Trader Joe's Korean Japchae Fried Rice

Sonia and I are both quite fond of Korean barbecue, but we've never tried things like jumeokbap, kimbap, hotteok, and japchae outside of Trader Joe's. Fortunately, we've had good experiences with almost all of them. Let's hope that lucky streak keeps up.

Enter: Trader Joe's Korean Japchae Fried Rice. It's a product of South Korea. It's a fried rice medley with japchae sweet potato glass noodles mixed in. There's a great balance of flavors like the constituent veggies: shiitake mushroom, carrot, onion, green and red bell pepper, cabbage, spinach, and green onion along with spices like garlic, black pepper, and salt.

We heated ours on the skillet for about 12-13 minutes. We served it with lightly seasoned salmon. Sonia only added a bit of onion salt and black pepper to the fish so the flavors of the japchae fried rice could shine most brightly.

It's a nice umami flavor. It goes great with salmon, but we're certain it would go well with fried egg, tofu, or even bulgogi beef. We both think it's even better than the above-mentioned japchae noodle stir fry.

$3.99 for two big servings imported from the other side of the world. Found in the frozen section. Would definitely buy again. I'll give Trader Joe's Korean Japchae Fried Rice eight out of ten stars. The beautiful wifey will go with eight and a half.

Bottom line: 8.25 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Pudding

Just "chocolate pudding"? C'mon, marketing team. Once upon a time, Trader Joe's called fairly run-of-the-mill chocolate bars Extraordinary Bark of the Finest Collection. I think there's a happy medium in there somewhere. You could be Joesian without going overboard. Use of the word "choco-riffic" is underappreciated by my estimation. You could probably get away with calling this "mousse" or something a little more exotic than pudding. But I digress...

Trader Joe's Chocolate Pudding may not have a fancy name, but it's quite thick, rich, and slightly darker than most milk chocolate-flavored puddings. It's not "dark chocolate," per se, but it's darker than your average chocolate pudding. I'd say it's a bit denser, too. It's not unlike the very popular but now defunct Trader Joe's Belgian Chocolate Pudding, although this one is apparently a domestic product.

For three bucks, you get four little single serving cups, perfect for school lunches or brown bagging it at work. Unlike some other leading brands, there aren't any hydrogenated oils or weird ingredients in this chocolate pudding. Sugar content is slightly less than what you'll find in comparable products from other companies.

Not a bad product. I think most folks will like this even more than I did since I prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate and generally like treats like this to be quite sweet. Sonia gives Trader Joe's Chocolate Pudding eight out of ten stars. I'll go with seven and a half.

Bottom line: 7.75 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Simit Turkish Sesame Bread

I noticed at least one or two members of the Turkish diaspora gave their seal of approval to Trader Joe's Simit Turkish Sesame Bread. It is indeed imported from the nation of Turkey, so we have no reason to doubt its authenticity. Sonia and I picked up a package and have kept it in the freezer for the past couple weeks, looking forward to finally giving it a try.

Hot take: it's GOOD. Imagine the lovechild of a bagel and a pretzel with oodles of sesame seeds baked into the outer layer. And magically, the vast majority of the seeds stay attached even after heating, handling, and eating the simit bread.

It's got such a nutty, seedy taste. Similar to a bagel, the bread is slightly firm and crusty on the outside and it's soft and doughy on the inside. There's definitely a wheaty, yeasty element to the flavor profile, but it's mostly those yummy sesame seeds. As I said in our video review, "if you like sesame seeds, you really can't go wrong with this product."

We tried the simit with cream cheese, Trader Joe's Grecian Style Eggplant, hummus, olives, feta, and honey—not all at once, of course. Each and every thing we tried it with worked remarkably well. I even dipped a piece in ranch dressing, and it was pretty tasty. While this particular shape wouldn't necessarily lend itself to sandwich bread, flavor and texture-wise, it would serve that purpose perfectly.

This is case in point for why we shop at Trader Joe's—to travel the culinary world without leaving the state. I mean, Sonia and I have every intention of actually traveling the world in the future (we've got eight nations collectively under our belt already) and we might put Turkey near the top of the list just to try some true simit street food. Well done, Trader Joe's and whoever your third party Turkish supplier is. Thank you for introducing us to simit. We will buy it again.

$3.49 for four big round hoops of simit, brought to you from halfway around the world. Nine and a half stars from Sonia. I gave it eight and a half on the video review, but after trying it with feta, I might have gone with a nine. Either way, Trader Joe's Simit Turkish Sesame Bread winds up in the best of the best category here on WG@TJ's.

Bottom line: 9.25 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Filipino Style Chicken Adobo

Other than ube-infused desserts and the egg rolls known as lumpia, I'm not well-versed when it comes to Filipino cuisine. Sonia and I were both excited to try this chicken adobo. Even though it sounds like the name of a Mexican dish, this meal is indeed "Filipino-style." It does appear to be a domestic product rather than an import...just in case you were wondering.

$4.29 gets you a single serving of dark meat chicken in a thin brown sauce with a side of rice. Only microwave heating instructions are given on the box. Five or six minutes on high did the trick.

Most bites of chicken were decent quality, although we did get a bite or two of gristle and fat. The sauce is described as "savory, sweet, and tangy" on the packaging. We found it to be very salty, vinegary, and surprisingly soupy.

The green onions were a nice touch, adding to both the flavor and visual appeal of the dish. The nutrition info isn't too threatening, except possibly in the sodium department. Decent amount of chicken. Decent amount of protein.

We're both glad we tried it, and although neither the beautiful wifey nor I would go out of our way to purchase Trader Joe's Chicken Adobo again, we want to try some other version of the dish to compare.

Please let us know in the comments if you're familiar with authentic chicken adobo. How does TJ's offering stack up to the real deal? We're just coming at this product with no expectations and scoring it against the myriad of other microwavable chicken meals we've had. Sonia gives Trader Joe's Chicken Adobo seven out of ten stars. I'll go with six out of ten.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's All Butter Tart Cherry & Pecan Shortbread Cookies

Well don't these look just like those All Butter Apple Shortbread Cookies we looked at in 2024? Very similar packaging. Very similar cookies in many respects.

But there are also some differences. Obviously, these cookies have different stuff baked right into them. Instead of dried apple bits we have sweetened dried tart cherries and pieces of pecans in this case. I'd say these cookies have significantly more non-shortbread elements in them but I still wouldn't have minded a good bit more—especially of the cherries.

In a couple cases, we found what appeared to be an entire pecan half right inside the shortbread cookie. Most pieces were smaller than that, however, and the dried cherry bits were quite tiny. Like I said, Sonia and I both would have preferred the cookies to be stronger in the cherry department, but still a step in the right direction if we're comparing them to the apple shortbread cookies.

The shortbread itself is just kind of there. It's too dry. It's too hard. It lacks that melt-in-the-mouth quality that really good shortbread has. It's not quite as buttery as some other all butter shortbreads.

Just so you don't think I'm a hater, I'll tell you that I absolutely loved Trader Joe's All Butter Shortbread Sandwich Cookies with a Raspberry Filling. I feel like they're head and shoulders better than either of these shortbread cookies with dried fruit bits, but that's just me. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of fruit bits in shortbread, I just think the execution is less than stellar.

$3.79 for ten shortbread cookies. Probably wouldn't buy this particular item again. Seven and a half out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll be nice and give Trader Joe's All Butter Tart Cherry & Pecan Shortbread Cookies an even seven out of ten.

Bottom line: 7.25 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes

Beware! The age of the machines is upon us! But seriously, though, it's a little startling how far AI has come in the past couple years. Like any new technology, I think the best approach is a balanced one. While it's never a great idea to depend upon something like artificial intelligence completely, it's also silly to avoid it entirely in my opinion. People were scared of everything from credit cards to computers to the world wide web when they first came on the scene. AI is no different. It will be used for evil. It will be used for good. Let's just hope more people will use this new tech for the benefit of humanity than the detriment of it.

Know what it's really good at? Recipes. Sonia has been feeding Gemini a list of the random foodstuffs we have around the kitchen and it gives her a complete recipe using only the things we have on hand. If you ask it nicely, it'll even give you the exact measurements for any specific number of people—in our case, just two.

So when Google's AI found out we had chicken and Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes lying around, it gave us the idea to serve the two together along with spicy honey and paprika. Man, that's a tasty combo. And pretty healthy, too. We made some for our latest video review.

This product? Not bad. It's like a typical sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, except there are no marshmallows. The vanilla bean flavor kind of takes the place of the marshmallow flavor, but of course the texture is just a homogenous airy, whipped mash. I'd say it's a tad bit fluffier than your typical sweet potato casserole.

You could eat it on its own, but I recommend eating it with Thanksgiving or Christmas Day fare. But if you're fresh out of turkey and stuffing, the chicken dish mentioned above is spicy, sweet, savory, and scrumptious.

Trader Joe's Vanilla Bean Whipped Sweet Potatoes will run you six bucks. Keep refrigerated. We'd buy it again. Eight out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey. I'll go one star lower with an even seven.

(But I give the Spicy Sweet Potato Chicken Bowl recipe an eight and a half).

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Herbed Dinner Rolls

Check the ingredients on these dinner rolls. Though not necessarily in this order, we do indeed have parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. The Scarborough Fair Effect is in full force with these herbaceous bread bites, and we're rollin' with it. Get it? Rollin'? Cause these are rolls... <sigh> nevermind.

I appreciate all these herbs a little more now that I'm older. Once upon a thyme, they might have scared me off. And while they're quite distinct in the taste of these savory sides, they're not overpowering. They make the bread unique, flavorful, and festive.

To prepare, you simply throw Trader Joe's Herbed Dinner Rolls in the oven for five minutes at 400°F. They come out piping hot and feeling nearly fresh-baked. They're soft and easy to pull apart. They come in two "loaves" consisting of four pull-apart sections each. We ate some with our Christmas Dinner and we used them to make sandwiches with leftovers, cold cuts, and cheese throughout the following week.

We dunked them in tomato soup and they paired quite well. We spread garlic butter on some pieces and were fine snacking on them that way. They're surprisingly versatile and tasty.

$3.49 for the eight serving package, found with the baked goods. Product of Canada. We didn't even eat the whole thing before the "best by" date but it held up remarkably well. Would buy again for next year's holiday season. Eight out of ten stars from the beautiful wifey and me for Trader Joe's Herbed Dinner Rolls.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Vegetable Ravioli

I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this ravioli. The best thing about the last ravioli we looked at was the copious quantity of soft ricotta cheese inside the pasta. This pasta has some cheese, too, but we're looking at mild mozzarella here rather than indulgent ricotta.

Turns out the veggie and cheese blend is surprisingly tasty. There's a rich, savory, earthy flavor to it. It's just a veggie puree for the most part. Much to Sonia's disappointment, there are no big veggie chunks. The vegetables included are apparently zucchini, eggplant, and onion. There's some garlic in there, too. What an outstanding combination of natural flavors. I'm fine with the smooth veg and cheese filling texture alongside the very standard Trader Joe's ravioli style pasta.

Sonia tried hers with some Alfredo sauce. She admitted it was better with avocado oil and grated parmesan, the same way we served the above-mentioned Pasta Festiva. Oil and parm allow the intrinsic veggie flavors to shine a lot more than any traditional pasta sauce.

All in all, this is a very tasty product. Again, my expectations were somewhat low, but I'd say this is among the best pre-packaged ravioli we've purchased from Trader Joe's to date—and we've probably had in the ballpark of a dozen different varieties from them over the years. We'd definitely buy this again.

$3.99 for the 8.8 oz package. We felt like there were a few more pieces of pasta in this item than the other ravioli products from Trader Joe's. Maybe we just weren't that hungry, but this package more than satisfied Sonia and me for lunch one day. We're eager to pick it up again. I'll go with eight out of ten stars and the beautiful wifey will spring for seven and a half.

Bottom line: 7.75 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Whipped Light Cream

Betwixtmas. Dead Week. It's that special time between Christmas and New Year's when nobody knows what day it is or what they're supposed to be doing or why they feel so perpetually full and distended. Good time for a review of what's essentially chocolate pudding that sprays out of a can. But it's LIGHT chocolate pudding in a can. You know, to get you prepped for all those resolutions you'll be starting next week.

And that's what it tastes like: chocolate pudding. It's kind of in between what I'd consider full calorie chocolate pudding and "diet" chocolate pudding. It has sugar in it but not like a ton of sugar. It's sweet and chocolatey but not particularly rich.

We tried it on strawberry pancakes. We tried it on gingerbread ice cream sandwiches. We tried it on top of a mug of steaming hot chocolate with marshmallows. It's a thumbs up in every case.

It comes out fluffy and airy. The pic above is when we made our gingerbread man look like Marge Simpson. Yes, you can get it to stack pretty high, particularly when you make a little spiral motion as you dispense the cream out of the can. Hooray for the structural integrity of light whipped cream.

It's a nice tannish brown color. Looks and smells chocolatey. It took us a while to finish the whole can even though we were eating it pretty regularly with desserts and I was secretly sneaking shots of it directly into my mouth throughout the whole past month. 

$4.49 for the can. Kosher. Keep refrigerated. I wasn't sure if the price is a good value or not. Sonia says it is because not only is the cost comparable to other canned whipped creams, but most of the main ingredients are decent like cream, skim milk, and sugar rather than hydrogenated oils and HFCS. We took a look at the product during our video review of the strawberry pancake mix. I have the video cued up to the part where we briefly analyze and score this product, so go ahead and take a looksee.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.