Trader Joe's Belgian Dark Chocolate Bar

I've been known to exaggerate or flat-out make up stories time to time, but this one, I swear, is true: Back in college, between my junior and senior year, I worked with this one guy whose name I cannot remember, but he was rather, well, unique. Whenever he spoke (which was quite often), he spoke in this rich, silky, charming British accent that even made me swoon a little bit. The ladies loved it. So, one night when we were finishing a shift up, it was absolutely jarring and disorienting to hear him speak....with no accent at all. I think I just stared him stupidly, all wide-mouthed and whatnot, as he caught my expression and said, "Yeah, I actually grew up like 20 minutes away from here. I use an accent because the chicks dig it...it makes me sound mysterious and interesting." I asked him how well that was working out for him. He winked as he flipped his accent back on and said "Very well." That was the only time I ever heard him break character. 

I kinda thought about that guy as I reflected upon the consumption of the Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar. It comes down to appearance management, to make oneself seemingly different from the "ordinary," even when the "ordinary isn't even necessarily a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with a guy from Port Matilda as is, nor anything wrong with a typical candy bar. But let's embellish it a bit. See here.  First of all, this is "Belgian" dark chocolate. How's that different from regular dark chocolate? Going into the purchase, I couldn't tell you, but the fact it said "Belgian" made it sound much, much cooler. Then there's also Thing on the label, holding that To/From gift tag, implying this is one serious present-worthy chocolate bar.

Welllllll....I'm not saying it's a bad dark chocolate bar. It's pretty decent, actually. Think of a good, dark but not crazy-dark chocolate bar, and you'll have this. But there's the point. Perhaps it's my complete lack of Belgian cultural awareness outside of pricey Trappist beers and classic cinema, but I can't tell you what makes this different and/or sets it apart from, say, a Hershey bar made in the good U.S. of A. I'm aware of the fact that the package says it is made in Belgium, which as my wife strained greatly to point out to me, makes it a "Belgian" bar, but I wanted to know what made it Belgian, if you know what I mean. The package isn't even the colors of the Belgian flag. Maybe one or two of you kindhearted, patient souls can out there can point me in the right direction.

Regardless, it's one thick, hefty bar that made out of six segmented logs (so it's only half the bar pictured). It's not easy to bust them apart - Sandy accidentally thwacked it off the kitchen table and it merely, begrudgingly, broke in half. If you had to build a house out of chocolate, they'd be a pretty good exterior wall. Yet at the same time, they're not too cumbersome for biting and chewing. Must be some of that chocolately melt in your mouth, not in your hand magic.

I'm pretty sure I paid two bucks for it at the local TJ's shop. I'd gladly enough pay another two bucks for it again, if they didn't have one or two of our other favorites readily available and I really needed that chocolate fix. My beloved wifey deems it worthy a four. I'm a little behind that.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Belgian Dark Chocolate Bar: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Curried White Chicken Deli Salad

Are you a fan of chicken salad? Are you a fan of curry? If you can answer "yes" to both of those questions, then you'll love this stuff. Before I tried this, I imagined what the perfect curried chicken salad would taste like. And the product matched what I imagined. And I mean exactly matched. This is the archetype. This is the genuine article. This isn't the shadow of curried chicken salad on the wall of the cave, this is the curried chicken salad itself. 

Somewhere, some culinarily-inclined East Indian person must have married a Mennonite or Amish person from Lancaster County, PA, or somewhere else where people make near-perfect chicken salad, and the two went about creating the most amazing "fusion" dish I've had in a long time. It's every bit as good as, though in no way similar to, Bulgogi Tacos.

There's just the right amount of spicy curry, just the right amount of chicken, and just the right amount of everything else. I should have taken a pic of the product out of the container, but I inhaled the whole thing too quickly and I forgot. Upon first glance, looking at the salad, there appeared to be an excess of raisins, but it definitely didn't taste that way. They balanced everything out juuust right. The chicken was moist, bite-sized, and had a great consistency.

I ate this with a fork, straight from the tub. I could have kicked myself for not picking up naan bread while I was there. I bet this would have been killer with actual Indian bread, but it also would have made a decent sandwich with just regular old Sunbeam.

This might not be the most common purchase for us or anyone else, but I simply can't imagine curried chicken salad tasting much better than this. Sonia gives this product 5 stars. Me too.

Bottom line: 10 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Turkey Gobbler Wrap

To start off, it's not like Trader Joe's Turkey Gobbler Wrap is a fairly unique product offering. Out here in Western PA, at Mad Mex restaurants this time of year, you can go get yourself a Gobblerito. I haven't partaken of that, nor I have tried Wawa's* Gobbler sandwich which is similarly boasted about. There's probably a zillion others out and around town right now, as if portable Thanksgiving leftover mashups are the new rage as everyone is finally getting sick of pumpkin-related stuff. To me, it looked like an just-interesting-enough easy lunch alternative to the usual same ol' same ol' TJ's trots out without fail or much variance. Really, as surprisingly good as they are, I don't think I can ever eat one of their tamales again. Too much.

TJ's take on the turkified Thanksgiving tidbits twirled into a tortilla is actually pretty decent. For whatever reason, I didn't have high hopes for it at time of purchase. It's a good sized wrap, certainly not the size of say a burrito from Qdoba (I've ridden in smaller minivans) but more like one that'd be par for the course from the local convenience shop. There was just enough turkey chunkage in each bite to keep me from feeling cheated - a little bit more would've been appreciated but not a dealbreaker. I think I just wanted more because the turkey itself was pretty good - nicely roasted, fresh, not too thick, not too thin. Nicely done. The stuffing was kinda nondescript (think more or less compressed StoveTop and it's close enough) but the dried cranberries....yum. Kinda like Lebowski's rug (warning, definitely NSFW), it tied the whole thing together into a wrap worth eating. Not sure if the cream cheese was really necessary - in fact, I'll say no, though there wan't a lot. The tortilla was replacement level at best, kinda a boring flour one, but not bad either.

However, let's talk about that "festive dipping sauce" mentioned on the label. What's "festive" about a tepid pool of grayish/brownish milky Frankengravy? It is Frankengravy as a quick scan of the ingredients states the sauce has both turkey gravy AND beef gravy in it. What the h-e-double bendi-straw is up with that? It's probably not a mortal sin to mix gravies, but it should be in consideration. Plus, despite that, about the only two things the sauce succeeds in is 1) adding a lot of unnecessary sodium and 2) making the nondescript tortilla soggy and not much else. I liked my wrap better without the sauce than with, but maybe that's just me.

Sandy hasn't tried this, not because she wouldn't, but because I bought just one and ate it all, so tough luck. A quick scan of some comments from our Facebook page reveal a lot of love for the gobbler wrap - Jes, a self proclaimed picky eater, states she loves it, as did pretty much everyone else. Kam, another fan, noted the nutritional info, though - yeah, it's pretty bad. Is it fair I grant this product a four on the behalf of you all? No objections? Fine, a four then. I'm thankful that this was pretty good as is, but it could've been better. Imagine, for example, big bites of turkey with mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar and pecan crunchies, wrapped up in a wheat or multtgrain tortilla with cranberry dipping sauce. Patent that and make a million bucks. But for $3.99, I could've done worse. I'm going with a 3.5.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Turkey Gobbler Wrap: 7.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons
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* Wawa is an eastern PA/southern New Jersey chain of convenience stores. There's a Pennsylvanian culture war between them in the East and Sheetz here in the western parts. As someone who's lived in both of their prime turfs, I prefer Getgo over both - they make the best breakfast sandwich, pure and simple..