Trader Joe's Chocolate Lava Gnocchi

Gnoccolate. C'mon, man. You missed a golden opportunity to create a beautiful new word, Trader Joe. 

In keeping with this week's chocolate theme so far, it's time to take a look at something many of you already have an opinion of: Trader Joe's Chocolate Lava Gnocchi. We were unable to obtain them last year, so since Sonia and I haven't had much luck scoring this year's newest products in a timely fashion, we'll be sharing our opinions on this formerly buzzworthy product making its sophomore appearance in Jolly Old Saint Joe's frozen section, just in case you're still sitting on the fence about making the $2.99 purchase or not.

It's not the first time we've seen Trader Joe's choc-ify something that's not traditionally chocolatey or desserty. I wasn't particularly impressed with last year's chocolate hummus, but all four of us on the team appreciated the chocolate raspberry tamales in the happy golden days of yore. Do they still sell them? Didn't see them on our last run. Oh well. They should if they don't.

In my opinion, these chocolate lava gnocchi fall squarely in between the two aforementioned choc-ified concoctions. They're not the sweet, rich, indulgent desserts I was hoping for, nor are they a wholesome savory dinner item, either. They're basically chocolate-flavored potato balls. If that sounds good to you, then you might love 'em.

But you also might hate 'em. They're starchy. Like very starchy. Potato is about the most starchy substance I can think of. And then whoever formulated this product was like, "Hey it's not starchy enough with just potato puree. Let's add some rice starch and more potato starch. Then Starchy Joe's Starchy Starch Balls with Starch and Chocolate will be complete!"

I mean, they do taste like chocolate. But like I said before, it's not the rich sweet flavor I was hoping for. A little whipped cream goes a long way in terms of sending these gnocchi in the indulgent dessert direction, but doesn't make them entirely delectable. As far as "lava" is concerned, there's not much. No need to evacuate the town at the bottom of Mount St. Gnoccolate. There's a mild wetness you can see in the center of a piece cut in half on the right side of the pic I took, but even that gets sucked right back into the starchy void before it can really liquefy completely and flow freely. So the lava factor was disappointing. 

Also, they look like fresh reindeer droppings.

We'll have no problem finishing the bag today. We had most of them for breakfast. Is that weird? But we probably won't re-purchase. Three stars a piece.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar

In the spirit of the season, we'll be making a list and checkin' it twice:

Trader Joe's. Check. 

Candy cane. Yes. 

Joe-Joe's. Yup.

Dark chocolate. Texas sized 10-4. 

A chocolate bar with a name like Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar should be fun, festive, seasonal, joy inducing. A cure for what ails ya. It should be a little snippet of merriment, a little piece of contentment, a little bite of something good in a world gone mad. I mean, it's a candy bar, but really, can you blame anyone for pinning at least a little hopes of something positive on it. 

Hate to sound grinchy, but that's a bit too much for this chocolate bar. It's simply just okay, kinda good but certainly not great. Let's run through that list again and see what's naughty and nice. 

Trader Joe's - on the nice list! Really, did you expect anything different?

Candy cane. Oh there's plenty of candy cane, and it's very candy cane-y. That's a good thing. The "generously topped with crushed peppermint" is a bit of an oversell - I prefer the underpromise/overdeliver model of satisfaction personally - but there's plenty enough little candy cane shard that get all up in there and in tooth crevices and whatnot to make the bar plenty candy-cane'd up. Nice and minty and everything. No issue.

Joe-Joe's. Well, okay, here's where things start going sideways. For the uninitiated, Joe-Joe's are TJ's version of Oreos. They're rather ridiculously tasty, and featured plenty this time of year in all sorts of festive offerings. But here? It's literally just cookie crumbs from the Joe-Joe's table. There's not a lot of them, and the ones present are rather small. This could be forgiven if Joe-Joe's creme filling were somehow incorporated (like a little reservoir in the bar itself?) but nope. The cookie essence is completely lost as the cookie crumbs aren't prominent enough in either size or taste to stand out at all. It just feels like another small crunchy bit that could be attributed to a candy cane instead. Not enough in my book. 

Dark chocolate; The usual goodness here. As usual, i could do darker but no complaints. 

There ya have it. For a $1.99 you could do better for sure, and while these won't ruin your day, if your kid ends up snatching the whole thing to use for shingles for a gingerbread house you shouldn't be heartbroken either. Middling score here all around with a double 3. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons. 

 

 

Trader Joe's Nog Protein Beverage Smoothie

If you have high expectations of anything in life, be prepared to be let down. That goes for food, beverages, movies, tv shows, sports, jobs, friends, family, politicians, government, blog posts—in other words, just about anything.

On the other hand, if you go through life expecting very little, things will either turn out the way you thought they would, or you'll be pleasantly surprised. Sure, there are those who will tell you that you'll manifest a negative outcome if you envision a negative outcome from the beginning. So I've been getting good at the mental gymnastics involved with that whole "hope for the best but prepare for the worst" philosophy.

In short, I had very low expectations for this beverage. But I was hoping I was wrong.

And I was. It's actually surprisingly tasty in my opinion. It's very much akin to a "lite" or "reduced calorie" eggnog by my estimation, flavor-wise, but with a better spice mix and background flavors. It's much thinner than regular nog, by virtue of reduced fat milk and nonfat milk in the beverage. I was almost surprised to see they do use egg yolks in there, too. There are other noggy ingredients like vanilla and nutmeg, as well as typical protein shake ingredients like whey protein concentrate and soy protein isolate. Fortunately, I feel like the nog flavors outweigh the protein ones in this mixture.

The texture is remarkably smooth, with very little of the grit or chalkiness typically found in protein shakes. It's even smoother than the pumpkin spice version we saw a couple months ago. Speaking of the PS version, Sonia's immediate reaction to this smoothie was, "Whoa I like the pumpkin one way better!" We'll have to agree to disagree, my love. She thinks this one tastes too much like bubblegum. It does have that faint bubblegum-ish aftertaste that many eggnogs and eggnog derivatives bear.

While I'd never buy this eggnog solely for its flavor, I'd take it over any other reduced calorie or diet eggnog I've ever tried, and I have to say I like it better than Trader Joe's Almond Nog, though this one is most definitely not dairy-free or vegan. It's one of the most palatable protein shakes I've ever had, though I must throw out the disclaimer that I'm not a fan of them in general.

This gets three and a half stars from me. I'll happily finish the bottle since the wifey did me a solid and polished off the pumpkin one. Since it has a good amount of protein and significantly less fat than regular eggnog, Sonia will be nice and show her holiday spirit and give it three stars.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.