciness to actually be a nice alternative to the spicier mainstream brands, in the same way that Trader Joe’s Sriracha sauce is a nice, less-spicy alternative to Hoy Fong Sriracha sauce. Finally, an only-sorta spicy potato chip I can enjoy! I just never thought I’d find them under the guise of ghost pepper chips.
If TJ’s had billed these chips as “Mild Jalapeno Flavor”, or “Potato chips – With Just A Touch Of Heat”, I would be writing a very different review right now. But by calling them Ghost Pepper Chips, and then doubling down on all their website and product copy about how insanely hot they are, Trader Joe’s is just making a fool of itself. Do not be suckered in by this marketing gimmick – unless you’re looking for a mildly spicy potato chip, these will disappoint you.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Only to people who like not-particularly spicy potato chips.
Would I Buy It Again: Yes. I’m going to ignore that these say “ghost pepper” in the title and just put them out for parties.
Final Synopsis: It would be hard for these potato chips to be much less spicy.
Trader Joe’s Ghost Pepper Potato Chips – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Rooibos Herbal Blend Tea
Posted: October 28, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, cinnamon, Drinks, herbal tea, nutmeg, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, Tea, Trader Joe's 6 Comments
Beautiful tin, great spicy scent, same old underwhelming rooibos tea.
You guys know me – I never miss a chance to talk about rooibos tea. What a surpise, then, to see that Trader Joe’s has brought out a new Pumpkin Spice Rooibos herbal tea! The tin looks very nice – but this is rooibos tea we’re talking about. Is there anyway it can live up to the pretty packaging? Frankly, no – not at all. While it’s an improvement on other types of rooibos tea, it’s still just not that great.
| What it is: | Bland rooibos tea with cinnamon and pumpkin herbal spices |
| Price: | $3.99 for 20 tea bags |
| Worth it: | No, rooibos tastes like cardboard |
Generally, when you spend enough time with a food product, no matter what your initial reaction is, you tend to warm up to it. I’ll share a story with you. The Japanese produce a food called natto, which is a “fermented” (read: partially rotten) slag of soy beans. Natto is typcally served in these little styrofoam bowls, about the size of a cassette tape, and when you crack one open all you see is this beige, lumpy, nobby, sticky, slimy mass of tiny, fetid soy beans. You’re then supposed to stir it up with chopsticks, which makes the gooey beans froth up into a white, stringy mess – almost like a thick tangle of spiderwebs mixed into the beans. I’m not even going to describe the sound or smell it makes when you stir these up. The taste is, as you can probably guess, gross and slimy and sticky. In short, it’s a food that offends all 5 senses – a foul-looking, foul-smelling, foul-tasting, gross sounding mess with a repulsive texture. Sometimes people like to crack a raw egg into it.
After living in Japan for a time, and being surrounded by the natto-eating Japanese, I eventually came to enjoy natto myself. It took about 18 months of extended exposure, but even to this day I will still pick up natto from local Asian market and have it for breakfast. My point is that, after extended exposure, I was eventually able to appreciate the acquired taste for natto and even came to enjoy it. Yet despite numerous tries and repeated attempts, I am absolutely unable to apprecieate rooibos tea on any level. It’s simply the lamest drink on the planet.
Maybe the difference is that natto, for all it’s shortcomings, is at least a taste. Rooibos tea, on the other hand, tastes like wet cardboard. That’s not meant to be a put down on rooibos, it’s simply the most descriptive phrase I can think of. Rooibos tea tastes exactly like wet cardboard – and coming from a guy who ate his fair share of pasteboard story book covers as a child, I know what I’m talking about. Of course, what else would you expect from rooibos tea? After all, the rooibos bush, from which it is cut, basically just a dry collection of scrubland twigs, and rooibos tea is just some of the twig shavings from that bush.
Yes, twigs! You’re boiling twigs! Look at what you’re doing people! And sure, I suppose you could say that we’re just “boiling leaves” when we make ordinary tea – but the difference is that there’s a long history of delicious edible leaves (Uh, Spinach? I’m looking at you!), and no record at all of delicious twigs. In fact, I’d say anytime you find yourself eating or drinking twigs, that’s a sure sign that you’re doing something wrong.
Look, it’s absolutely telling that Trader Joe’s keeps coming out with versions of rooibos tea that are rooibos…and something else. Trader Joe’s Rooibos and Honeybush tea was certainly an attempt at trying to make these twigs more palatable, This new Pumpkin Spice Rooibos tea does a much better job of it, adding to the rooibos cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and pumpkin flavor. Trader Joe’s is definitely onto something here! These traditional pumpkin pie spices add a delightful scent to the tea, and lend it a spicy, nuanced flavor tea. They just need to follow the trend and next time leave the rooibos out entirely. A pumpkin spice herbal tea that doesn’t also taste like wet cardboard? That’d be incredible. As it stands, this tea is palatable in so far as you can ignore the rooibos part. Everything else but that is nuanced and pleasantly invigorating and seasonal.
I’d certainly praise this as the best rooibos tea I’ve ever had, but that is faint praise indeed. If you’d like to drink a nice cinnamon spice tea this isn’t exactly that, but it’s close enough that it may satisfy you. However, I would strongly advise you to try some of Trader Joe’s much stronger Vanilla and Cinnamon Black Tea or delectable Spiced Chai instead. If you prefer an herbal tea, then definitely go with Trader Joe’s Herbal Blend Harvest Tea – a seasonal blend so good that I literally count the days for its return. Or go ahead and try this pumpkin spice rooibos – just don’t come complaining to me when you throw out the tin before you finish it.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: No, there are better teas at TJ’s.
Would I Buy It Again: No man, it’s rooibos tea.
Final Synopsis: A good cinnamon herbal tea, undermined by bland rooibos.
Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Tortilla Chips
Posted: October 13, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, Chips, cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin, Snacks, tortilla chips, Trader Joe's 5 Comments
The pumpkin? Sure. The cinnamon and nutmeg? Problematic.
Every year I tell myself, “Trader Joe’s couldn’t possibly have more unusual pumpkin products than they had last year”, and every year I’m proven wrong.
This October, it’s Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Tortilla Chips that literally stopped me in my tracks. Yes, corn tortilla chips made with pumpkin. Like pumpkin panettone and pumpkin yogurt before them, no one was asking for this – but Trader Joe’s was going to damn well make it.
| What it is: | Cinnamon-spiced, pumpkin & corn tortilla chips. |
| Price: | $3.99 for a 12 oz. bag. |
| Worth it: | No – the flavors don’t really work out. |
Pumpkin tortilla chips are, basically, just your ordinary, run-of the-mill yellow corn tortilla chips – only with pumpkin puree and pumpkin seeds mixed in. Not content to stop there, Trader Joe’s then dusted each chip with a sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg. Although no added-sugar goes into them, the tortilla chips are kind of vaguely sweet, tasting almost slightly of churros, but with a vague pumpkin aftertaste.
The pumpkin I can understand – as a mild member of the squash family it can work pretty well along side corn. Cinnamon and nutmeg, on the other hand, are very noticeable flavors. They don’t always play well with others. In particular, I’m thinking of chips and salsa, and nachos, the most common applications of the tortilla chip. Would you be likely to add cinnamon and nutmeg to your melted cheese or salsa dip? Probably not.
In fact, I decided to give these chips the benefit of the doubt and try them with Trader Joe’s pumpkin-based Harvest Salsa. Even in this case, even with a harmonious pumpkin taste in the salsa, the cinnamon and nutmeg threw off the whole flavor balance. The sweetness and spices clash with everything else. This not-quite-right combination of spices reminds me a lot of what Trader Joe’s just tried with their Pumpkin-Spiced Salted Caramels. In that case, the strange combination of flavors was intriguing enough to push me into “like” territory. I can’t say the same thing for these pumpkin tortilla chips, which are a their heart still just ordinary chips. Nothing special about these, just something “off”.
If you wanted to use them with anything, you would need to brainstorm some pretty out-of-the-box ideas. For example, they might go well at a party with a sweet caramel or frosting dip – maybe kind of cinnamon dessert dip? The chips may even work well with highly seasoned Middle Eastern or Greek dips, such as Trader Joe’s Muhammara or cool Tzatziki.
All that aside, I feel I should note that the weirdest part of these chips is the product copy on the back. “We’re out of our gourds with excitement,” Trader Joe’s writes. “We’re ready to squash any sentiment to the contrary. Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Tortilla Chips stand alone as the preeminent permutations of that perennially preferred plant, pumpkin.”
That is some amazing, over-heated copy – combining multiple puns with a lengthy bit of alliteration. The TJ’s copy writer was definitely firing on all cylinders that day. My question is, why would you want to waste such effusive praise on such a merely average product? This is a classic, one-season-and-done novelty if I ever saw one. That product description could work on literally any pumpkin product – why not save some of the puns for the big ones – like Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Pie Spice Cookie Butter, for instance. I don’t know, it just strikes me as a waste of a well-turned phrase here.
Really, Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Tortilla Chips are a great example of “Yes, we can do it, but should we?” Yes, you can sell everything, quit your job, and become a tugboat captain, or gain hundreds of pounds in a bid to be the World’s Fattest Man, but should you? In this case, Trader Joe’s clearly has the power to put pumpkin into any product they wish, but there are some products that don’t really benefit from it.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: No – unless you had the perfect dip in mind.
Would I Buy It Again: I don’t see a need for that.
Final Synopsis: Cinnamon and nutmeg corn tortilla chips are novel, but not novel enough.
Trader Joe’s Magic Beans
Posted: September 24, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, Candy, Chocolate, milk chocolate, nougat, Trader Joe's 10 Comments
Do not trade a cow for these.
Trader Joe’s is no stranger to whimsy, and what could be more whimsical then bringing a bag of magic beans to market? That’s precisely what Trader Joe’s has done with their mysterious new offering, Trader Joe’s Magic Beans! An extremely enigmatic offering that combines vagueness with and strange product impulses into a bewildering product.
| What it is: | Milk chocolate over crunchy nougat. |
| Price: | $3.99 for a 7.7 oz bag. |
| Worth it: | No, not very good quality sweets. |
Trader Joe’s Magic Beans are certainly magical. Not necessarily in the way that wizards and dragons are magical, and not in the way that rainbows and a child’s smile are magical, but in that way a that mild concussion is magical – by turning ordinary things into an set of surreal and perplexing stimuli that don’t really make sense.
Upon seeing a bag of Trader Joe’s Magic Beans for the first time, many questions immediately spring to mind. Magic beans, really? What makes them so magical? What are they exactly? Where do they come from? None of these questions are answered in the slightest anywhere on the bag. You are presented with a strange, plastic sack of oblong candy, a product name, and no more.
One of Trader Joe’s more infuriating traits is a tendency to leave off the product copy. When they do include copy, it’s uniformly delightful and well considered – equal parts gently amusing and gently educational. However when they elect not to include copy, it’s almost always in instances like this – on their most unusual and unique items.
TJ’s is giving us nothing to go on here. “Mystery Beans” might be a better name. All we’re told is that they’re chocolate covered nougat beans. The surprise is that not only is the chocolate shell hard and crunchy, but so is the nougat in side.
Yes, crunchy nougat – not the typical soft and pliable stuff so pleasantly yielding to the tooth. This nougat has been hardened to a brittle condition. Biting into one of these over-sized beans is an act of crunch, crunch, crunching – like biting into some chocolate covered brittle or toffee.
That’s the other unusual thing. The nougat is crispy hard and almost buttery sweet – not at all like ordinary nougat, much more like toffee or crunchy caramel.
I’d never had crunchy nougat before. It’s certainly not something I ever though to ask for. Are there people out there who appreciate crunchy nougat? Is this a thing? I have to say it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but going in expecting nougat made it a little off putting.
The chocolate part can pass largely without remark. It’s your basic, low quality Halloween candy-style milk chocolate making up a quarter inch thick cocoon. Not the best Trader Joe’s has to offer by any means.
Interestingly, these beans have also been shellaced – literally. Shellac is listed as the eighth or ninth ingredient. As you probably know, shellac is a resin generally encountered as a wood or nail polish varnish. Typically, that’s not something I’m looking for in my food – even though it is technically edible and a somewhat common food glaze.
In the end, there’s nothing really for me to recommend these on. Unless you’re intrigued by the concept of crunchy nougat, it’s hard to imagine anyone picking up these mysterious shellaced beans, even if I highly recommended them. Apart from giving them to out to kids as part of a “magical” gift bag, these beans were just sort of blah.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: No, not particularly.
Would I Buy Them Again: I have had a enough crunchy nougat and shellac, thank you.
Final Synopsis: Low-quality chocolate around a nougat-esque core does not necessarily equal “magic”.
Trader Joe’s Baked Blue Corn Tortilla Chips – Salted
Posted: September 15, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, blue corn tortilla chips, Chips, Snacks, tortilla chips, Trader Joe's 1 Comment
The poster child for “Low Fat = Low Taste”
I am a dyed-in-the-wool, straight-up chips and salsa fiend. Give me some chips, give me some salsa, and everything is just fine as far as I’m concerned. I have yet to find a jar of salsa that is big enough that I won’t finish it off in a single sitting.
| What it is: | Bland tasting, baked tortilla chips. |
| Price: | $1.99 for a 7 oz. bag. |
| Worth it: | No, they taste stale. |
Unfortunately, I’m getting fat. And while salsa is a good, healthy, vegetable-based, low-cal snack – tortilla chips, with all their carbs and fat, definitely are not. It’s a sad state of affairs, but I now live a chips and salsa free life.
There are many types of delicious (and not so delicious) salsas available at Trader Joe’s, and just as many unusual chip choices – often featuring healthful gimmicks (such as flax seeds). However, even “healthy” tortilla chips usually have more fat and carbs than I’d like to gorge myself on. So I was delighted when I came across Trader Joe’s Baked Blue Corn Tortilla Chips the other day. Promising only 2 grams of fat per serving, they were the healthiest chips I have ever come across. Taking them home, I gleefully rejoiced in finding the answer to my prayers.
Unfortunately, they taste like crap. Or, more correctly, they taste like bland tortilla chips that have gone stale straight out of the bag. Another review of these chips likens them to “cardboard”, and that’s not far off. The sad fact is that Trader Joe’s Baked Blue Corn Tortilla Chips are flat and lifeless. Even salted, these chips simply fail to delight the tongue.
Not being fried, these chips lack the crispiness, crunch and snap of a traditional tortilla chip. If, before I ever tried them, you’d asked me if I would trade such seemingly inconsequential concerns of texture for less fat, I would have said yes. And I would have been wrong. It doesn’t seem like something as run-of-the-mill as “crunchiness” should make or break a tortilla chip – but in this case it absolutely does.
If you’ve ever tried a tortilla chip from a bag that’s been left open a few days too long, you know exactly how these taste. There’s simply no saving a stale tortilla chip – no matter how flavorful the salsa or how delicious the nacho cheese. It’s sad, but a stale tortilla chip is little more than garbage.
No matter how I tried to appreciate the healthy elements of these blue corn chips, I simply couldn’t get over the stale taste. Maybe you’ll have better luck at that than I did, but as far as I’m concerned my quest for a healthy – and tasty – tortilla chip continues.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend Them: Nope – too stale tasting.
Would I Buy Them Again: Not unless I’m reaaaaally desperate for a chip fix.
Final Synopsis: Unless they actually made you thinner, these chips ain’t worth it.
Trader Joe’s Wild King Salmon Jerky
Posted: August 13, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, fish jerky, jerky, salmon, salmon jerky, Snacks, Trader Joe's 8 Comments
One thing that isn’t improved: the bag design. Where’s the texting cowboy riding the giant fish, guys?
Trader Joe’s can now proudly claim they belong to that class of supermarkets that doesn’t have canned pineapple, or beans, but does carry two different kinds of salmon jerky. Which is to say that Trader Joe’s is in a class all by itself.
| What it is: | Jerky made from salmon |
| Price: | $5.49 for a 3 oz. bag |
| Worth it: | No. Fish jerky tastes weird. |
Trader Joe’s Wild King Salmon Jerky is, yes, the second salmon jerky Trader Joe’s has brought to market. The original Wild Salmon Jerky I reviewed way back in 2012 when I first started this blog. Back then I had two big issues with their jerky. ( Or three, if you count the fact that it’s weird to jerk salmon in the first place).
The original salmon jerky was very fishy smelling, almost like the smell you get from a box of fish food, and, worse, very sweet due to the addition of brown sugar, molasses, carmelized sugar, and maple syrup. As a result I gave the original salmon jerky a big thumbs down.
Trader Joe’s acknowledges on their own website that the original salmon jerky had some issues, and so decided to reformulate it – hence our new, slightly different named, wild king salmon jerky. However, is the new version any better?
On both accounts, it actually is. This new salmon jerky has a far milder smell – nowhere near as fishy as the original version. TJ’s attributes this to the use of Alsakan king salmon instead of the previous chum salmon. I’d imagine there was probably a change in processing as well.
I’m also happy to report that even Trader Joe’s is capable of stepping back from the howling abyss of madness, and decided to cut down way down on the amount of sickly sweet sugar going into this fish jerky. Like any good jerky brine, there’s still a dose of brown sugar in there, but it isn’t nearly as much. The result is a much cleaner taste, that lets the dried salmon taste speak for itself.
Which brings up back to that third point from way up above. Yes, it’s a marked improvement on their last salmon jerky – but is it actually something you would want to eat? What does this fishy jerky taste like?
Trader Joe’s indicates that this salmon was smoked as part of the jerking process, and that’s what you’ll taste most of all – the distinctive, musky flavor of smoked salmon. If you’ve ever had that, just imagine drying it out it’s hard, and spicing it with a dash of salt and garlic.
It’s not necessarily the best taste in the world, but it is edible. I never found myself really enjoying it at any point in the way I might happily gnawing on a fine piece of beef jerky. That said, the flavors were more odd, than objectionable. I could imagine slowly becoming acustomed to it over time, but I can’t think of a reason why I would want to when Trader Joe’s offers a selection of other tasty jerkies – like their sriracha bacon jerky, and South African biltong jerky.
While it’s certainly an improvement, there are better ways to eat your salmon, and better ways to eat your jerky. No need to take this detour aside from general human curiosity.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Not while there are so many other tasty types of jerky out there.
Would I Buy It Again: No, I would not.
Final Synopsis: An improved fish jerky – but still, it’s fish jerky.
Trader Joe’s Wild King Salmon Jerky – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s 5 Cheese Greek Spiral
Posted: July 2, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, cheese, greek food, pie, Trader Joe's 13 Comments
Trader Joe’s calls it a pie. You know – one of those coiled cheese tube pies.
In theory, this sounds delicious. How could it not be? Paper thin sheets of oven crisped filo dough filled with a thick and gooey blend of five delicious cheeses – surely that’s a prescription for gustatorial heaven, right. And while it’s close, Trader Joe’s 5 Cheese Greek Spiral isn’t really all that good – as if it’s missing some essential ingredient that would have tied it all together.
| What it is: | Melted cheese in a pastry shell spiral. |
| Price: | $3.99 / 14 oz. disc |
| Worth it: | No. Too bland to justify that much cheese and dough. |
Looking like an over-sized lollipop, Trader Joe’s 5 Cheese Greek Spiral is at the very least an intriguing looking appetizer. It’s essentially a single long tube of filo (AKA pie crust) dough, filled with tons of cheese and wrapped into a single snail-shell spiral. Like a cheese-and-pastry kielbasa, or a cheese-filled pizza crust gone wild. TJ’s isn’t kidding around about that “five cheese” part either – this big honkin’ disc contains nearly a pound of gouda, kasseri, kefalotyri, “semi-hard” and blue cheese.
The whole thing is placed in the oven (the oven explicitly – the packaging bans microwave use) and roasted for 25 minutes until golden, crispy, and filled with hot, bubbling cheese.
So why isn’t this better than it is? It’s really hard to go wrong with cheese and dough – and yet this Greek cheese spiral failed to illicit more than lukewarm reactions from everyone I called around to try it. The problem is that there’s just nothing interesting going on with this appetizer. Lots of cheese is good in theory, but the cheeses in this mixture end up as a single, salty, mild-tasting blend, without the intriguing charm or tang of the individual components. The filo dough is also unadorned, tasting of nothing much but a bland paperiness that makes for a very nice texture, but not much else.
There are no end of delicious foods that make use of cheese and dough, so it seems like a shame to waste it all on an appetizer that is merely acceptable. Pizza, for example, or any of Trader Joe’s delicious flat breads.
In fact, if there’s any potential to be unlocked in this 5 Cheese Greek Spiral, it’s in treating it as a pizza-like launch pad for more interesting toppings. With the application of a little imagination it’s easy to compensate for that missing X factor. Throw a tub of artichoke dip on top of these warm cheese coils and you’d really be talking about a delicious appetizer, or simply serve alongside a ramekin of marinara or other dipping sauces. Drizzle with honey!?!? That might just be crazy enough to work. Do anything, really, just as long as you’re not eating it plain.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Not strongly. It’s pretty underwhelming.
Would I Buy It Again: Maybe – I might try fancying one up for my next soiree.
Final Synopsis: Lots of salty cheese in a bland crust. Should have been better.
Trader Joe’s 5 Cheese Greek Spiral – Nutrition Facts
Trader Joe’s Olive Oil and Lemon Juice
Posted: June 26, 2015 Filed under: Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: 2 stars, extra virgin olive oil, greek olive oil, lemon, lemon juice, olive oil, Trader Joe's 3 Comments
Gorgeous label. Pointless though.
Another week, another unforeseen and unique offering from Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s Olive Oil and Lemon Juice is not only a unusual sounding mixture, but it’s basically unprecedented anywhere, as far as I can tell. So unusual, in fact, that I’m still not certain that I haven’t just dreamed it.
| What it is: | Olive oil mixed with lemon juice. |
| Size: | 8.5 oz. |
| Worth it: | It’s not bad, just really pointless. |
Drawn in by the unique name, I found that this was a classic case “what you see is what you get”. Trader Joe’s Olive Oil and Lemon Juice is exactly that – a mixture of their somewhat acclaimed 100% Greek olive oil with a dash of lemon juice mixed in.
Why you would want to do such a thing is the puzzle. Trader Joe’s has quite a wide selection of extra virgin olive oils, and generally place quite highly in the metric of quality vs. price. However, as Trader Joe’s themselves point out, extra virgin olive oils are supposed to have less than 0.8% acidity. It would seem to me that adding a bunch of lemon juice would sort of wreck your pretensions to high quality EVOO.
Of course, people do have a long tradition of adding another common acid to olive oil – balsamic vinegar. Of course, this is usually done at the table – no one, to my my knowledge, is currently offering a blend of extra virgin olive oil and vinegar in the same bottle (although TJ’s has probably thought about it).
As far as I can tell, this bottle of lemon juice and olive oil seems to be intended to fill the same roll as the more common balsamic vinegar and olive oil mixture. The bottle itself even mentions using it as “a salad dressing or sauce sauce for seafood, fish and vegetables. If so, it’s a pretty poor substitute. Lemon juice lacks the body and complexity of a really good (or even a really average) balsamic vinegar. There is a little bit of a zesty zing to this olive oil, but it’s very subdued and one note – nothing like the satisfying blast of flavor you get with a good, viscous vinegar.
Confusing matters more, there isn’t very much lemon juice in this olive oil and lemon juice mixture. Poor out a good drizzle of olive oil on your salad or veggies and what you’ll taste is: olive oil, olive oil, olive oil, a tiny hint of lemon, and olive oil. Even if I was into the idea of replacing balsamic vinegar with lemon juice, this doesn’t seem like the way to do it. I’ve got a little squeeze bottle of lemon juice in my fridge right now – why wouldn’t I just zazz up my regular, all purpose olive oil with a couple squirts of that?
Despite the very lovely bottle, Trader Joe’s Olive Oila nd Lemon Juice left me deeply confused. Who is this for? Why would I want to buy a perfectly good Greek olive oil that’s been pre-mixed with just enough lemon juice to ruin its extra virgin nature, but not enough lemon juice to actually taste like anything? Is it just a convuluted plan by TJ’s to sell off impure extra virgin olive oil by masking it with lemon juice? Surely it’s not meant to be a pre-mixed detox solution for people going on olive oil and lemon juice colon cleanses, right?
In any case, I can’t think of anything this can do that you can’t already do better with the regular olive oil and lemon juice you already have.
The Breakdown
Would I Recommend It: Nope – you don’t need this.
Would I Buy It Again: Nope, I don’t need it either.
Final Synopsis: Perfectly good olive oil, but with a tiny little dash of lemon juice mixed it.
Eating At Joes 
Recent Comments