Trader Joe's Sea Salt Brownie Petites

Last week, Sandy and I headed out west to California for our annual vacation. Let me tell you, what a trip, with all the sites and sights...Disneyland (fun as all heck)*, Joshua Tree National Park (stunningly, starkly beautiful - what a landscape), and all around San Diego (a zoo well worth the admission). Fantastic week, and when I woke up on Saturday, our last day of vacation, I seriously contemplated not jumping on the plane back to Pittsburgh. It was too much fun, and too great of an area to ever want to leave. Nathan, Sonia, why did you ever move to Pennsylvania from SoCal again? Moving closer to family and having four distinct seasons, was it? Bah. I'd never leave. Between all those fun things and as many animal-style double-doubles I could ever eat, I was trying to figure out how I could convince my work to relocate me to their nonexistent San Diego facility and if someone could ship our pooch out to us.

There's another thing that amazed me about California, and only to a slightly lesser extent: the size of your Trader Joe's. I mean, dang. They're the size of actual grocery stores out there, if not larger, with a much larger selection of foodstuffs that get shoehorned into our little teeny tiny almost afterthought of a shop here in Pittsburgh. Some of it has to do with being allowed to sell all types of booze (including a great price on Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale - only $3.99 for a bomber? It's twice that, easily, here) but there's so much more. For instance, at the Costa Mesa store we visited, it's a whole literal wall section of tortillas in all sorts of varieties I've never seen here on our one lonely shelf. I'm jealous, very, very jealous.

And there was something else there I'd never seen at our store: these Sea Salt Brownie Petites. Sandy, who had heard about them from a friend who lived in the area, started rummaging around in a frenzy as soon as we entered the store. "I HAVE TO FIND THEM!!!!," she practically wailed. "WHERE ARE THEY!?!?!?!"** I don't blame her for being so, um, enthusiastic to seek out and destroy a pack of them. Previously, we've had some tremendous luck with a TJ chocolate/sea salt combo that was pantheon-level great, and sweet/salty is generally a winning tandem for us, and since we needed some inexpensive snacks for all our adventures, I was all in.

I wish I could say the same for these brownie bites. First one I had was definitely a lot more sodium than brownie taste. How much more? Well, if the chocolate were Kate Moss, the salt would be Jabba the Hut - simply way out of ratio. Other ones weren't nearly as bad, and were actually pretty decent and full of cocoa-goodness, but others were way too reminiscent of the original. The sea salt was just too dominant and not enough of a complement, overall, I think. Also, all of mine were pretty dry and crumbly to the bite as they practically disintegrated into my mouth. That might not be a deterrent to some, but generally I'm much more of a moister brownie fan, and was hoping for something not quite as arid. Sandy, though? Loved them. Absolutely loved them. "All of mine tasted about right, and I loved the texture, too," she said. When I mentioned the dryness of mine, she said she had no such problem at all, and only wished they were a little bit bigger. Hmm, maybe she goldmined all the good bites to herself and left me with most of the undesirables.

I'm going to have a go a little low for my score and go with a 2. They were simply too much of a mixed bag for me - too many of them resembled dried-up brown salty cakes for me, and if I saw them again***, I'd say "Na" (get it?). It's another product that I'd totally get if others like more than I did, so when Sandy said she'd give them a solid 4, I shrugged and didn't argue. Somehow, perhaps because of my slight distaste for them, some of them survived our week and stayed with our friend Ashley in San Diego, who I think enjoys them, too. "If only there was enough room in our luggage..." Sandy grumbled. Well, between all the goodies we got at the 99 Ranch Market and Sandy's new little friend, there just wasn't the space. Oh, bother.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons
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* Congrats to Sandy on her best half-marathon yet (2 hrs 43 mins) she ran at Disneyland! Proud of ya, babe.
** Okay, an exaggeration. But only slight.
*** Might have seen them Sunday at the local shop. Seems like we get some stuff on rotation and whatever sells sticks, so if you're in the 'burgh and wanna give them a try, hurry up!

Trader Joe's Meat & Potatoes

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, in addition to a corporate prayer at church and a little personal time reflecting on the events of that day, Sonia and I decided to watch the season opener NY Giants vs. Washington Redskins, have a drink of our favorite beer from America's oldest brewery and eat some steak and potatoes. It doesn't get much more American than that. That was our way of being patriotic.

We were pleasantly surprised with the flavor of everything. Neither one of us is really a red meat type, except for the occasional craving. The potatoes were seasoned pretty well, and the meat had a good taste, although it could have used a fixin or two. In the absence of steak sauce, we dipped it in a leftover packet of Chick fil A barbeque sauce, which worked out quite nicely.

Our number one complaint was, predictably, a lack of beef. The bag was just barely enough for both of us, and the majority of that was potatoes. I know the average American doesn't need any more red meat in his diet than he already has, but if you're buying a bag of food that says "Meat & Potatoes" real big on the label, there's a good chance you have a hankering for some meat. That's been a recurring issue with many of TJ's frozen foods. Maybe that's one of the ways they keep their costs down, but at $4.99 per bag, I would think they could sneak a few more pieces of beef in there. The bag isn't unreasonable at that price, but I wouldn't call this one a bargain, either.

As tasty and tender as most bites were, I did discover one large piece of beef that was riddled with gristle and fat. There's just something about fatty beef that I find revolting. I chewed and chewed the rubbery meat, but I just couldn't get around to swallowing it. My gag reflex kicked in and I had to spit it into my napkin. But just to reiterate, that was only a single piece. The majority of the sirloin was soft and tender and not at all rubbery.

It's kind of hard to screw up meat and potatoes. Trader Joe certainly didn't do anything terribly wrong, but he didn't really do anything transcendent or innovative either. If Sonia and I had red meat dinners more often, this might have made our regular rotation, but as it stands, we probably won't revisit this one for a while. But if you're a red meat kind of guy (or girl) by all means, give it a shot and leave us a comment with your dissenting opinion below.

Sonia was most disappointed by the lack of sirloin beef. She gives it three and a half stars. I agree with her assessment, but I'll have to take off another half a star for that one big bite of freaky rubber meat. Three stars from me.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader José's Chipotle Pepper Hummus and Mini Pitas

"Oh, that Chipotle is so HOT right now!" And I mean that as a double entendre. First of all, it seems to be very "in" right now. What with a restaurant by the same name, products like this tasty salsa at the grocery store, and places like McDonald's dumping chipotle BBQ sauce on wraps and burgers, it seems impossible to escape it these days.

But I assure you, I had never even heard of chipotle peppers until 5 or 10 years ago. It looks like the chipotle pepper is having its day in the sun. And yes, I intend that as a double entendre as well. (Chipotles are often sun-dried or smoke-dried).

Not only are chipotles popular, but they're actually really, really hot. And there's the catch. A real, unadulterated chipotle pepper would burn the average American's tongue right off. They're really spicy. I think it has to do with the fact that a lot of our friends to the south have immigrated to the U.S. and they've brought many of their tasty eating habits with them. "But Señor José, there are still a lot of white people in America! How can they enjoy such a spicy pepper?" Easy. Just use it to flavor a myriad of other products without actually adding any whole peppers. And that's what we have here: another chipotle-flavored product without the full brunt of the spice.

It had just the right amount of kick to keep me interested, but not so much that it burned my mouth. It was a good, creamy hummus with plenty of flavor. The spice-factor was roughly the same caliber as Trader Joe's Spicy Hummus, only this was a different flavor. The only hummus I've had that could beat it hands down in a taste-test would be Sabra. I'm a big fan of their hummus, but TJ's is a not-too-distant second. Sonia agrees.

As for the mini-pitas...well, we've reviewed a few other kinds of Trader Joe's pitas like this and this. And these are, well um, smaller. They maybe seemed just a tad on the dry side, but really—it's quite convenient to have bite-sized pitas. It cuts down on the temptation to double-dip and such. They really need to come up with a good gluten-free pita substitute. If anyone knows of such a thing at Trader Joe's or elsewhere, please leave us a comment below.

Well, let's finalize our score here: Sonia gives four's to both products. I'll see that four on the hummus, but it's a tad too rich for my blood on the pitas. I'll give 'em a respectable 3.5.

Trader José's Chipotle Pepper Hummus. Bottom line: 8 out of 10.
Trader Joe's Mini Pitas. Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.