Trader Joe's Mango Mango Mochi

Just a little quickie here to jump start the week: TJ's Mango Mango Mochi. As if you haven't heard the word "mango" enough these past couple weeks, TJ's just had to squeak it into the title of this product not once, but TWICE. I guess it's because they use mango sorbet as well as mango jam filling. 

The jam doesn't really seem like a separate flavor to me at all—but it might add a hint of extra creaminess to the center of the mochi even when it's frozen solid. Otherwise, these are almost exactly like the Mango Mikawaya Mochi that Trader Joe's has carried for years. Now I'm not going to say this stuff is Mikawaya brand, because I couldn't tell you if that's the case for sure, but I will say that it's extremely similar in taste and texture. Actually, now that I think about it, Mikawaya is based in California and this product is imported from Thailand, according to the box. So...probably not Mikawaya.

This product has a great mango-esque flavor, but it is particularly sweet—which is totally fine by me, but then again, I do have a sweet tooth. Mochi and mango are generally a pretty good combo...well, okay, there was this one instance where they were a little goofy together. I'd probably still choose vanilla or strawberry flavor first, but by and large, mango and mochi are friends.

Mochi and mushroom, however...

Four stars from me. Sonia will go with three and a half.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Podcast Episode 26: Our Favorite Chips

Trader Joe’s vast chip aisle has the usual potato and tortilla chips, but also goes beyond those. In this episode we share our favorite crunchy chips.

View the show notes!

Listen to us on Google Play!

Music by Bensound!

Almondina Original Almond Biscuits

The good people at Almondina sent me a birthday present. It might have something to do with this fine blog we run here, but two packages of the low-fat cookies arrived in the mail about two weeks ago, and Sonia and I enjoyed them enough to allow them to join an extremely exclusive, elite group of non-Trader Joe's brand foods that have been reviewed here on our blog, including Espiral Vinho Verde Wine, Gum's the Word Sugar Free Gum, and Mikawaya Mochi Ice Cream. 

As was the case with the products in those previous posts, Almondina is widely available at Trader Joe's stores, although it's not sold exclusively there.

These thin, crunchy biscuits are clearly optimized for dunking in coffee, tea, milk, or what-have-you, but they also make a nice stand-alone snack. The texture is great. It's not unlike types of biscotti I've tried, but perhaps a little thinner and less rigid.

I'll be honest, the cookie part alone is decent, especially considering it's so low in fat, salt, and cholesterol, but it probably wouldn't have done it for me by itself. The true genius of these cookies is the way almonds and raisins are seamlessly woven into the fabric of the confection—in fact, almonds constitute a full 24% of the product, a fact that's easily believed just by visually inspecting the biscuits. The fruit, nut, and cookie elements blend together well and make for a highly versatile breakfast/snack/dunkable/dessert.

Sonia and I will both throw out solid fours for these tasty, low-guilt treats. "Really darn good" all the way.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Tropical Mango Complete Salad Kit

No spouting some good solid theology or practical wisdom gleaned from a freezer waffle today. No cow-on-highway video either. Simple, straight up review today. We can't always be that impressive.

It's tough to beat a fresh, cool, crisp salad for a good summertime dinner. And this being the Summer of All That is Mango at your local TJ's, it'd stand to reason that some sort of fruit/veggie mash-up just might be in the offering. And so it came to pass with Trader Joe's Tropical Mango Complete Salad Kit.

Like others in the bagged salad lineup, for $4.99, you get a huge bag full of the usual leafy greens  (mainly arugula, spinach and baby lettuce) with some thin straw-slips of broccoli and carrots mixed in. Some other stuff like red cabbage tossed in too. All of that is the usual TJ's salad base, and as one would expect, fresh, crisp, and provides ample body while not being too other-worldly. No complaints.

But that's not why we're here, is it? Oh no, not at all....what are the mix-ins!?!?!? And the dressing!!! That's what makes a salad fun, otherwise it's sad rabbit food. The mix-ins here include: cashew bits, toasted coconut chips, and, of course, dried mango chunks. The mango tasted of the slightly sweetened/candified lot, which added a slight air of artificiality, though not offensively. The real stand-out was the coconut (you can't label anything as "tropical" unless there's coconut involved, it's one the amendments, I think), though...for any and all of those crunchy bits, the salad rocked when there was some in  my bite, but there wasn't enough. Get to work, Big Joe.

 Oh but the dressing...I'm not a salad dressing guy, usually. But the mango tamarind on here? AMAZING. Seriously. As the name implies, it's tangy, sweet, spicy, and vibrant...just try it. It needs to be sold by the bottle, and I mean like right now. It's almost certainly the best salad dressing I've ever had, in recent memory at least, and any attempt to further describe it would be doing it a disservice.

It's a huge salad, easily enough to for a couple adults to share for dinner, especially if some grilled chicken got tossed in. I'm not sure, but maybe some sort of mild goat cheese would probably pair well with it, if only an excuse to find a good bottle of wine as well. Look at me sounding so pseudo-fancy about bagged salad. Go me! Anyways, no hiuge complaints from either Sandy or I except: more mix-ins! And more dressing!!! Double fours.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Tropical Mango Complete Salad Kit: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's "this mango walks into a bar..." Cereal Bars

This past weekend was pretty cool. We did lots of hiking, biking, and camping. It kicked off with my birthday on Friday. And I'm getting to the age where I'm supposed to hate my birthdays because they're reminders of how old I am. But I still like them because they're good excuses to eat lots of yummy foods. 

Then on Saturday, Russ took the foodie blogosphere to a whole new level with what is undoubtedly the most eloquent, inspiring review of frozen waffles in the history of mankind. It seems a shame to follow it up with this mundane look at cereal bars. But in the end, not every breakfast food review can be a transcendent, life-changing experience I suppose. 

Also, I took video of a cow on the freeway with my phone and it wound up on the evening news. Then Sunday was Father's Day and I spent it taking a walk with my dad and picnicking in a nearby park. Good times all around.

Through it all, I was snacking on these "this mango walks into a bar" bars. I like them at least as much as their predecessors. See: strawberry/blueberry (complete with terrible "walks into a bar" jokes) and pumpkin varieties.

Texture-wise, they're exactly like the other flavors. The cereal-esque coating looks and tastes exactly the same. It's moist, it's bready, and it does what it's supposed to do—holds the fruit filling right in the middle of the bar.

And as far as the fruit filling goes, I was pretty impressed. It tastes like mango, it's significantly sweet, and there's plenty of it. Sonia thinks they're "not bad" and gives them three and a half stars, adding that she quickly got bored of them after her initial pleasant reaction. I see where she's coming from, but I think they're better than "not bad" and have to throw out four stars here, as I have with all previous incarnations of "walks into a bar."

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Naturally Flavored Mango Waffles

Are we surprised by joy or by sorrow? The world in which we live wants to surprise us by sorrow. Newspapers keep telling us about traffic accidents, murders, conflicts between individuals, groups and nations, and the television fills our minds with images of hatred, violence, and destruction...But these surprises paralyze us and seduce us to an existence in which our main concern becomes survival in the midst of a sea of sorrows. By making us think about ourselves as survivors of a shipwreck, anxiously clinging to a piece of driftwood, we gradually accept the role of victims doomed by the cruel circumstances of our lives.

The great challenge of faith is to be surprised by joy.

                                                                 - Henri Nouwen, Here and Now

In case you can't tell by now...this is not going to be our typical kinda review right here.

And I know you don't need me to tell you this, nor is this what would normally be expected on an otherwise lighthearted blog, and you might have even came here for at least a momentary retreat from it all (diversion is one of our standard services)...but this past week or so has been especially punctuated by tragedy. Reading or watching the news has been akin to taking a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick right to the gut. Incredibly sad. Overwhelmingly awful. Impossible to grasp. And perhaps, most sadly, another chapter of tragedy in seemingly increasingly violent times.

It's so easy (and perhaps even, in a way, therapeutic) to point fingers and pontificate and ascribe theories and arguments in all the aftermath. Just flip on the TV or read the papers. Everyone's a pundit, every politician knows the real answer...and on and on with the news cycle, waiting for whatever is next so the past can be discarded as yesterday's headline. It's beyond tiring.

I'm not here to rehash all of that in any further detail - this is neither the space nor the forum. I really don't want to be just another voice out there getting lost in the cacophony of noise and opinion. So instead, I'm going to leave you with a plea, and to help make my point, I'm going to use Trader Joe's Naturally Flavored Mango Waffles.

Namely: Look for joy, and be willing to be surprised by it.

It's Father's Day weekend when I'm publishing this. To say I've been blessed by the gift of two loving, happy, healthy daughters is an understatement. Both M (almost 4, with the attitude of a 15 year old) and B (19 months, loves copying her big sister and making a huge mess) challenge me, provoke me, love me, and continually show me that I somehow have more patience than I thought I did while proving that I still don't have enough. Love them kiddos. Love everything about them. Particularly love having breakfast with them almost every morning before I have to scurry off to my cubicle for the day. It's my daily centering, my peace.

In turn, M and B love waffles.

Originally, I was going to try and "interview" them as "waffle experts" for this post. It was going to be soooooo cute. Problem is, B is only at the very beginning stages of mastering discernible English vocabulary and M, well...sometimes we tease her that we have to take her to the doctor to figure out what happened to all her words. If she doesn't want to talk, she won't. And she didn't want to talk waffles with Daddy. So, idea scrapped. Admittedly, I was pretty bummed.

But then...I saw their faces as they happily chomped into their mango waffles and clamored for more milk. Bright eyes. Biggest smiles. Bulging dimples. They were in the moment, and they were joyous.

I grabbed my waffle and bit into it. Typical plain freezer waffle with some slightly sweet mango pureed in. Nothing too special. But after all the recent and outside worries and inside day-to-day stress...I needed that joy. So dang it, I pretended that was the tastiest waffle I've ever had, and let out a big, goofy, happy "YUM!"

What followed: giggles, little voices letting out their own big, goofy YUMs, silly sound effects. In short, one of the happiest breakfasts a dad could ask for with his two young daughters. All three of us were in the moment, and it all seemed so...real.

One of the most glaring facts of life is, no matter how much precaution and safety we try to bubblewrap ourselves and our loved ones in, is that anything can be taken away from us at any time, without warning, and there's not a single damn thing any of us can do about it. Whether it's health or relationships or people or possession, it can all be gone so fast. It only seems unfair when it happens to us, but we all fall under this burden.

We can choose to be ignorant of this, to be paralyzed of it...or to acknowledge it, and to live the best we can with what we have. I urge the third option, and to make it easier: find joy. Even if it's in something small like a child's delighted exclamation for having mango waffles for a second morning in a row ("HOORAY FOR MANGO WAFFLES!!!"). This is the good part of life, if we're willing to be open to it, if we can allow ourselves to be surprised by joy amidst all the humming strife. That is what is real.

Please find something, anything, that makes you as joyous as these waffles made my kids and me.

Breakfast and a life lesson for $2.49. Good deal.

Trader Joe's Organic Mango Lemonade

How confident am I in my opinion of Trader Joe's Organic Mango Lemonade?

So confident that I am basing my review solely on the two teeny cups I had from the local shop's sample station...that's right, I didn't even buy this...because after tasting it, I had zero interest.

Normally, I like TJ's lemonades, whether mixed with iced tea or fruit-flavored. But this mango stuff? Nope. It tasted more like a mango-citrus conglomeration along the lines of some Sunny D one-off. It was so much more juice, with a thicker, pulpier feel, than what ought to be a light, cool, refreshing glass of lemonade. It neither tasted nor felt right. Nothing about it said lemonade. I'd bet it make a decent enough popsicle. But I wasn't willing to invest the $3.49 sticker price nor the freezer space to find out, because dangit, that'd be a lot of popsicles. Even the normally sugar-in-liquid-form-loving kiddos had seemed fairly unimpressed, further cementing the case to leave it on the shelf. Not gonna completely hate on it (organic is always a good thing in my book) but yeah...not so great. 

Different formulation from this Organic Mango Lemonade.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Organic Mango Lemonade: 3 out of 10 Golden Spoons.

Trader Joe's Mango Chili Chicken

It's an all-time classic and perennial top-seller, and perhaps most impressively, the inaugural member of our blog's Hall of Fame AKA "The Pantheon." Naturally, we're talking about TJ's Mandarin Orange Chicken. It's a pretty consistent winner in our book, and though occasionally imitated, it's never quite duplicated.

Naturally, with this being THE  Summer of Mango, here comes the newest variant: Trader Joe's Mango Chili Chicken. You can't tell me that doesn't sound gooo-ooooo-ooood. Some fruity sweet sauce glazed over some tempura-battered chicken, with a little kick of heat, with some chunks of mango tossed in for good measure, for just $4.99 - oh yeah, that's an easy sell.

I guess that's why, although solid, this chicken is still kinda disappointing.

Sans mango chunks, if side by side, I'm not 100% I would be able to tell the mandarin orange and mango chicken apart. They're just too similar.Yeah, there is the different flavor inflection from the mango as opposed to an orange...but it's not as divergent as it should be. And there's no discernible spice at all - if there were, my almost four year old wouldn't to'uch it, and she happily gobbled it down. And the mango chunks, well...after being frozen and reheated again, they seemed more reminiscent of canned pears than the tasty goodness I know a mango can be.

So yeah, kinda a bummer after our initial excitement. The dish just seems like it ought to be a more distinctive, different dinner than it actually is. Great idea, lazy execution...but we'll probably buy it again for another easy dinner night that everyone in the family reasonably enjoyed enough. Double threes.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Mango Chili Chicken: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons 

Trader Joe's Shooting Stars

Let's take a little break from all that mango madness, shall we? It's a long summer, that's plenty of time to get to all that, right? That's what summer is about - a little break from everything, and pacing yourself a bit...and technically it's still late spring, after all.

All that didn't keep me from taking a little personal break myself last week to enjoy the canyons and mountains in and around Zion National Park. If you're ever out that way on vacation, be sure to look up these guys, they'll be sure to show you a good time...as long as your idea of a good time includes intentionally dangling off a cliff. Much thanks to the Rodgers for holding down the fort all week, and Nathan and Sonia, enjoy your week doing whatever the heck it is you're doing this week.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand: Trader Joe's Shooting Stars. Yeah, from the packaging and whatnot, they almost look like a TJ's take on those cheapie gas station pyrotechnics. The real truth is a little less exciting than that - chocolate coated shortbread cookies (ho-hum)...but wait? What's this? "Covered in popping candy"!?!?! Now, that sounds like fun!!! Let's do this!

Yes, we've seen this gimmick before with don't-call-them-Pop-Rocks candy, or as the package calls them, "meteorites." Oooh, even more fun! But man...these are on steroids or something. From the moment the package is cracked open, an audible chorus of crackling starts and just won't let up. You get anywhere close to the cookies, you will get popped on - they spark up and explode on the whim of whatever chemistry makes this possible. At one point I was a good two feet away from the nearest cookie and still got nailed on my elbow. Doesn't hurt, of course, but it's as if the cookies have an invisible force field that it dares you to chomp through, like it's not going to go down without a fight.

The popping sensation carries through with each bite too. Crackle crackle crackle, chomp chomp chomp. There is a slight added sugary crunch as a result of the crystals, but not enough to greatly affect the flavor. The star cookies themselves are fairly basic, straightforward chocolate/sugar confections pretty close to the standard "from tree elf to store shelf" variety - of perhaps slightly better quality, perhaps, particularly with the chocolate (as is TJ's tradition).

It's really the popping candy that makes these cookies worth note - heck, without them, Sandy and I would probably pass right on by and not even notice. As a nice little bonus, our kiddos seem a little wary of being sparked by their dessert, so we just might have this whole box to ourselves. We don't recall the exact price, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 - if you know, drop us that knowledge. It's a fun, silly, gimmicky purchase that we probably won't make often, but will enjoy while we can.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Shooting Stars: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons