I think of ricotta as kind of a sweet cheese, in that same category as cream cheese almost—like you could enhance quite a few different desserts with it. But it's honestly quite versatile. It's not only great with pastries and pancakes, but it's also outstanding with just about any kind of pasta or bread-based dish. I mean, I guess that's pretty obvious since it's widely used in lasagna recipes, and I'm pretty sure I've known that for a long time, but it never really registered in my foodie-hack brain until now.
Sonia whipped up a spinach and cheese pasta meal with Trader Joe's Traditional Whole Milk Ricotta Cheese, pictured above. I forget all the yummy things she used, but man, it was scrumptious. This cheese was the key ingredient. It was tangy, savory, salty, and sweet. I'll definitely be requesting that one again.
I couldn't get the ingredients in the same shot as the nutrition info, but since there are only four of them I can just type them out for you easily enough: whey, milk, acetic acid, and salt. I guess that's pretty standard..? I'm sure most of our readers know more about ricotta cheese than I do...so why am I the one reviewing it, again? Ah, yes. You find my buffoonery amusing.
$3.99 for the 16 oz tub. That's a decent value in my book, and it's a tasty cheese for sure. Double fours from Sonia and me for Trader Joe's Ricotta Cheese.
No Indian meal is complete without a bunch of naan bread. Man, I could eat that stuff every day. I remember falling in love with the naan at my favorite Indian restaurant back in Los Angeles, Anarkali. Since most Indian restaurants pale in comparison to that place, and also because we don't eat out that much any more, we often pick up naan from Trader Joe's or other grocery stores to go along with our room temperature, pantry style Indian meals or frozen microwave ones.
The biggest problem with naan that I can think of is that it doesn't keep very long, just like regular white bread. It molds in a week or so, unfortunately. Hmmm.
If only they could turn naan into crackers that last a year or so...and voila. Trader Joe's Organic Garlic Naan Crackers are here. I'm not saying TJ's invented naan crackers, but these are the first ones I've ever seen, so naturally I picked up a box. Garlic flavor. Yum.
And it's kinda uncanny how much these little guys actually taste like naan bread. I'm not even sure how they did it. They captured the unique bready flavor of naan in a crispy cracker format. The garlic flavor is there, too, but as I might have predicted, I want MOAR GARLIC.
It's a nice, savory flavor, but it's not very pungent. I guess that's so you can pair the crackers with Indian food or soup or any kind of dip without worrying about the cracker clashing or trying to steal the show. These crackers flaunt a subtle flavor. I think they could have amped up the allium and made these a very tasty stand-alone snack. As is, they're optimized for dipping, crumbling, and scooping. They go GREAT with hummus.
$3.79 for the 9 serving box. Kosher. Organic. Would buy again. Four stars from me. Four and a half from Sonia for Trader Joe's Garlic Naan Crackers.
Nate's Notes: This review was originally posted 2/5/21 but Sonia and I decided for no particular reason that it needed a video companion, embedded below. Thanks for reading/watching.
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When looking forward to something with great amounts of anticipation, there are varying degrees of severity of the phrase "not impressed" once you get to experience said something, right?
On one hand, the latest season of Letterkenny? Never watched it or never even heard of it? Change that this weekend, start at season 1, and go. I'd recommend skipping the third episode (named, uh, "Fartbook') as it's a bit hit or miss with newbies. Season 9 of the series debuted on Christmas after a few months of delays...my lovely bride and I binged the whole season in one night...and were left kinda disappointed. It just didn't have the same feel or cleared the same hurdles that previous seasons lifted the bar so high for. Still ok...but not that great. I hope in time appreciation will grow for it, but now, just a simple "not impressed" will do.
The other extreme may be most of 2020. Maybe the appreciation will grow in time...lots of time...but yeah. That's a pretty emphatic NOT IMPRESSED.
So where do Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Drizzled Plantain Chips fall on this spectrum?
Yup, we looked forward to them with great anticipation. Plantains are good and dark chocolate is great, right? Those are still undeniable truths. Yet here, in this iteration, there's a bit of something lacking. Much like previous plantain chips, there's the soft, starchy, styrofoam comfort feel to the actual chips themselves. It's an experience we know well and it works. Except...maybe not for sweet-tilting indulgent treats? It kinda feels and tastes, well, not wrong but not right either. That's not it's fault, it's a plantain and by now inanimate.
As usual, no real issues with the dark chocolate. It's on point and delivers once again, as expected.
Maybe it's because we somehow expected or craved something more akin to a chocolate covered potato chip that we're left a little not impressed here. Or heck, like our recently rediscovered love of plantain crisps? Yes please! Like...we knew it wasn't gonna be but wanted it anyways. I will say the overall taste is good, and has some promises, and perhaps like the latest season of Letterkenny appreciation will grow in time, but right now, neither my lovely bride nor I are really all that impressed.
Maybe we're wrong - it happens, a lot - and we let poor expectation management override sound judgement.
Bags cost a few bucks each - maybe three - and it'll take a few days to finish the spare we have. Our kids like them and their diminutive size (the chips, not the kids) make them a reasonably good snack treat. I was handing them out like literal candy to them the other day. So I'll bump them a grade for that at least. Doing right for kids goes a long way in my book. Still not impressed, though.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Drizzled Plantain Chips: 5 out of 10 Golden Spoons.
Though we may have been slightly more lenient with our scoring, Sonia and I more or less came to the same conclusion: Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.
Sonia's love of madeleines goes back to her days as a Starbucks barista. She'd snack on their mad cookies as she sipped some free-to-her yet otherwise overpriced coffee on breaks. She's been addicted to madeleine cookies ever since, and she's sold me on 'em, too.
We've reviewed at least two other varieties here on this blog. Despite not having any severe gluten intolerants among us, we've sampled dozens of gluten free cookies, pastries, and snacks over the years, and I'd say more than half got a basic thumbs up from our team if not enthusiastic accolades.
So we both had high hopes for Trader Joe's Gluten Free Madeleine Cookies. Let's be positive and focus on what's working, first. They're individually-packaged. It might be a waste of material and probably not very green, but all six of the cookies are wrapped separately in a small cellophane bag. It helps keep them fresher longer. You're not going to eat all six in one sitting unless you've got a big family. There's a pleasant amount of moisture to the cookies. They are lightly sweet and taste somewhat similar to traditional madeleines.
What's not working? These cookies aren't dry, but they're not particularly buttery. You could call them "oily" I guess. But they're not smooth or creamy like traditional madeleines. The flavor suffers for want of butter, too. They lack the sponginess of glutenful mads and instead come off as grainy or even gritty in a slightly unpleasant way. The main ingredients are egg, sunflower oil, sugar, and rice flour. It's an odd mouthfeel, and the flavor just lacks that certain something that makes other madeleine cookies special.
$3.49 for six individually-wrapped cookies. Would not buy again. Two and a half stars from me. Three stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Gluten Free Madeleine Cookies.
A few thoughts about my expectations in regards to Trader Joe's Elderberry + Pomegranate Sparkling Apple Cider Vinegar Beverage: We've seen surprisingly tolerable apple cider vinegar beverages on this blog in the past, and we've seen plenty of pomegranate stuff we liked from Trader Joe's. So this beverage just has to be kinda decent, right?
Enter: the elderberry. I've never had an elderberry to the best of my knowledge. I really don't even know anything about elderberries, other than that line from Monty Python: "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"
That's not very promising if simply smelling of elderberries is a French insult. If they smell that bad, they can't taste very good. I mean, I wouldn't want to smell of elderberries...so maybe I should avoid this beverage altogether, no?
Shoot, I'll be brave. I'll just wait for a day when I'm not going into public—which, to be honest, is most days for me—and I'll bite the bullet and smell of elderberries if I must. I'll share with Sonia and we can smell of elderberries together.
First impressions? Wow, I was expecting it to pour a mostly-clear, slightly lavender type color, but it pours dark purple—almost like a shade you'd associate with blackberry or raspberry juice.
It doesn't mask the intense sourness of the ACV quite as well as lemon and ginger did. There's something decidedly berry-esque and also something vaguely pomegranate-y. It wants to be sweet, but the berry flavor can't overpower that mouth-puckering vinegar taste.
ACV still has a lot of health benefits, so I can't completely snub this product even though I think it tastes a little weird. It's still way more palatable than straight Bragg's or whatever.
I'm actually shocked at how much Sonia likes this product. She says it's her favorite ACV drink from Trader Joe's or anywhere else. I expected her to like it more than I did, but I wasn't expecting her to love it as much as she does.
$1.99 for the can. I'll stick to ginger lemon if I have to have ACV. Might try strawberry next. Three out of five stars from me. The beautiful wifey gives Trader Joe's Elderberry + Pomegranate Sparkling Apple Cider Vinegar Beverage four and a half stars out of five.
Chhurpi is the world's hardest cheese, chewed like gum and eaten by the people of the Himalaya region. Now TJ's has a crunchy version of this aged Himalayan cheese for your dog. Watch the video to see Alfred and Sadie's reaction to the unusual snacks.
Four paw prints from Alfred. Two paw prints from Sadie.
Half the time I review Trader Joe's brand cookies, I'm complaining: "Oh no, not more cookies." I mean, Sonia and I are constantly looking for items that have never been reviewed on this blog before, and virtually every time we do a TJ's run we're like, "Oh look, fifteen new varieties of cookies we can review."
I mean, you don't have to hold a gun to my head to get me to eat cookies, but man, it takes something super impressive to get me excited about them these days. I don't mean to be a Downer Dan, but most Trader Joe's brand cookie reviews on this blog are lackluster at best.
Unfortunately, that will be the case with Trader Joe's Chocolate Chunk Cookies. At least give them an exciting name: Trader Joe's Chunkolate Cookies. Can't go wrong with a portmanteau. Or throw a tagline on the bag: "Trader Joe's Chunky Cookies ARE chunky, and they'll MAKE YOU chunky, too!"
But what we have here are very standard chocolate chip cookies with slightly larger-than-normal pieces of chocolate. These aren't the first "chocolate chunk" cookies I've had, and they're definitely not the best. I guess it's kinda neat when you get a bite with a bunch of chocolate, but honestly, I wouldn't even say there's more chocolate in each of these cookies than an average chocolate chip cookie. The chocolate is just concentrated into one or two "chunks" rather than half a dozen "chips."
The bread part is so-so. Truly nothing original or Trader Joe's-esque is going on here. I'm on the record saying I like soft and chewy cookies better than crispy ones, but man, these are just boring. Throw in some coffee, mango, or ube next time, TJ's. We'll finish the bag but we won't buy again.
$4.49 for 8 cookies, found by the other baked goods. I guess the cookies are fairly large, but I still think that's a bit too much money for what you're getting. Two and a half stars from me. Three and a half stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
It occurred to me that in addition to some political motives, there may be some copyright issues with using the term "Moscow Mule" on the packaging of this vodka, lime, and ginger-based mixed drink. A quick search on the interzones will reveal that at least at one point, the term was indeed a trademark of some entity called "Perfect Beverage."
Although, now it would seem numerous other beverage companies do, in fact, use the term "Moscow Mule" on their pre-mixed, often canned, vodka-ginger-lime offerings, while others go the safer route, using the term "Vodka Mule." Whatever their motives were in regards to the name, Trader Joe's has opted for fun flamingo pool floaty graphics while avoiding mules, Russians, and copper mug imagery altogether. Such a lighthearted theme—worlds apart from the WW3 nuclear destruction cover art I'd have suggested were I the packaging designer.
That's probably why I'm not a packaging designer.
Sonia and I have made a couple of our own Moscow Mules over the years, usually employing the gingerrific zip of Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Brew along with vodka and fresh-squeezed limes. We liked them enough that we even bought a couple of copper mugs. I still don't get why you have to have a copper mug to drink one of these. Some say it's about temperature, others say the metal oxidizes and releases pleasant fragrances, yet still more say it's simply about presentation.
Well, friends, copper mug or not, Trader Joe's Vodka Mules are definitely not the best Moscow Mules I've ever had. They are 10% alcohol by volume, and they're only mildly sweet and limey. There's really not even enough ginger flavor, although Sonia disagrees. There's such relatively little taste, you'd think: well all the rest must be vodka...but vodka's generally in the ballpark of 40% ABV. So at most maybe a quarter of the beverage is vodka, right?
The beverage pours perfectly clear and fizzy like your typical lemon-lime soda or what have you. At least they got the carbonation level right. No complaints there.
Plus it's convenient to have them all mixed beforehand and simply pop the top and drink. But I've definitely made much better mules myself, and I'm far from a pro mixologist. Meh. We can always doctor them up ourselves: add more lime, more ginger, more sweetness.
About $11 for four 12 oz cans. I wouldn't buy again. Two out of five stars from me. Three and a half out of five stars from the beautiful wifey for Trader Joe's Vodka Mule.
It's time for another pet treat video review. Alfred and Sadie would love it if you hit the like button on the video, and they'd be super appreciative if you subscribed to our YouTube channel if you haven't already.
Thanks for watching!
Three and a half paw prints a piece from Alfred and Sadie for Trader Joe's Crab Paws.
Sometimes I wonder if the people who come up with these products aren't, you know, like really high when they think of ideas for new items. Truth be told, I've never smoked weed. Absolutely no judgment if you do. Honestly, I think I'd do pretty well with the stoner crowd. Those folks seem nice and chill.
I've never even had edibles. I mean, there was this one time in college when I was at a party, and I was super hungry, and this pan full of fresh-baked brownies appeared on the coffee table in the living room. I grabbed a couple because my blood sugar was very low and I absolutely inhaled them. I started feeling really funny after that. I never figured out if it was just like a huge blood sugar spike or if they were "special brownies." Guess I'll never know for sure.
So you can probably see where I'm going with this. If you've got a hardcore case of the munchies, chocolate-covered Fritos, Lay's, and Rold Golds probably sound not just edible, but incredible. When you're stone cold sober, maybe...not as much?
So I did an experiment. I had a couple shots of gin as an aperitif while Sonia sipped on wine, and sure enough, these weird, crunchy, chocolatey concoctions suddenly sounded not only eatable but downright enticing. I didn't finish the bag, but I made a dent in it for sure. Sonia was still not quite sold even after a nice glass of red—and I mean, red wine and chocolate go together better than gin and chocolate...
$3.99 for the bag. Three out of five stars from the beautiful wifey. Three and a half stars from me for Trader Joe's Munchies Clusters...er, sorry, Snacky Clusters.
It's funny how many Americans don't think of noodles as top-shelf, sought-after dinner fare. I know my personal bias thinks of cheap Maruchan or Top Ramen from the good old college days. They were in the ballpark of 20¢ a pack back then, and most of us that ate them did so out of necessity rather than choice. But considering the cost, the noodles weren't terrible, and the powder packets not only turned a cup of water into a savory flavored broth, but they delivered nearly a whole day's worth of sodium, too. I still eat that stuff from time to time, but as far as noodles go, it's what most of us are familiar with, and sadly, it's the bottom of the barrel.
Asian cultures on the other hand, hold noodle dishes in high esteem. Japan's ramen scene, in particular, is fascinating to Sonia and me. If you don't know what we're talking about, check out The Ramen Girl for your next romantic movie night. We've been to a couple decent ramen restaurants, too, here in the states, which Sonia is a huge fan of.
These noodles are Trader Joe's take on Momofuku and are indeed squiggly, soft, and slightly chewy. I found the texture more palatable when cooked for just a bit longer than the four minutes mentioned in the heating instructions. They contain a significant amount of sodium, as well, boasting 920 mg per serving, probably mostly from the sesame and soy sauce packet.
The sauce is just barely enough to thinly coat the noodles in each pack. When munching on the noodles alone, we both wanted a lot more of the sesame and soy sauce combo. It's pretty much just salty like soy sauce with a faint whisper of sweet from the sesame. If you were going to prepare a big fancy dish with veggies and meat along with these noodles, the sauce could easily be substituted with something else or forgotten about entirely. But as a stand-alone dish, the noodles are fairly dependent upon the sauce for flavor.
As a base for a larger, more elaborate meal, we both think these would be great. As a snack in and of themselves, these packs aren't exactly stellar. The noodles are high-quality enough, but nobody wants to eat plain noodles, and the sauce just doesn't do enough by itself. There's not even a broth for these noodles to bathe in.
$4.99 for four packs of squiggly noodles. We probably wouldn't buy these again unless we had a very specific recipe we were going to follow. As stated above, I'm sure these would make an excellent base for a big Asian meal, but we tend to score things on what they are and not what they could potentially be. Three out of five stars from me. Three and a half stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Squiggly Noodles.
I neglected to post the nutrition information in the video review, so I'll post it here. And just so you're not looking at a weird skinny vertical pic in the middle of a white screen, I shall let this post serve as Ube Central, and it will contain all ube related links from our blog.
Man, when TJ's latches on to an idea, they really run with it. It was once referred to as "Purplepotatopalooza" by Mr. Shelly. I like that.
Maybe I'm just getting used to it, but I feel like each time I have a gluten free muffin from Trader Joe's, the texture gets closer to normal wheat-based muffins. I honestly have to say that texture-wise, these muffins beat last week's non-gluten-free coffee cake hands down.
The flavor's nothing to complain about either. There's a good bit of strawberry taste all throughout these bready breakfast bites. There are bits of real strawberry, too. The only thing I can think of that would improve these muffins would be more and larger chunks of strawberry.
Sonia absolutely raved about them. I thought she was going to try to sneak three out of the four muffins for herself she was so enthusiastic. But no, she was nice and left me my fair share.
Truth be told, I didn't even eat both my muffins before the best by date. Honestly though, they still tasted remarkably fresh. We'd buy these again.
$5.99 for four big, filling gluten free muffins. Folks with wheat allergies, celiac, or Crohn's disease, rejoice. Put these on your grocery list for sure. Put me down for a solid four out of five stars. The beautiful wifey will go with four and a half on Trader Joe's Gluten Free Strawberry Muffins.
Sonia and I got to talking about licorice the other day. It's odd that seemingly everybody in our parents' generation was somehow into black licorice—like it reminded them of their childhood or something. I'm not a huge fan of black licorice, but I'll nibble on it once in a while. I'll save the licorice flavored jelly beans for last, but I'll eventually eat them. The beautiful wifey, on the other hand, HATES black licorice.
We're both cool with fruit flavored licorice, though. In my teens in Pennsylvania, I'd go through a pack of strawberry Twizzlers during the course of a two hour movie at the theater—generally only if they were sold out of Starburst. As a youthful California girl, Sonia would occasionally partake of Red Vines.
These aren't the first soft licorice candies we've seen from Trader Joe's over the years. See: Black, Strawberry, and Berry flavors. Here we have raspberry, mango, and green apple for your snacking pleasure. So...how are they?
They feel like typical licorice—firmer than gummy candy, but still soft—less chewy than taffy, but still pliable. These licorice pieces seem oddly thick to me. They're easily two or three times the diameter of a Twizzler but not as long.
Taste-wise, I was hoping they'd be a little bolder. The mango flavor is probably the strongest of the three. I was also hoping the green apple would be a little more tart. Sour apple is always a winning candy flavor in my book.
I almost feel like I can taste the wheat flour and glycerin as much as the fruit flavor. I mean, the flavors are good, they're just not strong enough. Sonia and I both want a sour version of these with sour apple green, sour raspberry purple, and maybe a sour lemon yellow.
As it is, I think we'll throw out three and a half stars a piece for Trader Joe's Trio of Soft Licorice Twists. $2.49 for the 7 serving bag.
Mexicans and Mexican-Americans like my wife eat some unusual fare from time to time. They eat cow tongue (lengua) and cow stomach soup (menudo). They eat grasshoppers (chapulines) and cactus (nopal) among other things.
I've tried lengua tacos. Not a fan. It's a texture thing. While I've had more than one stomach dish in my day, I've never had proper menudo. I'd try it, although I haven't enjoyed eating any kind of stomach ever. Not that they're my snack of choice or anything, but grasshoppers fried in oil and dusted with chili powder are not nearly as disgusting as one might think. You vill eat ze bugs and be happy!
Nopales, on the other hand, I enjoy eating fairly regularly. Sonia makes a dish with eggs, nopales, onions, and hot sauce that's really yummy. So we were excited to see nopal cactus as an ingredient in Trader Joe's Vegetable & Cheese Enchiladas.
The dish is quite mushy—almost soupy. I wouldn't mind more veggie chunks in the mix. More corn, more nopales, more zucchini, more onions, more of almost everything.
Taste-wise, I'm fine with the cheese and sauce blend. It's tangy and tomatoey, with just a hint of spice. I would prefer significantly more heat.
Sonia actually thinks these are quite bland. She thinks Trader Joe's is replacing the classic black bean and corn enchiladas with these veggie and cheese ones, and she's not very happy about it. She wants more spice, more onion, and more garlic flavor here.
While I'm not blown away, I'm not super disappointed either. I'd prefer a bit more kick and a little something to sink my teeth into, but I can see why some people are digging these enchiladas. Sonia...not so much. She thinks the flavor is a flop and would have preferred a tangier Mexican cheese like cotija.
$2.99 for two enchiladas. Two and a half stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll throw out three and a half for Trader Joe's Vegetable & Cheese Enchiladas.
Truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of coffee. I'll drink it if it's the only caffeination option available, but I'm really more of an energy drink guy. Coffee cake, on the other hand? I like coffee cake quite a bit and resent the fact that it doesn't pair very well with Red Bull.
I've ranted before that I wish I had the innovative vision to invent the world's first energy drink dunkable. But maybe I should be thinking more about energy drink cake..? What would that be like? It wouldn't be very sweet, right?
As I compose this review, Sonia is musing about the fact that this coffee cake is made with sour cream. Maybe energy drink cake would be even heavier on the sour cream and the sweetness of the beverage could offset the sourness? Maybe it would be a little salty, too. I'd call it Wake-Up Bread. Any food scientists out there wanna take up the endeavor with me? We'll split the earnings 50/50 and take the world by storm.
I'm mostly kidding of course. The idea is a bit ridiculous. Most people will want to stick with familiar stuff, not unlike Trader Joe's Cinnamon Coffee Cake. It's pretty standard coffee cake by my estimation. It's a notch above anything you might get out of a vending machine, but it's not the best coffee cake I've ever had, either. It's not even really the best coffee cake we've seen from Trader Joe's. Still, it's cinnamony, sweet, and has a slightly crunchy top and soft bread down below.
Both Sonia and I found our cake a bit dry. Like not dry dry. But not moist either. We did consume the cake before the "best by" date, just in case you're wondering.
The overall flavor here was good, but nothing to write home about. It's possible we just got an off batch or for whatever reason they changed the freshness sticker at our TJ's location. Sonia and I are both thinking three and a half stars a piece for Trader Joe's Cinnamon Coffee Cake. $5.99 for the 8 serving loaf in the baked goods section.
As a lover of real fish, I'm coming into this one shaking my head, bracing myself for disappointment. A glance at the ingredients reveals this product is jackfruit-based. How can one fruit mimic barbecue pulled porkand fish fillets? It just doesn't seem possible.
There's air fryer heating instructions on the box. We'll go with that one. The air fryer seems to make everything taste better. 10 minutes at 400°F and we're in business.
The smell? Surprisingly, my nose doesn't detect much of anything after heating, in stark contrast to real fish fillets from the air fryer. I guess there's a hint of something akin to hot cooking oil, but that's about it.
Despite my instincts to slather Trader Joe's Plant-Based Fish Fillets with tartar sauce and slap them in between slices of bread and cheese, I think I'll just try them plain first to play it safe. First impressions? Surprisingly edible.
Using a fork to cut the fillets apart, the texture is somewhere between a normal fish fillet and a fried banana. The crispy coating is really nice. It's not very thick, but it does the job. Sonia likes that part the best.
Flavor-wise, they're not fishy at all, and I mean that in a good way. But at the same time, if you had to guess what meat they were trying to imitate, you'd all understand they were going for fish. Sonia said they vaguely reminded her of chicken empanadas. I can see that, too. You can faintly taste the king oyster mushrooms mentioned in the ingredients, and there's a nice savory blend of subtle spices.
I was really worried we had another meatless ground type situation on our hands, but that's not the case here. Not saying there aren't some folks out there who might find this product a little off-putting, but Sonia and I will easily polish off this box.
If you're vegan, gluten-free, or just looking to try something new, these aren't a bad option. $4.99 for three fake fish fillets. Three and a half stars from the beautiful wifey. Four stars from me for Trader Joe's Gluten Free Battered Plant-Based Fish Fillets.
Since it's almost 300 miles to the nearest White Castle, once in a blue moon, Sonia and I will pick up those frozen White Castle sliders that can be found in most grocery stores and dollar stores in our area. White Castle burgers aren't the best to begin with, but there's a novelty and uniqueness about them that's hard to replicate. And of course the frozen, non-restaurant sliders are just a little less delicious than the originals, but as far as cheap and easy comfort food goes, they aren't bad once in a great while.
I was wondering if Trader Joe's was going for a White Castle vibe with these Mini Cheeseburgers—if the popularity of White Castle's frozen offerings inspired TJ's to offer a similar product. After tasting these for the first time, I'd have to say "NO." Trader Joe's went top shelf in terms of quality meat, cheese, and bread. These burgers are larger than your typical frozen sliders and there's more meat, and everything is a notch higher in terms of quality.
The bread is actually sweet Hawaiian Aloha rolls. There's a small amount of ketchup and relish in a "sauce" mentioned in the ingredients. It's subtle. At first I couldn't even tell there was anything on the burger other than cheese, but the flavors all seemed balanced pretty well. I'm glad I didn't put on any extra condiments before trying the cheeseburger as is, because it honestly didn't need anything. Everything from the seasoning on the meat to the creaminess of the cheese was beyond my expectations.
$4.49 for three small burgers seemed kinda steep at first, but now that I see they're really not that tiny, I think it's a pretty decent value. I can't imagine even the biggest appetites not being satisfied by all three cheeseburgers. Would buy again.
Four stars from me. Four and a half stars from Sonia for Trader Joe's Mini Cheeseburgers.
Other than a few tiny sunnies, I think the only fish I ever caught was a trout. It was many years ago, so I don't remember with much accuracy, but I'm sure it was just barely over the minimum length requirement, whatever that was. I might have helped descale it, but I'm sure all the gutting and other preparations were done by someone older with a lot more fishing experience.
But I remember eating the trout I caught right there on the banks of the Juniata River, fresh off my cousin's grill. I was quite proud of myself, and I might have even received a few accolades from my dad and uncle for catching the fish, and that made the moment just a bit sweeter. But honestly, I don't remember the fish tasting very good at all.
Since then, I've had trout dishes from a few restaurants and can't say any of them have been memorable. So forgive me for being skeptical about Trader Joe's Smoked Trout Fillets. I mean, their tinned fish has been hit or miss in my book. Most recently, we looked at the Wild Caught Mackerel and were very pleasantly surprised, just as we received word that the product had already been discontinued as of the time we posted the review.
Fortunately, this product is still available and it, too, is shockingly good considering it's canned, shelf-stable for over three and a half years, and is trout, rather than something more expensive and exotic. It doesn't taste fishy in the least. The smoky flavor is perfect. It's not overbearing, nor does it taste fake like liquid smoke. It honestly tastes like this fish was cooked over a campfire.
$3.99 for a very reasonable amount of high-quality tinned fish. Packed in oil. No skin. No bones. Ready to eat right out of the container. We had it plain, on crackers, in a salad, and even mixed with cream cheese on a bagel in lieu of lox. I will absolutely purchase this product again. Perfect five stars from me for Trader Joe's Farm Raised Smoked Trout Fillets. Four and a half stars from the beautiful wifey.
