Trader Joe's Honey Glazed Miso Salmon on Salad Greens

I'm beginning to grow skeptical of Trader Joe's salmon products. The best score we have so far on a TJ's salmon dish was a measly 6.5 stars out of 10. But our biggest complaint about the Mojito Salmon wasn't the salmon itself.

The Sockeye Salmon, however, was a different story. In this case, the salmon completely ruined a halfway decent bag of pasta and vegetables. With a few notable exceptions, we had a lot of comments and emails supporting our findings and opinions about that particular product. The salmon in that bag was just nasty.

Yet, brave adventurers that we are, the foodie-hack bloggers of WG@TJ's plow forth—with our tongue-in-cheek statements of self-aggrandizement held high, ingesting even the most risky of TJ's dishes, hoping that we, for the vicarious benefit of our readers, will discover something unique and tasty and worthy of our hard-earned dollars.

This dish, unfortunately, does not fall into that category.

I must admit that there is generally a huge range of differing experiences when it comes to Trader Joe's already-prepared, refrigerated meals, since the freshness factor can vary a bit, and the amount and quality of each ingredient used can also vary. But again, as in the case of the Sockeye Salmon, we have a meal with great veggies and pasta that is spoiled by a batch of highly-fishy salmon. The dressing was good, the lettuce was fresh, the lo mein was tasty, if maybe a bit too soggy. No major complaints, except for the salmon.

But unfortunately, the salmon is the centerpiece of the meal—or so one would think by looking at the label. I suppose in this case it was a saving grace that there wasn't very much salmon in the salad. What little salmon there was tasted like dirty socks—and yes, I know what dirty socks taste like...long story, don't wanna get into that now #childhoodtraumas.

I'm just going to go ahead and tell you to try it if you're desperate for a lo mein-topped salad with Asian-ish dressing. But be prepared to scoop out the salmon and serve it to a starving stray cat, who very well may pass on the offer.

2.5 out of 5 stars from me. The same from Sonia.

Bottom line: 5 out of 10 stars.

Trader Ming's Citrus Glazed Chicken

We've all had one of those weeks. You know the kind I'm talking about. The ones where you (and perhaps your spouse or partner) look around in the fridge and pantry, kinda say "meh", then think of the all the busy nights and things you gotta do, and say "Screw it, I'm not going grocery shopping this week." It doesn't matter that you don't even remember buying half the things, or that saltines and peanut butter would have to be a viable meal option to make it all work, it's your decision and you're sticking to it.

Sandy and I had one of those weeks last week. We were literally busy with something every single night then we were going out of town for the weekend, so it seemed kinda pointless to make our weekly TJ trek. While we weren't quite scraping the pantry enough to unearth some garlic bread sprinkle that expired in 1977, there still were few enough options that it took a little planning so we could talk ourselves into it. Dinners seemed to be doable enough if we relied heavily on our staple foods, but then my lunches came up - gotta eat, and no way in h-e-double bendy straw I'm gonna turn myself into a dollar menuaire for a week. That's just nasty.

That's when Sandy spotted the bag of Trader Ming's Citrus Glazed Chicken and gave me the look that said "There's a couple lunches for you right there, buster. I'm not gonna touch it, no matter what." We first picked it up months and months ago, hoping it'd be another Trader Ming orange-tinged classic, but were kinda disappointed by it, so naturally I bought it again soon thereafter if for no other reason to remind myself of why we didn't like it so I could warn all of you. That's what I do for you, readers. Anyways, naturally, since we remembered not liking the dish, we avoided it...and avoided it....avoided it some more...hid it in the back and covered it up...forgot about it...ate everything else...and now its time had come. There's only so many microwave quesadillas I can eat in one week, anyways.

The citrus chicken wasn't as bad as I remembered, but that's not to say it was all that good, either. Let's go with some positives first. First, it's ridiculously easy to make, to the point where Trader Joe's has taken the trouble of even cooking rice and including it for you, if you'd just be bothered enough to cook it up in a few tablespoons of water while you're sauteing up the chicken and veggies. Also, the chicken tastes about as reasonably good as some frozen white chunkified chicken can, unlike some other TJ's we call fowl play on. And the glaze, well, it's not overly citrusy, so it tastes alright, but you won't be scraping up every bit of it, either. Plus, you get a little baggy of cashews, kinda like how you get a little prize or sticker with your Cracker Jack.

The big problem is the veggies. I remember this being true the first time Sandy and I had it, and it was true this time around, too, so I'm thinking it's not a fluke. By the time they're stirfried up, they're just kinda mushy and bland. That's true for the green beans, red peppers, broccoli, carrots, and whatever else is in there. It's a shame, because I like each one of those, but was impartial to slightly repulsed by many a bite. For me, a good stirfry has veggies that are firm, with a little snap to them, and still have a lot of natural flavor to them. Not true here. Also, because there was so little chicken, it seemed like the bag was over 90% suboptimal vegetable matter.

Sandy has a lot of "food rules," and the biggest one is "no wimpy veggies - fresh is best." So yeah, she was only too willing to pass up a second round. Kinda like the Pittsburgh Penguins and the playoffs recently.* I can't really ask her for a grade, but I'll go out on a limb and assume. Really, knowing her, if she couldn't just pick out all the chicken and leave the rest to me, I'd doubt she'd give it more than a one. Me? Eh...I don't know. Part of me wants to give it the benefit of the doubt for being in the freezer for a while then eating it only reheated, but to my memory it tasted about the same both times. My general impression is, it's not all that great, so let's go with a 2.

Bottom line: Trader Ming's Citrus Glazed Chicken: 3 out of 10 Golden Spoons
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* I live in Pittsburgh so I can say that. If you don't, you can't.

Trader Joe's Thai Style Chicken Flatbread Pizza

Pizza pretty much speaks for itself, so I'm not going into some big ol' thing about it. I love pizza, you probably at least like it, enough said. Also, I think I've expressed my thoughts about Thai food in enough other reviews around here that I'm not going to go rehash all them. Bottom line is, I also love Thai food, and I *hope* that you at least like it, too.

But...combining them? Now there's an interesting concept that I haven't had before. Is it really a surprise that once I saw this on the fresh pizza shelf, I thought, "Sandy and I have to have this?" Nah, not at all, especially given our previous tasty experience with one of TJ's fresh flatbread pizzas (which mercifully came back in stock after being absent for months, I thought it was a goner) balanced with our general ambivalence towards the TJ freezer pizza line. For only $3.99 (which is less than the $4.28 we paid for a cheese pizza on clearance the previous night at Target*), it's worth the shot. Oh, the things I do for this blog...

Tell ya what: Trader Joe's Thai Style Chicken Flatbread Pizza works, and works well. The pizza portion bakes in the oven for only about 5 or 6 minutes (I might have baked our more like 7 or 8) right on the oven rack. That stuff in the cup and baggie you see in the pic? That's basically like a fresh slaw of cabbage, carrots and red bell pepper bits that you mix in a bowl with some peanut sauce and spread atop the pizza once baked. All the veggies are firm and crunchy, and the peanut sauce is more or less a basic pad thai sauce, which means I like it. The flatbread is a little thick and flaky, but definitely good, and its covered with a plum sauce that from the little I could taste of it seemed good. It has all these other things like soy sauce and vinegar and five spice in it, and it's really not spicy at all. There's a little too little of the chicken, naturally, but that too is good, and it's topped off with provolone and mozzarella cheese - hmm, that might be the most Italian part of the whole pie.

That leads me to this, so follow me here. The directions on the back of this say that after you bake the pizza and spread the slaw, you should cut the pizza in half then "fold each half taco-style." So what this is telling me is, as an American, I should prepare this Thai/Italian fusion product and enjoy like a Mexican food. Interesting, and very fully culturally inclusive of them. I have no doubt that this would be enjoyed without folding it in half, but if that's what they recommend, can it really be called pizza? Not that you can't fold a pizza slice in half, but the outcome of this is more like a baked sandwich (closest thing I could think of is a baked panini). Of course, if it's marketed under "pizza looking thing that really you fold into a sandwich," well, that just might confuse everybody. Maybe it's better to call it a "pizza" that you eat like a "taco," which invariably brings this to mind. Believe me, I've thought about this way too much in the 24 hours or so that it's been between my eating of this product and the writing of this review. It felt good to let that all out.

Anyhoose, both the wifey and I enjoyed our respective nibbles, which with some chips and salsa made a more-than-adequate late Saturday lunch. The flatbread on my half folded over quite nicely, whereas hers busted in half which led to a collateral slaw pile on her plate. I mistook that for her not liking the slaw - she's veggie-sensitive at times - but nah, she said she liked it just fine. In fact, a little less slaw might be preferable for some, as I kept all mine on and it seemed to be the predominant taste. Not that's it bad, but I couldn't get as accurate a gauge on the rest of the Thaitalian taco as I would've liked. As a whole, it seems to edge more towards the fresh and savory side of Thai-ish cuisine instead of spicy, which is okay and a change-up for me, at least. Sandy's on board with a good solid four for the chicken pizza, and I concur.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Thai Style Chicken Flatbread Pizza: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons
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*Clearance freezer pizza? Interesting concept. It was a Newman's Own, which for late night after a long Friday during Lent, worked just fine.

Trader Joe's True Thai Vegetable Curries

In a previous post or two, I've mentioned that 'm just not a lunch guy. It's like a necessary evil for me. Eating lunch more likely than not means I'm at work with about 5 hours of headaches in the bag and at least 3 more coming up, and honestly I just want to be alone more times than not just so I don't have to blabber about something or other. I don't *think* I'm anti-social, but I need that time to just unplug for a bit, even though I'd rather be eating with people. To me, that's about half the point of meals. It's certainly not about zeroing in to find your own table so you can blankly gaze into your iPhone while your coworkers think you're some lonely, kinda stinky jerkface who could use a shave. Eh well. It's what I do.

One thing I also do is Thai food. Love it. Trader Joe's has had some mild success with it over the years...there's only one miss I can think of (certainly not "slap another person worthy"...wait, what?)...with a big win or two (even though I'm convinced that this Thai Joe character is just a one trick pony). I guess if TJ's can make a viable, easy Thai lunch option, then I may as well check it out. Gotta eat somethin', and a little variety to the usual stuff would be great.

There's these two new True Thai Vegetable Curry options - Panang and Green. They're similar enough I'll tackle 'em both here (the panang is the one with all the pics). They're both easy to grab in a rush, cheap ($1.99 each), and both can remain in your manbag or desk drawer to keep lunch thieves away. Yes, I'm still bitter about that. For both, the curry sauce is the real star - the panang is a little spicier than the mellower green - but have rich coconut milk undertones with the usual Thai spicy suspects. Dee-lish. Both have about the same veggies in them - carrots, little babycorn buttons, cauliflower, etc, which are all kinda mushy. Not the biggest fan, although the green curry adds crunchier bamboo sticks, which make me feel like a happy chubby lil' panda gnawing away on them. Each are pretty decent with a little rice to mix in (as pictured) and zap up within a few minutes in the microwave. I suppose that, like the package says, one could mix in a little meat and they'd be good (the sauce is pretty darn good) but to me, that's not necessary to enjoy these. All in all, not a bad deal.

It's kinda funny though...I really never looked at the nutritional info on these until I started writing this post and loaded on the label pic. Is all Thai food this bad for you, with all the fat, saturated fat and sodium? Yikes. I had no idea. Must be the orice you pay for all that tasty spicy coconut milk. I guess you're gonna hafta have a real healthy dinner if you pick up one of these, like some flavored air or something.

Anyways, I'd ask Sandy her opinion on them, as a fellow Thai food lover, but the veggie mushfest that makes up the bulk of these curry cups make 'em a no-go for her. I would literally have to pin her down and clamp her nose shut to get her to try a spoonful of either one. Even though she'd probably like curry sauce itself, that's a little on the impolite side for me to do. So it's all on me this time around. I think, when all said and done, I'd rate the panang curry and green curry as about equals. I like how the panang's a little spicier, but the bamboo makes a huge difference for the green. If they were less mushy and a little more spicy, respectively...Both are about as equally bad for you, and this won't be the first time I make a nutritional knock for something. All things considered, both curries are far from the best you'll ever have, but they're good for what they are as an easy, inexpensive lunch option. I speak for both when I say...

Bottom line: Trader Joe's True Thai Vegetable Panang and Vegetable Green Curry: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange Morsels

Look it up on here if ya want: Trader Joe's has a pretty good rep with us for fake meat products. Soy chorizo? Veggie sausage? Beefless ground beef? Meatless corn dogs? All winners with us. Another winner with us is the inaugural member of the WGaTJ pantheon: Trader Ming's Mandarin Orange Chicken. Nathan and Sonia gave it a 9.5 way back in the day, and Sandy and I would give it at least that many in Golden Spoonage. Not everyone feels that way, though. Just read the comments there...I won't repeat them here because some of them's are naughty words...but yeah, there's a couple complaints about the quality of chicken for those. My take is, if it's not unhealthy/bad for you type stuff, and you can overcompensate by making it extra tasty with some great flavoring, well, why not? Use what's usable. Not every clucker ought there is destined for Chick-Fila glory, for goodness sake, and sincerely doubt those or any other Trader Joe's product was made from whatever it is in the picture of pinkish glop that McNuggets are made out of (that's been mostly disproven, anyways). Anyways, let's do an experiment here...combine one of Trader Joe's strengths in fake meat technology, and replace the component most often criticized in one of their otherwise universally successful dishes, and what do you get? Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange Morsels, of course. Sandy and I saw it, and we were immediately intrigued enough to purchase it ($2.99, I think) and make it that night for dinner.

Making it is easy - it's the same process as the regular ol' chicken-full mandarin orange morsels. Dump the frozen bits out of the bag onto a cookie sheet and slide into the oven until they're done, then stir them up in a bowl with the orange sauce to get each piece coated. Serve over rice (at least that's what we do). Tastewise, I have absolutely no issue with the pollo dementira part - it's some combination of quinoa and grains and what not made up who-know-how into a fine tasting chunk of what would pass off as decent chicken - not the best, certainly, but really good. In fact, I'd say I wouldn't have thought it'd be fake unless I saw the bag. The problem I have is with the sauce - it's not nearly as good as what comes with the real mandarin chicken. It's thinner, runnier, and not nearly as strong flavored. I'm not sure what the difference is (maybe the vegan recipe lacks a key component) but it just doesn't work as well. What's left is this thin, vaguely sweet, watered-down orange soda-y type taste. Like other sauces that lack something, I was pretty tempted to try and add something to what TJ's had provided but...

...there was another issue. On the chicken-less orange morsel bag, it clearly says that there's two servings, approximately ten pieces each. That says to me that anything less than 18 fake chicken chunks would be a ripoff and any more than 21 would be a bonus. In our bag, there were only 15. That's unacceptable, even though all were fairly sized. That left us with the classic problem of "too much for one, too little for two" that some other TJ products suffer from. I also find it kinda disheartening that TJ's habit of meat skimping is making it's way towards the meat substitute product line, too. Anyways, I felt like I didn't have enough to really experiment with, so between that and being hobbled by tendonitis, I just stayed put.

Sandy loved it though, but not as much as the regular one, mostly because of the sauce-y lack factor. "The sauce kinda sucks for this one," she said. I agree. It does suck. So does the paucity of chickenless nuggets in the bag. Throw a few more in, and fix the sauce, and there's another pantheon contender out there. As is, Sandy gave it a four and I decided to go a tad low with a 2.5. To me, for having two major problems, it can't rank any higher than "not bad" no matter how good the rest of the dish is.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Mandarin Orange Morsels: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Ming's Chicken & Vegetable Wonton Soup

This wonton soup isn't quite up to par with wonton from a good Chinese restaurant. It's certainly not bad, though. Again, we're talking about something that's ready in minutes in the microwave, and since there are very few other frozen grocery store versions of this type of dish, we wind up comparing it with restaurant food—which, of course, gives the Trader Joe's product a distinct disadvantage. Poor TJ's.

But quite often, their frozen dishes somehow find themselves in the same league as restaurant-quality foods. This happy little bowl of Asian soup is definitely much better than something I'd expect from a frozen microwave dish, but it's not quite as good as soup I'd expect from the local Chinese place (the good local Chinese place, not the sketchy place on the corner that's been shut down for selling cat-meat).

The wontons were actually the best part of this stuff. I can tell there's actually some chicken in the dumplings, and I've no complaints about the dough. The broth is what you'd expect - probably the hardest aspect of the soup to screw up: it's salty and a little miso-esque. What I thought fell a little short of the mark were the vegetables. They simply tasted like they had recently been frozen...which of course, they had, but because we know TJ's can do the impossible, we want them to do it all of the time. The veggies certainly weren't bad, but they just didn't taste fresh to me. Perhaps a slightly different array of greens would allow its recent frozenness to be masked a bit more by the salty broth and microwave magic. It seems to me that it's a bit difficult to mask an unfresh pod of peas. They're sooo tasty when they're fresh...and just so...mediocre when they're not.

Sonia gives it a 3. I'm torn between a 3 and a 3.5. But I think I'll go with a 3.5, just because TJ's used the name "Trader Ming" and not just plain old "Trader Joe." I like it when they use those unique ethnic names. They should use them more often.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10 stars.

Trader Joe's Spicy Shrimp Bao

I'm not particularly proud of it, but I'm a carbivore. I'm definitely into anything with breading...chicken nuggets, chicken fingers, fried shrimp, anything parmigiana, and pretty much any kind of Asian dumpling. I would have said just "any kind of Asian dumpling," but after many years of happily gorging myself on many different kinds of high-carb delicacies, I've finally found a dumpling I don't like.
To be fair, I must admit we made them the fast way. The box said microwaving was acceptable, but there were alternate instructions for those patient folks who could wait an extra 15 minutes to eat their food. That version involved cooking them on the stovetop with water—not oil, but water.

These dumplings were dry, lacked flavor, and had very little shrimp in them. In fact, the vast majority of the matter in each pastry was the bland, white, bread-like shell. Though they were small, it was entirely possible to take a bite of them and get only fluffy white nothingness.

I'm usually such a fan of carbs that getting a mouthful of nothing but bread wouldn't bother me, but in this case, the dough was so plain and seemingly stale, that I found it not only unpleasant, but nearly inedible. Even a greater amount of the inside-filling couldn't have redeemed these little wannabe hors d'oeuvres completely, as the main substance in the center was a vague greenish mush, with only slightly more taste than the mass of bleached breadiness surrounding it.

My expectations had been pretty high, since other Trader Joe's Asian dumpling-esque items like this and this were pretty darn successful if you ask me. We ate the shrimp dumplings with soy sauce, but I don't think there's a condiment in existence that could bring these suckers back from the brink of nastiness.

I was surprised that Sonia gave them a 3. She was disappointed with the lack of veggies and shrimp in the middle, but didn't seem as disgusted by the dough as I was. I'm going with a 2 since, in all fairness, they might have been much better had we made them on the stovetop. Otherwise, as we ate them, I might have been tempted to give them a 1. I should totally just stick to traditional holiday fare during the month of December.

Bottom line: 5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Vegetable Thai Kao Soi

If you like curry, you'll like this Thai Kao Soi. It's got some spice, and it's got a great balance of noodles and vegetables. It even comes with wonton-like crisps to put on top for a little extra texture. Trader Joe's usually does pretty well with vegetable dishes because they always throw in a great mix of veggies. When there's meat involved, TJ's tends to be a little stingy. There's always just enough meat to leave you wanting some more. But personally, I didn't miss the meat in this dish. Thai foods usually don't need meat because the flavors are always so rich without it. It's an extremely filling dish as it is.

We ate it with rice. It didn't really even need that, but it did help round out the meal. The Thai Kao Soi was on par with restaurant Thai curry. Good restaurant Thai curry. We used to go to this place in Hollywood called Jitlada. It was just a hole in the wall in some strip mall, but it was a nice hole in the wall. The friend of mine who introduced us to the place claimed that when the previous prime minister of Thailand visited Los Angeles, he stopped in and ate at this place. After I tasted the food, I could believe that claim, which originally sounded a little outrageous. There were photos of important-looking people adorning the walls of the restaurant, but then, there are photos of famous and important-looking people in Hollywood's hot dog stands and McDonald's.

I'm not sure if the prime minister of Thailand has ever stopped in to a Trader Joe's while visiting the U.S., but Ms. Yingluck Shinawatra, if you find yourself in America and you've a hankering for a microwaveable taste of home, I'd swing by a TJ's if I were you. Most of their Thai stuff is decent, considering most of it can be prepared in under 10 minutes. I'd avoid the Vegetable Pad Thai, but apparently the Red Curry Sauce is good. Interesting that we've reviewed two Thai items right in a row...and a week before Thanksgiving.

I'm all about an international Thanksgiving. Hopefully I'll get a little taste of that next week in NYC as I partake of my dinner with a Mexican, a Cuban, and an East Indian. One of the things I'm thankful for is that my wife and her friends allow a white person to hang out with them.

I really don't have any major complaints about this dish. Well, there's the 70% US RDA of saturated fat, but hey, that just goes to show you how authentic it is. Real curry ain't lite. It's creamy and coconutty and it's got a bit of a kick, and that's exactly what we've got here. Double 4.5's from Sonia and I. It's another near-Pantheon dish in our opinion.

Bottom line: 9 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Thai Red Curry Sauce and Low Sodium Soy Sauce

Sandy and I are coming up on our second anniversary in the next week or so. Don't worry, I know the date and got a special night set up for us. Know what got me talkin' with her a few years back? A cake. Seriously. For a church picnic, she made a homemade lemon lavender cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting...I swear to this day one of the best things I've ever eaten, it was so impossibly good. I found out she made it, saw she was cute, knew she was single, and the rest is history. Due to the hours she spent baking it, Sandy's on record as saying she'll never make it again, which I'm strangely okay with, seeing as that I'd prefer not to keep fending off any more happy-bellied suitors. That cake's already got her one man, thank you very much.

Despite her baking prowess, I am predominantly the chef in our household, though. Not that I'm supremely talented or anything, but it just kinda works out that way more times than not, probably because I'm holed in a cubicle all day as she's wrestling a classroom worth of older toddlers. I tend to try and look at what we have and go from there. Have bread, cheese, butter, and leftover soup from our weekend crockpot-o'-goodness? Grilled cheese and soup for dinner. Bacon, eggs, and a certain hankering? Breakfast for dinner. Seeing as that we have a Home Depot bucket full of rice in our kitchen, we go to that fairly often for all sorts of tasty meals, and we nearly always have chicken and onions (which I chop under careful spousal supervision to make sure they're small enough under threat of revolt) and other tidbits around, so fried rice/chicken-and-rice dinners are pretty common, too. The question is, how should I make them tasty and different enough to keep them from getting old?

One decent choice is Trader Joe's Thai Red Curry Sauce. Is this the best curry sauce ever? Nah. We've gone out to enough Thai restaurants to know it's not in the running. But how many world class curry sauces do you have lurking around your pantry shelf? Thought so. It's thick, creamy, sweetened from the coconut milk, fairly rich, and a little kick to it. That's the main problem - the kick just isn't strong enough. Granted, this comes from a guy whose Thai waitress once said, in an equally polite and incredulous tone, "I have never seen a white person eat as spicy food as you." That earned her a big tip. The pureed red chiles just don't do enough, and when the ingredients say "spices" I presume that's just salt. Still, it's complex enough (I liked the little bit of ginger you can taste), with a little sweet and a little spicy, and most importantly, it does well enough when simmered with some chicken and served with rice to make a fairly good, satisfying dinner fairly quickly. There's also a yellow curry sauce available, and although it's been a while since we've had that, I remember it being pretty decent too, maybe even a little spicier. At the local shop anyways, it's $2.69 a bottle, and with a little discipline it can last more than one meal, though we're usually tempted otherwise.

Another go-to option is the Low Sodium Soy Sauce. Hmm, looking at the label, I'm not sure how that qualifies as "low sodium"...is regular soy sauce that much worse Na-wise?...eh. I've made my one nutritional stand recently to hold me over for a bit. Anyways, I frequently use the soy sauce for making a good-size batch of fried rice. Used to be that along with the soy sauce, I'd toss in different spices to try and come up with a good flavor combo. What does the trick for us now is a little extra soy sauce to get that flavor in and a sprinkling of crushed red pepper to add a little heat. It's a little sweet, definitely salty, and deep and robust, and it brings out a lot of goodness with chicken, rice, eggs, peas, peanuts or whatever else I toss in. TJ's soy sauce delivers a winner nearly every time unless I botch something up, like the time I confused the cinnamon and cumin. That was kinda weird. A bottle lasts a while, and it's something like $2 a pop, which is a small price to pay for some dependability for your rations.

I pressed Sandy for her opinion on the Thai Red Curry Sauce, and she gave me one of those looks. "32," she said. I pointed out that's not a valid Golden Spoon rating, and that there's no way she liked it 6.4 times as much as one of our favorite ice creams. "Arrrrgh, sometimes I just want to eat something and not try to rank it," she said. Poor thing. Must be tough to be hitched to one of the nation's prominent foodie-hack bloggers (and a self-indulgent one at that), with the pressure being what it is.* I finally figured out that by "32" she really meant "4" for the curry sauce, and I thought it best to not press my luck and ask her to rank a soy sauce, of all things. I can tell she likes both though, because when I present her with a hot dish of either, after a few bites, she usually says to our pooch, "Wimbles, Daddy makes good dinner. Yumyumyum." Both sauces make for one of the major flavors, so she's gotta like 'em both. I'll presume a 4 for her for the soy sauce as well...aww heck, matching fours all the way around. We're harmonious like that.

Bottom lines: Trader Joe's Thai Red Curry Sauce: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Low Sodium Soy Sauce: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons

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*I'm not even recognized at the Pittsburgh store yet. That has to change.

Trader Joe's Shrimp with Spicy Green Curry

There's a greater sense of authenicity when one uses chopsticks while eating any kind of Asian cuisine. It's as if the experience gains an extra dimension. Most dining affairs rely heavily upon our senses of taste and smell, and of course, the presentation of the food appeals to our sense of sight. And one might argue that the chewing of the food, and feeling its texture in our mouths is dependent upon our sense of touch. That's true. But with chopsticks, we feel the food before we even start eating it. We get more familiar with it somehow than when we use a fork or spoon. That's why I love that Trader Joe's put chopsticks in the picture on the box of this green curry shrimp.

I did use a pair of wooden chopsticks I saved from a local Chinese restaurant. However, I guess I defeated the purpose of the chopsticks to a degree when I ate the dish straight out of the microwavable plastic packaging. An artfully designed blue ceramic bowl would have been much nicer. But there was a certain functionality with the plastic, dual-compartment tray. After microwaving, it was malleable enough to deliberately spill the curry side onto the rice side bit by bit. There's something a little incongruous about using wooden chopsticks to eat Asian food out of a flexible plastic tray. But nevertheless, I enjoyed it.

The jasmine rice is exactly the same as all of Trader Joe's jasmine rice, included in many of their Thai and Indian dishes. No complaints there. The texture of the shrimp was surprisingly good for a frozen meal. And the green curry added a truly unique flavor to the food. I don't recall the exact wording of it now, but the box described the green curry as something along the lines of "a mild curry, yet not without some heat." I'd say that's a fairly accurate statement. It's moderately spicy. It's a flavorful kind of kick. It agitates the insides of the mouth a bit, but does not do so in vain. It adds a wonderful amount of zesty taste.

My biggest issue with this product was the miscellaneous matter that found itself swimming about within the curry. There were little bits of vegetables that I found quite unnecessary, and finally there was an unidentifiable substance with a texture not unlike that of sand. Fortunately, since I swished the curry over onto the rice gradually, I didn't really take note of this sandy silt until I was nearly finished with the dish, since it had mostly settled to the bottom of the curry side of the partition.

Sonia did not partake of this dish with me. Thus, I shall follow our precedent for such an instance and simply double my own score. I give it three and a half out of five stars, with virtually all of the points lost due to the bizarre textures lurking at the bottom of the little pool of mostly-delicious curry.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Beef Pho Soup with Rice Noodles & Vegetables

Well, friends, today is the one year anniversary of the inception of this blog. Thank you all for reading, for joining our blog, liking us on facebook, and following us on twitter. We do appreciate your support. Also, stay tuned for our next great reader contest winner announcement!

Perhaps it's fate that we should be reviewing this Vietnamese style pho (pronounced "fuh," like you were going to say a dirty word, but then quickly and wisely changed your mind) on our birthday. In Vietnam, it's traditional to eat a bowl of beef pho on your birthday.

Actually, no, I just made that up. According to this site, in fact, there are no actual birthday traditions in Vietnam, but rather, all birthdays are celebrated on New Year's Day. So...this is sort of an inappropriate dish to review on our birthday. Oh well. Such is life. Did you know, however, that we share our birthday with James Cameron, Madonna, Angela Bassett, Kathie Lee Gifford, Frank Gifford, and Eydie Gorme (whom my mother-in-law worked for some years ago) just to name a few? It's true.

OK, enough intro. On with the food review. For starters, based on TJ's track record, I was fully expecting there to be a lack of beef in this dish. They have a tendency to skimp on the meat in dishes like this one. But I've gotta say, that was NOT the case here. Now I'm certainly not saying there was too much beef, but I was pleasantly surprised that the soup had plenty of meat bits that lasted until the end. Although, that being said, I must unfortunately point out that another basic ingredient was in short supply: the noodles! Not sure how that happened really, but I ran out of noodles way before beef. And, the noodles seemed really tough to me. I followed the instructions, but it felt like I should have allowed the noodles to soak in hot water for another five minutes or so.

The broth was light and slightly savory, like a good pho broth should be. I've only had restaurant pho twice, and both times, I am told, I had it from average-at-best pho restaurants, but I must remind you that Russ and I are self-proclaimed foodie-hacks, not true licensed foodies. And I'm willing to bet that many of you have eaten even less pho than I have...so please bear with me. The veggies were fine: chopped up into little pieces and evenly distributed throughout the soup. Like the beef and broth, I had no major complaints about the vegetable bits.

The overall effect is a nice, delicate Asian meat and vegetable soup. The biggest let-down by far was the lack of noodles, and their slightly-stiff texture. I'd try this product again, but I'd heat the dish an extra minute and allow it to sit for an extra five. I'll give it three and a half stars. Sonia agrees.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Bibimbap Bowl

Today, we got our Bibimbap on. Here's a link that should help you pronounce it properly. It sounds like it starts with a "p," and apparently the middle syllable is stressed.

Bibimbap is a Korean word that means simply "mixed meal." So basically, we've got rice, some sort of Korean barbeque-esque meat, some carrot-like vegetables, a bit of seaweed or kelp or kale or something, and a mysterious egg-like substance. It's quite an authentic recreation of a visit to a real Korean BBQ house. You'll recognize one or two of the items, and the rest of the foods...well, you might have some vague notion of what they could be, but unless you're dining with a bilingual Korean person, you're pretty much flying blind. You kind of just get in the habit of sticking stuff in your mouth and hoping for the best. It's kinda fun. Until you get a bite of something nasty. But then you can always go back to the meats. Korean BBQ meats are pretty universally tasty, in my opinion.

To my delight (but probably to the dismay of many others) there was no kimchi in this meal. I'm not sure which amazes me more: the fact that people actually enjoy fermented cabbage dishes, or the fact that more than one culture on our planet came up with the same idea. "Hey guys, let's throw this yucky vegetable in a barrel, let it rot for a while, and see if something yummy comes out!" Kimchi is kinda like Korean sauerkraut. It's spicier than sauerkraut, to be sure, but just as nasty.

Thankfully, the Bibimbap Bowl does feature some Korean beef. Absolutely delicious. It has an amazing tender texture and lots of flavor. Too bad there's only a couple bites of it in the bowl. In fact, that's my biggest complaint about this dish. I really wanted to give this a very high score, but I simply can't praise it as much as I would like to because of the lack of its best constituent part.

The second best part of the bowl? The sauce. It's red, spicy, and flavorful, and to me it tastes authentically Korean. I've only had Korean BBQ a handful of times in my life, but from what I remember, the best sauces are quite similar to the stuff included in Trader Joe's Bibimbap Bowl.

The other 4 ingredients are also pretty yummy, especially when coated with the aforementioned red sauce, but they're not quite as special as the beef. They're all reminiscent of things I've had in a Korean restaurant, and not one of them is gross or too strange to be eaten. I broke out some leftover chopsticks we had from our recent visit to Pei Wei. It helped to make the experience even more Asian.

In summary, my score can't be too high because of the lack of meat in the dish, but maybe that's just my typical American overenthusiasm for beef talking. I'm sure Koreans, health-conscious as they generally are, don't eat that much beef on a regular basis, but my visits to Korean BBQ spots would tell me different. Although, those restaurants I've been to are probably just catering to their "Viva-America" clientele. Conversely, I can't score this dish too low, either, since my natural inclination is to compare this Bibimbap Bowl with entrees I've had from relatively high-class Korean restaurants and homemade dishes. It didn't even occur to me to compare this to anything I've ever had from any other grocery store. And therein lies Trader Joe's genius: many of their foods, this product included, simply transcend the offerings of other grocery stores.

Let's go with a 3.5. Sonia was also annoyed by the lack of meat, but overall, she was truly impressed as well. She gives it a 4.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Shrimp Stir Fry

So there's been much ado in the news over the past week or so about the old food pyramid being scrapped in favor of the new plate-shaped graphic to try and help us nutritionally illiterate Americans decide what's healthy and not to eat. One of the critiques which I actually heard of the old pyramid was, since fats and sugars and junk food were depicted as being the top of the structure, they were being portrayed as the crown jewels of the American diet, so the pyramid had an unintended effect of inadvertently encouraging unhealthy eating. As if, generally speaking, society needed that. I mean, just do a Google image search of the burger chain Hardee's, or think of the last fast food meal you grabbed. One of my neighbor's husband found what really should have been the new plate diagram, but unfortunately I couldn't find it to link to it. Instead of "fruit" and "grain" and so on on the diagram, it simply said "Don't eat processed crap." There's a lot to that simple statement, but in summary it's not coincidence that obesity and related health condition rates have skyrocketed in the past few decades with the growing popularity and easy availability of prepacked meals and products made from all sorts of cheap nefarious production methods.

It's one of the big reasons that Sandy and I have decided to go on a little experiment with our meals the next couple of weeks. We're going to try to avoid more processed products and make dinners from scratch, and try to stick to healthier sized portions and make healthier choices. We're certainly not experts on the matter but trying to give it the old college heave-ho. A couple nights, though, we're busy enough with stuff that we realize we won't necessarily have the time or energy to cook a full meal, so when making something from a box or bag, we're going to try and make healthier decisions.

Because of this approach we're toeing, I picked up TJ's Shrimp Stir Fry on my last trek to the local shop. Sandy was off babysitting, so I felt a little pressure as I was embarking on this new mission of healthy eating while flying solo. I stuck mostly to the list she scribbled down for me, but for a premade dinner, she just wrote down, "premade dinner." No guidance, and I was going to have to wing it. Lo and behold, a bag of frozen shrimp and vegetables that takes less than 10 minutes to make on a stovetop. Shrimp and vegetables = healthy, low fat, low calories. Check. Quick and easy = check. And since there's nothing but raw frozen shrimp and a variety of veggies, from what I can tell there's a comparative small amount of processing involved - maybe some preservatives, but nothing like any high fructose corn syrup randomly injected in. Oh wait, not even any preservatives, and there's a "gourmet pepper seasoning" packet tossed in too. It definitely seemed to match all the right criteria, so it made for a logical pick-up.

Sandy and I just had it tonight (somewhat ironically, after making an after work trek to the local food co-op and farmer's market for some goodies for other meals), and well, let's say I was higher on it before munching through it than afterwards. I'll start with the positives. The shrimp itself was good - pretty good in fact. It wasn't salty or mushy like what I've had with other frozen brands. Indeed, it was firm and fresh enough tasting, and TJ's tossed in something like 15 of them, so they weren't skimpy on it, either. And it was a pretty good selection of mixed veggies in the bag, too - red peppers, sugar snap peas, broccoli, water chestnuts. Along with some rice I made on the side, Sandy and I had plenty enough for dinner, and enough left over for me to take some rice and veggies to work for lunch. Despite all that, and despite its overall healthiness, it just lacked something, like a good light sauce or seasoning to tie it all together. That gourmet pepper packet? It consists mainly of black pepper and garlic powder, and for whatever reason I was hoping for something more Iron Chef than "first two things I saw on the spice rack" inspired, and there wasn't enough to have it permeate the dish anyways. I don't know if some soy sauce would be the proper response to this. Sandy ended up sprinkling on some crushed red pepper flakes, but for the integrity of this review I trudged through without any further dressing up. I appreciated the fact that a lot of the natural flavor of the shrimp and veggies came through, but I just couldn't shake the notion that something was missing, and neither could Sandy. Also, I know that just by putting in slightly more effort than opening a bag to dump into a skillet, I could have easily made something just as good if not even better, and certainly more tailored to our taste buds.

I think I know why Trader Joe's decided to keep his name on it and not Trader Ming or Trader Joe-San. Ming has brought us too many good things that it'd be a shame for this to sully his reputation, while that Joe-San character has more of a legacy of disappointment which is best not to perpetuate. Big Joe himself has enough of a solid rep that this won't sway it too much one way or the other. For a quick, easy, healthy bag meal, I guess it's not too bad, but it could be better. A lot better, actually. As it comes, it's just too bland for us, but with minor adjustments, I'm sure it could be a tastier dish. Really, just a light sauce or more seasoning, and it could be a bigger winner...But not today. Both Sandy and I give it a 3 and a shrug.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10

Trader Joe's Rice Noodle Soup Bowls

I have a confession of sorts to make.

When it all comes down to it, I'm just not really a lunch guy.

Breakfast is usually my favorite meal of the day, especially if involving eggs and some good bacon. But sometimes, even just a bowl of delicious hearty cereal does the trick pretty well. Dinner, in any and all of its manifestations, is something I routinely look forward to and enjoy. But lunch? Usually, for me, it's kind of lame. Most of the time it means I'm still at work for a few more hours, and I'm munching on whatever I managed to grab in 30 seconds of half-awake stupor before running out the door, or some cheap greasy not-that-great chow that I went and fetched from some run-of-the-mill chain restaurant. I'd rather skip lunch altogether and either snack through out the day or hold out for one large mid-to-late afternoon meal, but since my work schedule doesn't look too kindly on that, I'm kinda forced into the lunch option. I think that's why I routinely look for the cheapest, easiest ways to do lunch, because if I don't like the meal all that much to begin with, I don't see the point in investing time, effort and money into trying to make it better.

Enter Trader Joe's Rice Noodle Soup Bowls.

For starters, they come in three varieties - Mushroom, Garlic, and Spring Onion. To review each flavor would be as pointless as reviewing each flavor of Ramen noodles - they all kinda taste the same, without all that much distinction. And, like Ramen, they're certainly not fantastic either - cheap noodles with some colored salt on them, and that's more or less it. Don't let the "Thailand" on the front fool you - these are about as authentically Thai as a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli is authentically Italian. They're not even remotely close to any Thai noodle bowl I've had at any restaurant anywhere - there's no sense of the complexities and layers of heat that good Thai cuisine offers. It's really just salt and parsley, a fancier Cup o' Noodles if you will. With a lot more packaging, to the point it seems downright wasteful. There's the outside cardboard sleeve, the plastic shrinkwrap, the lid on the bowl, the bowl itself (pretty sturdy in its own right), then inside there's a plastic baggie that's open half the time anyways that holds the foil seasoning packet, smaller baggie of either leafy green stuff or mushroom nanobits (depending on which variety you chose) and another little plastic packet of oil which I guess is supposed to add flavor to the broth. That strikes me as being packaging overkill - skip the cardboard sleeve and the bigger inside plastic baggie at the very least. Anyways, once you buzzsaw your way through all of that, dump it all together and splash in some water and nuke it for three minutes, the end result can be very inconsistent from one batch to the next. Without doing anything discernibly different and being very careful to fill the water to the lower inside rim, I've had bowls that were thick and full of noodles with very little broth, and others that seemed to average-to-skimpy in noodle-to-soup ratio.

Okay, enough with the negatives. I actually kinda like them. Here's why. They're certainly pretty easy to make, even with the most primitive of workplace kitchens at my otherwise state of the art facility where I work. The rice noodles, while not spectacular, do a decent enough job of tiding me over. Tastewise they're passable enough. But the number one thing they have going for them is this: coworkers have seen me eating them and have asked me how they were. My typical response has been "Eh, they cost a buck and they taste like it." That was just something offhand I happened to say without thinking about it much until I randomly found myself one day in the international food aisle of the local grocery chain. Perfectly identical rice noodle bowls (even down to the same three flavors of mushroom, garlic and spring onion) were $2.29 each. Even at the neighborhood Trader Joe's, they sell another brand of microwavable noodle bowls for $2 American a pop. These? One greenback. That's it. And while I'm willing to acknowledge I may be missing out on something, to me these are about as good as I can reasonably expect instant noodles to taste like, and even if the other brands are better, I doubt it'd be worth paying twice as much for them.

Chef Boyardee used to be my default quick-grab work lunch that cost a singleton. Not any more. I routinely snag at least three or four each shopping trip and Sandy grabs one or two for herself as well. I don't think it's that we're necessarily big fans of them, but we like the fact that they're cheap and simple, and they work well enough for lunch for us. Sandy was wavering between giving them a three or four before settling in the middle with a three and a half, stating she wished they were spicier and more Thai-like. For me, I have to dock some pointage for the wasteful packaging (though I've reused a couple of the plastic bowls for my desk to hold office supplies, and Sandy said maybe they could be useful at her preschool) and join with my wife in wishing they offered more spice and flavor, but the fact that I routinely purchase and munch on them for lunch says I can't dislike them too much, even if that's based more on value than overall performance. I don't know, sounds like a three to me.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's True Thai Vegetable Pad Thai

So sue us, we didn't review any beer for St. Patrick's Day. How terribly un-festive of us. The title of the previous post did contain the word "green" twice. And anyway, we'd have to travel into another state for a Trader Joe's that sells beer. Just go back and read this post. It's Mexican beer, so what? They're a Catholic country that has green on their flag, too.

Anyway, let's get down to business shall we? Today we'll be talking about fine vegetarian Thai cuisine...oh, and this Trader Joe's Vegetable Pad Thai, too.

In L.A., there's an amazing restaurant at Orlando and Beverly called Vegan Glory. Everything they serve is, as the name would indicate, free of animal products of any kind. They serve mostly Thai-themed food...and honestly, this is not only the BEST vegan or vegetarian food I've ever had anywhere, but it's one of my favorite restaurants period. I'm certainly not a vegan, but anyone I've ever known that's open-minded enough to try it instantly becomes a fan, regardless of how much meat-lust lingers in their stomach. If you ever decide to stop in, I recommend the pineapple fried rice with soy chicken nuggets. Put a little hot sauce on it, and WOW...meatless Thai food that'll blow your mind for a totally reasonable price--not to mention good, friendly service from people whom I think are actually from Thailand. (Most of them speak good English, though.)

Now, if Trader Joe's can make a killer meatless corn dog, you would expect them to make a killer meatless pad thai. I mean, that is, given TJ's generally good track record with Asian style food products, as well as their wide array of tasty vegetarian and vegan foods, one would think that a Thai entree as basic as Pad Thai would be an easy one to knock out of the ballpark. Lots of Thai foods are vegetarian or vegan anyway. Meat seems more intrinsically necessary for the success of a corn dog than that of Pad Thai.

However, I've gotta say - and maybe it's just because I was spoiled by Vegan Glory - this Pad Thai misses the mark. The noodles are too chewy - almost rubbery. The sprouts are stringy, and the little chunks of tofu, which were actually my favorite part, were too far and few between. Even though their texture was nice and their flavor wasn't awful, I found myself pining for real chicken pieces. I would say I was craving better quality tofu thingies, but there was something about these little guys that made me NOT want anything vegetarian. Because they were so unlike real meat, they reminded me of why I like meat in the first place. A good veggie Thai dish shouldn't leave you wanting real meat. Again, they aren't bad in and of themselves, but they're not nearly as good as real chicken. And I've had plenty of vegetarian dishes that completely quell any meat cravings - including a good many Trader Joe's products.

The sauce on the dish is certainly palatable. No complaints there, except that there could be a little more of it.

Sonia kind of surprised me with a higher-than-expected rating. She gave it a 3.5. I'm going to have to be the bad guy on this one and give it a 2.

Bottom line: 5.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Chicken Satay Party Skewers

Trader Joe has great taste when it comes to American cuisine. When it comes to Thai food, however, he should take a note from his buddy, Thai Joe.

These Chicken Satay Party Skewers aren't great. They're a little chewy and not super flavorful. They don't taste bad, but they're not exactly dripping with savory chicken goodness. We felt the images of the chunks on the packaging were slightly deceiving, since the little bits of thigh meat you actually get seem significantly smaller. As a bonus, though, you get little pointy sticks through each piece of chicken, with which you might poke your friend or partner in the arm for selecting such a poor choice at TJ's.

Oh well, maybe the chicken's slight lack of flavor was intentional...in order to allow the taste of Trader Joe's Satay Peanut Sauce to dominate the dish...

But wait, that doesn't make sense either, because this stuff's even worse. Way worse. Sonia and I have both had chicken satay with peanut sauce from more than one restaurant, and this is by far the worst either of us has had. The sauce doesn't even taste like peanuts. There are little chunks of actual nuts in the sauce, but somehow they just get lost in the mess of flavors crawling around in this stuff. I don't even know how to describe it. Sonia thought it tasted like fish. For those of you who've had real Thai chicken satay with peanut sauce, you should know that it is NOT supposed to taste like fish. I personally wouldn't describe it that way, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as anything positive. This peanut sauce is an emphatic thumbs down from both of us.

All in all, we just recommend you get something else from TJ's. If there were some other super-delicious sauce that was intended for use with the Chicken Skewers, it might be worth trying. The Skewers aren't gross enough in and of themselves to tell you not to ever try them. They're really not that bad...they're just not great. It's the sauce that really made this meal a disappointment.

Trader Joe's Chicken Satay Party Skewers. Sonia gives them a 3. Me too. Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Satay Peanut Sauce. Sonia gives it a 1. It just dawned on me that if I had no idea what satay peanut sauce was supposed to taste like, it might not have seemed quite so disgusting, so I'll be merciful and give it a 2. Bottom line: 3 out of 10.

Thai Joe's Coconut Curry Chicken Stix

So apparently there's this new tenderfoot dude named Thai Joe. Never heard of the guy? Well, me neither. Certainly, he has an interesting name. I mean, Trader Joe's has, besides themselves, Trader Ming, Trader Joe-San, Trader Jose, Trader Jacque, and, I think, Baker Josef (flour). Though there's certainly nationality implied in those names, none of them are directly labeled like Thai Joe. I mean, would you buy something from a dude named Chinese Joe? Sounds sketchy at best. I guess it's because there's a certain dearth of Thai names that resemble the name "Joe." I did a quick search on some shady looking baby-naming site, and after wading through the pop-up-a-looza that came up (don't ask why my work doesn't have a blocker for that), that closest thing I could find was the name Chao-Fa, which means "crowned prince." Hmm, Trader Chao-Fa ... that's a pretty cool name I'd be down with. Sounds a heckuva lot better than "Thai Joe," and it's a closer match than that Trader Ming character. What the name Thai Joe conjures up for me is, imagine there's a new kid in school, second grade or so, Thai, with a nearly impossible name to pronounce. Trying to be friendly, he says, "Call me Joe," but there's already five or six other kids in the class named Joe or Joey, so to differentiate him from every one else, one somewhat-culturally aware-yet-snotfaced punk dubs him "Thai Joe." Umm, well, yeah, that might just be me.

Anyways, for a debut (for me at least) product, Thai Joe's Coconut Curry Chicken Stix are pretty fantastic. They're typical spring roll sized and shaped, and even though we baked ours, the stix remained pretty crispy, flaky, and texturally appropriate. I'd imagine they'd be even better Fry-Daddied up, but that's too much temptation for too many bad things for us. The insides are just as good if not better than the wrapper. I've had the misfortune of having some food court-variety spring rolls with mushy yard work posing as vegetable matter inside them, and while these guys are somewhat sparing cabbage-wise, what's in there was firm and tasty. Mostly, it's white-meat chicken inside, diced in little chunks, and insanely good. Flavor-wise, the overriding taste is actually lemony (there's lemongrass in there as both a main ingredient and an ingredient in the curry sauce), but it's kept well in check with the coconutty undertones and overall flavor. If you're a spice-adverse sissy, you're be glad to know these barely register a one on a scale to ten. I personally would have preferred a little more spice, as good Thai cuisine is so talented at being hot without sacrificing the other flavors of the dish, but even so, they're pretty delectable.

However, like any rookie, Thai Joe made a mistake. Fortunately, it's completely fixable. On the box, he shows a small bowl of awesome looking peanut-and-something-else sauce. Other TJ products actually have a little sauce packet in them, or at least give you a recipe on the package for a suitable sauce. Not these. No bonus packet, and their instructions simply say to "enjoy with your favorite sauce" (or something to that effect). Well, in my household, that means Red Devil, Frank's Red Hot, barbecue sauce, and (for Sandy) ranch dressing (I think, it depends on the week). For some crazy reason, I don't think any of those would be right, and I'm ignorant enough to not know what might work best. I mean, you gave me an easy recipe for dipping sauce on your cilantro chicken wontons that was the bomb ... I don't think asking for a little help here is too much. Also, "stix"? Really? Call them what they are, spring rolls, and not some stupid made-up name. Stix? Sounds too much like that crappy band to me.

Though they'd be optimal for pregaming a Thai feast, Sandy and I baked the whole box up for lunch over the weekend. With some chips and salsa (we were in a multi-cultural mood), it made a great, light meal that I'm already craving to have again. Due to its immigrant heritage, Pittsburgh, where we live, is blessed with a plethora of amazing, locally owned ethnic restaurants, especially Thai ones like Smiling Banana Leaf. These rolls are good enough to pass themselves off as an appetizer at any of them, and at a fraction of the cost, too. That being said, support your locally owned restaurants, but pick these guys up too.

Sandy gives the springy stix a solid four as they made some pretty happy chomping for her. "Mmmmmm" is pretty much what she said. I agree. If Thai Joe shares any secret sauce goodness with us (packet or recipe), I can easily see this ranking climb even higher.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Ming's Szechuan Style Spicy Beef & Broccoli

When we lived in Hollyweird, California, there was this little hole-in-the-wall joint people referred to as "Dollar Chinese," because back in the day, you could get any entree for $1. Then they changed the name and management like 8 times in 5 years, and prices gradually rose above the $1 mark, and recently they went above $2 per item I think...but you could always get obscenely cheap Chinese food there. For a while it was "Hong Kong Express" and then it was "Shanghai Surprise" or something (Surprise! There's cat-meat in your eggroll!) and finally "Great Wall Express."

When it comes to cheap Chinese food, for some reason orange chicken is the only dish that people can routinely get right. The orange chicken at Dollar Chinese was indeed palatable. However, if you chose anything else, it was generally understood you were taking your life into your own hands. The next-safest entree was considered to be broccoli-beef. At Dollar Chinese, for me anyway, it was a little too daring...I only tried it once and learned my lesson fast.

At a place like Panda Express, they can make a decent broccoli-beef, but I still think their orange chicken will beat it every time.

All that to say, I haven't had many broccoli-beef dishes in my day, and the ones I have had probably weren't the greatest representations of the dish, but I must say that Trader Joe's Beef & Broccoli is most definitely the best I have had so far. The sauce was amazing, spicy, and tangy. (Sonia actually thought the sauce was a bit too tangy). There were plenty of big, healthy pieces of broccoli, and overall, I was pleased with the beef. There were just a few pieces that were way too big. These huge, monstrous beef chunks wound up slightly unevenly cooked. But I'm probably nit-picking again. In general, the beef was crispy and well-done. I don't recall the other broccoli-beef dishes I've tried containing breaded beef, but TJ's brand was covered in a sort of thin batter not unlike the coating on the orange-chicken. I liked it, though.

We served it with Trader Joe's Brown Rice, which is always good, by the way. Sonia gives the dish a 4.5 out of 5. I give it 4.5 out of 5, as well. Bottom line: 9 out of 10.

Trader Joe-San's Green Beans

There are some things that, when it comes down to it, I really don't quite get. For example:

- Justin Bieber's hair cut
- Why some comment trollers think it's a good use of time to argue about politics on every news article. I don't understand what the Westminster Dog Show has to do with what's going on in the Middle East. At the end of the day, you've accomplished what, exactly?
- The fact that Sandy grew up right outside of Pittsburgh and she doesn't care about the Steelers or Penguins one iota, I grew up just outside of Philadelphia and was raised (and still am) a die-hard Phillies fan, yet we're so excited for the Pirates' home opener we both took the day off from work to go.
- Why every Jack Johnson song sounds the same but is yet so good,
- Any math problem more complicated than "3x + 1 = 7."

And I guess I don't get these Trader Joe-San Green Beans either.

Don't make the mistake of thinking these are some sort of fresh vegetable product. The fact they're in the snack aisle should be a pretty good clue that they aren't. They certainly resemble green beans in appearance (except they're lightly dusted with some indiscernible junk), and they taste a fair amount like a green bean (again, except for whatever they coat these guys with, it's not salt). But the end product just isn't so good. Take a good hearty crunch to taste for yourself.

I'm not too texture-adverse when it comes to most foods, but these kinda weird me out. The only kind of parallel I can think of is, imagine sitting down, getting to ready to eat something that resembles a delectable-looking ribeye, only when you take a bite it tastes like steak but is made of Jello. They're that disorienting for me. Green beans are supposed to be firm yet a little soft, a little juicy, fleshy, and just good. They certainly aren't supposed to mummified, crispy shells of themselves like these are. To get them this way, apparently they get fried up in canola oil ... I don't really get how it works. Some of them seem to be fried up a little differently than others, so when you bite down, they can seem a little sandy or quartzy on the inside, which is not good at all. Others seem to not be fried as much, so the insides seem lighter and crisper, which make them semi-passable. But overall, they're inconsistent and discombobulating to my palate, and really don't seem to be a viable snack option on a regular basis to me.

Sandy doesn't like them all that much either, though the texture thing doesn't seem to bother her as much, which if you know her, that's an amazing statement to make. It's more the taste that gets to her - "I've had better," she said. "I don't know how to say it, except the other ones had more flavor." I'm presuming that means some saltiness to them, which these pretty much lack. I really can't figure out what the semi-greasy semi-dusty coating they put is supposed to add to the flavor. Anyways, Sandy gives them a two, and she has a little more faith in them than I do, because I can't justify giving them more than a one. I'd be surprised if we pick them up again.

Bottom line: 3 out of 10

Trader Ming's General Tsao Stir Fry Sauce

There are nights, usually Fridays but not always, when Sandy and I simply look at each other because we're so hungry and feel like making next to no effort to get dinner made. For these times, there are four main options: a) popcorn b) freezer pizza c) pizza from the neighborhood shop, Eddie's Pizza Haus or d) China Lin delivery. A lot of those times, we choose China Lin. Popcorn isn't much of a dinner, we'd have to run out of the house for either pizza choice, and Chinese food is just good. I just love the idea of being able to make a phone call and have whatever kind of food delivered right to your door. It's not quite the food replicators from Star Trek, but, you know, it's about as close as we can get. It's always kinda awkward ordering from there, from having to repeat your order a couple times over the yelling lady taking it, to it being delivered half of the time by a ten year old kid. I'm always amazed that they always have it to us within twenty minutes, even though it takes half an hour to get to our place from anywhere because of all the stop signs in the neighborhood (if you're familiar with Morningside, you know exactly what I mean). Anyways, I almost always without fail order the General Tso's Chicken, just because it's so darn good. I've had one or two other things from there, and they seem a little sketchy, but the General Tso's always delivers.

Anyways, my sister got Sandy and I a Trader Joe's cookbook for Christmas this past year, and as we skimmed through it one night, we saw a recipe for General Tsao's Chicken Lettuce Wraps. Until this point, we were somehow completely ignorant of the fact that Trader Joe's Asian accomplice Trader Ming had some of the General's stir fry sauce, because I know we would have picked it up before if we were aware of its existence. This immediately became a must-buy for the next trip.

I tell you what: we had high hopes for it, and it did not disappoint one bit. The sauce itself is a good, rich, goopy concoction (think barbecue sauce for its composure) that had every bit of flavor that I have come to love and know from General Tso chicken. It starts with the sweet and tangy but a good level of spiciness kicks in to give it a good, full bodied taste. The one aspect of flavor that really stood out to me was a combination of garlic and red pepper that gave off a lot of heat and flavor without overpowering the rest. Fantastic stuff. We mixed it in with some chicken I pan-fried up then shredded, wrapped in some lettuce leaves, and served with rice. It was so good Sandy and I started pouring and mixing in with our rice, and before we knew it, we kicked the whole bottle. It was so good I couldn't help but scrape out what I could with my finger just to savor the flavor a little bit longer.

On our subsequent shopping visit, Sandy just picked it up and put it in the cart when I was probably sneaking as many free samples at the sample counter as I could, and didn't even know we got it until I began putting stuff away at home. As soon as I saw it grasped in my hand, my first thought was "Good call, wifey." Sure, it takes a little bit more effort to make something than to just call someone help to bring it right to you, but for the $3 (or cheaper) for the sauce that's right on par with the best that delivery can offer, it's worth it to spend the twenty minutes over a stove instead of stalking old high school friends on Facebook while waiting for Short Round to knock on your door. Because of this great discovery, I'd imagine we'll be ordering out less for Chinese food, especially since two dinners plus tip easily runs at least $20 if not more. Trader Ming, thank you for bringing this into our lives.

Sandy rates this stuff a strong and vibrant five. Her only complaint, as with anything truly good, was there wasn't more. I rate it almost as high, but can't quite give it a five for two reasons. First, I'm going to miss the free Tupperware that comes with delivery. Second, I've always seen it spelled as General Tso, this stuff is spelled as General Tsao, so I'm a little confused as to which one is actually correct (or if either one is, or if they both are ... I get confused easily). But I think despite these slight misgivings, I will enjoy it immensely, and I'm already looking to our next knockoff Chinese feast, so a four and a half rings true to me.

Bottom line: 9.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons