Trader Joe’s has been carrying these frozen Pork Shu Mai Dumplings for a long time, so they must be quite successful. That’s not surprising because they are very good. The shells are soft and chewy, and work well microwaved. The filling is very flavorful, without the chewy, annoying texture of shrimp which I so hate. It has a fragrant lemongrass flavor which I really like. The dumplings did scream to be dipped in some soy sauce, however.
They were $4 for a 9-oz box.
Posted in Food Items
Tagged appetizers, dumplings, frozen food, reviews, Trader Joe's
I hate to say it, but these Panzerotti Pizza Bites were a disappointment. These pastries consist of pizza dough filled with a mixture of tomato sauce and cheese. The first problem was the dough: it tasted of old oil. It actually reminded me of the 50-cent fruit pies I used to get at the supermarket during college because it was all I could afford. As I heated them up in the microwave, the texture was different – bready and somewhat chewy. Unfortunately, there was also too much dough and not enough filling – and the filling had too much sauce and not enough cheese, making it unpleasantly acidic.
They are $4 and made in Italy, but not worth your while.
I was excited when I saw these Carne Asada Burritos at Trader Joe’s. I love all-meat burritos and these ones seemed to be just that. Indeed, all they have is chopped meat cooked with chilis and cilantro. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thrilled with either the taste or the consistency.
I heated them up in the microwave according to instructions, wrapping them in a moistened paper towel and heating them for 2 minutes. The tortilla wrapping was hard in parts and not as chewy and elastic as I want flour tortillas to be. Also, as the burritos are rather small, they were wrapped two or three times around the filling, making them too thick.
The filling itself was too spicy and too wet for my taste. It had some nice smokiness, but it was otherwise under seasoned. All in all, I wouldn’t get them again.
The 14oz package with 2 burritos costs $5.
See other reviews of food items at Trader Joe’s.
Update 9/24. The last batch of these gnocchi we bought – and it was several packages – was a failure. The gnocchi themselves were dense and crumbly. It felt as if they had used too much flour, or perhaps changed the quality of the ingredients. I hope it was just a bad batch, as they are close to inedible in the present iteration. I’ll probably wait a while before buying more, to make sure I don’t get more from the same batch.
Trader Giotto’s Gnocchi alla Sorrentina has been a favorite in my family for almost twenty years. My mother introduced me to these gnocchi when my oldest daughter was a toddler, and we have all enjoyed them over the years. We don’t go to Trader Joe’s frequently (parking is a pain), but when we do, we bring back many bags of this gnocchi.
The gnocchi are made in Italy and come in packages of plain gnocchi and pats of frozen sauce and cheese. When these melt, on the stove or in the microwave, they cover the gnocchi with the sauce.
They’re really as good as home made. Indeed I was surprised, when I finally made the home made version, how similar it was to the packaged ones. At $3 per package, they are probably just as cheap as making them yourself.
The gnocchi can be dense if you cook them uncovered in the microwave, so cover them or heat them on the stove. The sauce has a bright, tomato flavoring and just enough cheese – I actually wonder if less than in the past. It’s just good.
I discovered Trader Giotto’s Gnocchi al Gorgonzola twenty years ago, when my oldest was a toddler. She loved them then and still loves now. And so do I.
Pasta often has problems surviving the freezing and heating up process, and Trader Joe’s solved this by freezing the pasta in little slices, which it then intermixes with the gnocchi. As they defrost, the melted sauce coats them.
This dish, as you can imagine, is on the heavy side, but the sauce is delicious. It doesn’t have a very strong Gorgonzola flavor – otherwise my kids wouldn’t like it – just enough to brighten the sauce. It’s ridiculously caloric, so something to eat only once in a while. It sells for $3.50
Posted in Food for Tots, Food Items
Tagged frozen food, pasta, reviews, Trader Joe's
Birria, a Mexican dish of goat or beef marinated and stewed in a sauce made with vinegar, dried chilis, garlic and herbs, is having a moment here in the US. Quesabirria tacos, tortillas filled with birria and melted cheese, are suddenly all the rage and have been added to the menus of both Mexican restaurants and taquerias all over the place, while people try to recreate them at home. It’s thus no wonder that Trader Joe’s would come up with its own, frozen beef birria.
I tried it last week and I was unimpressed. The beef just lacked flavor.
The beef comes in large boneless pieces swimming in sauce. While you have to heat it in the plastic bowl it comes in (it’s frozen, after all), you do need to transfer it to a different plate to shred it. Obviously this is still less work that making your own birria, but I’d preferred if the meat was pre-shredded. That might also have helped it draw some of the flavor from the sauce. The sauce wasn’t super flavorful either, but a bit better than the bland beef.
Now, the beef does work well if you are going to add more flavorful elements to your tacos. I didn’t have any shredded cheese at hand – and I wasn’t about to chop anything – but I added some commercial sour cream and guacamole (not usual for birria tacos) and they were better.
The 16oz dish was $8, which doesn’t seem too bad, but I wouldn’t order it again.
Posted in Food Items
Tagged beef, frozen food, Mexican, reviews, tacos, Trader Joe's
Trader Giotto’s, aka Trader Joe’s, Fettuccine Alfredo is just that, fettuccine alfredo. It tastes like you expect fettuccine alfredo to taste. It’s not an espectacular fettuccine alfredo – it’s frozen, after all – but it does taste as close to home made as you can expect a frozen product to taste. It probably has as many calories as the home made kind, but I won’t look and confirm that.
I’m not a fan of thin crust pizza, but obviously carbs are bad for me so I could enjoy pizza more often if I could convince myself to go for the thin crust. California Pizza Kitchen might just convince me to do that.
I’d always liked California Pizza Kitchen, though I can’t remember going to an actual restaurant since my 22-yo was a baby. It’s not surprising, the only one in the East Bay is in Dublin, and if I’m going to go that way, I’m going to go to Zachary’s instead (and not for the thin pizza). Their frozen pizzas, however, are manufactured by Nestlé (a very problematic company). I didn’t realize that when I ordered this one, or that they also make DiGiorno and Tombstone pizzas). Hopefully I’ll remember and avoid them in the future.
These pizzas were on sale at Safeway last week for $6 (regular price is $10) and as we didn’t have particularly high temperatures forecast for this week, and I didn’t realize they were made by Nestlé, I decided to give them a try.
The BBQ chicken pizza tasted just like I remembered from long ao. I enjoyed the flavor combination of sweet (but not too sweet) BBQ sauce, chicken, red onions and cheese. The dough wasn’t too crispy, and it served the toppings well. Being so thin, it only required about 12 minutes in a pre-heated oven.
A pizza is large enough to serve 2 if you add a salad. At under 15-oz, it’s not a super great value, but probably better than filling yourself up with carbs. I’d get it again if it wasn’t made by Nestlé.
Trader Joe’s Spizzico di Pizza are frozen two-bite pizza rounds that you can be heated up in the oven or the microwave – and, presumably, the air fryer. They are pretty basic: dough, sauce and cheese but my younger daughter really liked them – even more than regular frozen pizza. I wouldn’t go that far, but they were tasty enough. The sauce was slightly bittersweet, the cheese had flavor and they were surprisingly crispy even when cooked in the microwave. I’ll buy them again, because my daughter liked them. She ate the whole 9 oz package for lunch, which included 12 pizza rounds. The package was $4.
The whole package had 670 calories, 75g carbs, 8g sugar and 1390mg sodium. They’re made in Canada.
I’m not the biggest fan of mochi, a Japanese pastry made from glutinous rice, so I surprised myself when I added these Bubbies mochi ice cream treats to my cart after I came across them while online shopping at Safeway. I was also surprised at how much I ended up liking them.
The treats consist of flavored ice cream wrapped in a thin layer of mochi. The mochi is chewy and gelatinous, but thin enough that it actually complements the ice cream.
Ube, a purple yam from the Philippines, has a difficult to describe flavor, which to me is utterly forgettable – probably for this very reason. It’s sweet and somewhat fruity, pretty subtle and filled with umami.
The results were for a very enjoyable, not very sweet, treat. It actually made me think it’s something my grandmother would have enjoyed – which only confirms the fact that I’ve gotten old.
The treats come in a wide variety of flavors, though only a couple where available at my local Safeway. I’m totally intrigued about some of the others – blood orange, milk tea and passion fruit sound particularly interested – but I’ll have to wait to find them elsewhere. The package of 6 was $4 on sale at Safeway, but they usually sell for $7.50
Update
I also tried the matcha green tea mochi and I was surprised at how much I liked them. I’m not a huge fan of matcha, though the flavor has been slowly growing on me in the last few years. Here, I actually appreciated it. Once again I liked the consistency of the thin mochi and the light ice cream, but also appreciated how lightly flavored and sweetened the ice cream was. It was quite refreshing in a summer day. I won’t rush to order it again, I’m still not a matcha devotee, but I’ll finish the box.
