Trader Joe's Southwest Salad

This is probably a little hypocritical for me to ask, living in the city that perfected the art of putting french fries on everything, but what's happened to a just a good, plain, healthy salad? You know what I mean. My goodness, I was making another sneaky salad trip to TJ's and was looking through the selections, trying to find something healthy-ish and appealing. Some of those salads, I may as well have just gone through a drive thru and stuffed my face with a couple McDoubles (800 calories and 50% of my fat from a salad!?!?). It's all the meats and dressings and thisses and thats that just pile up. Salad is supposed to be healthy and taste good.

That's why I picked up Trader Joe's Southwest Salad. Out of all the salads I haven't tried yet from TJ's, it seemed to potentially straddle the line between healthy and flavorful the best. Even with all the dressing, 200 calories and a couple grams of fat didn't seem to be too bad, and beans and corn with a little "southwestiness" tossed in are usually a winning combo.

Well, I said usually. Let's see, where to begin....When I opened the package, it immediately was apparent that this wasn't the freshest of salads I had selected. That's not necessarily a huge deal - it was about on par with other prepackaged salads I've had - but usually Trader Joe's has that ball knocked out of the park. Not this time around. It just all seemed kinda limp. The romaine, an okay mix of slightly-almost-wilty green leaves and white watery ribs, was okay but not great. Those little chunks of red and green pepper lacked any real flavor and were kinda unnoticeable. Never heard of Cotija cheese before, and after having some, not sure if I ever tasted it either - it's just kinda there taking up space. The corn and beans are pretty close to the canned variety, without any spices or anything to make them stand out. The onions lacked any semblance of commitment.

Did I just describe the salad or my teenaged years?

Anyways, lack of flavor on a sald is what the dressing is there for, right? Right. So....where's the dressing???

Oh, that's right, it's packed in there...underneath all the salad! That's right, you have to unearth it and hope to not knock any of your meal on the floor. The packaging genius who came up with that idea probably bags his milk on top of his bread.

And there's no other way to say it - the dressing sucks. The weird capitalization of "tangy Ranch Dressing" should have keyed me into the fact this is probably from someone who has no idea what ranch dressing is supposed to be like. Listen, I'm no dressing expert, but ranch means creamy. Instead, it's some weird vinegar-y stuff that's in the packet. I mean vinegar-y in both appearance and taste, although tastewise it's not overpowering. That's neither ranch nor "tangy Ranch" and it's just not very good.

I realize I'm going close to full Goldilocks here saying last week's salad had too much in it and this week I'm going to be saying this has too little. Here's some recommendations for addition: A little actual southwest-y kinda spice. Some lime. Some avocado or guacamole (packaged in a little cup on the side, of course). A little salsa. Maybe some chicken, but not a deal breaker. Something, just anything, that would give it a chance of a date on Friday night instead of being holed up in a dim room playing video games while listening to Creed.

Okay, definitely talking about the teenaged years.

I don't hate the southwest salad, but I'm not impressed either (obviously). It just lacks in too many departments, and for the $4 I spent on it, it seemed a little overpriced for what it was. I guess it'd be okay for small side salad, but at least with my appetite, counting on it for a full meal was a bad decision. Maybe that's why I sound so grumpy. No salad for the wifey, so it's just me, and I'm going double 2's.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Southwest Salad: 4 out of 10 Golden Spoons    

Trader Joe's Sukiyaki

Although some might argue that it's not fair to compare a pre-packaged frozen dish purchased at a grocery store to similar food served in a restaurant, I think there comes a time when one should go ahead and make that comparison. In particular, when the price tag of a pre-packaged frozen food item starts getting up into the range of what you'd pay while dining out, then I say compare away. This bag of sukiyaki was $6.99, and the portion size was just about what one might expect from a restaurant. Sure, it was enough dinner for both Sonia and I, but most entrees we buy at restaurants turn into two meals for us as well. And while you might pay an extra dollar or two for this type of thing at a Japanese restaurant, you're also having it prepared and served by someone else, and there are usually some extra bells and whistles like rice or miso soup on the side.

So the question I'm asking myself is, "Was it restaurant quality?" 

Yes and no.

First, I'll start off with something positive: the sauce. The sauce was amazing. Excellent. Delicious. It was savory, thick, rich, and slightly sweet. Containing real sake rice wine and mirin, it was bursting with flavor. I've never had anything quite like it. The dish wasn't spicy at all, but I didn't find myself wanting to dump sriracha all over it like I usually do with non-spicy Asian foods. I don't think a bit of sriracha would have ruined it, but I didn't want to upset the flavor of this amazing sauce. It permeated all of the ingredients and added to their natural tastes. The veggies were plentiful and had nice textures. There were big pieces of carrots, napa cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, and something called burdock. 

The noodles were made of mung bean flour. They were flat, long, and clear. I've had similar noodles in Asian dishes before, and each time I have them, I'm surprised how chewy they are. I usually wind up gnawing on them for a bit before I get so frustrated that I simply swallow and wind up taking down a much longer strand of noodle than I intended to. Surprisingly, there wasn't a lack of meat—one of the more common problems we've found with TJ's frozen food bags. The worst part was that the beef was much more chewy than the noodles. It was fatty, too. There were big chunks of white fat all through the meat, and it was quite rubbery. In this case, I would have preferred tofu chunks—or at least very lean beef. The meat tasted fine, especially once it soaked up all that yummy sauce. It was just too chewy. I ate the food with chopsticks, and I found myself attempting to bite a piece of meat in half with my teeth while yanking on one end with the sticks a couple times. As I stretched and pulled on the beef, sauce dribbled down my chin, and I even lost my grip on the chopsticks at one point—allowing the slab of meat to dangle from my lips like a dog running off with a piece of raw bacon. It almost ruined the experience for me. Almost.

But I'll be danged if that's not some deeeelicious sauce. I give this product 3 stars. It would have been much higher had the meat and noodles not been so rubbery. Sonia gives it 3 stars as well for the same reasons. She also thinks there are too many onions in the mixture. I guess I'm just a bit more into onions than she is, because I disagree on that point. But double 3's it is.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Giotto's Ricotta & Spinach Cannelloni

As Russ noted some time ago, you never want to be the guy who heats up a fish dish in the microwave at work. No matter how tasty it might be, it puts a weird smell in the air. Always. Your co-workers will hate you. I learned that the hard way. 

But have you ever noticed that the exact opposite happens when you heat up Italian? Suddenly, you become uber-popular and everyone's interested in what you're eating. And it doesn't have to be something from a fancy restaurant or homemade. I mean you could nuke a bowl of Chef Boyardee, and if it weren't for people recognizing the classic shape of spaghetti-o's, you could probably get the whole lunch room fascinated with your meal. Sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top, and your associates might start asking you to cater their weddings and bar mitzvahs. Sterile office environments and the mundanity of the workaday world somehow enhance people's interest in food. Fragrances seem so much stronger when smelled from a cubicle.

And this cannelloni smells delicious. Even when heated in the microwave. To the best of my knowledge, I've never had cannelloni before in my life. But in this instance at least, it's basically lasagna. There are flat sheets of egg pasta with ricotta cheese and tomato sauce—oh, and bechamel sauce. Where have I heard that before? Hmmm...oh yeah! Our very first review, nearly four years ago. My first experience with bechamel left a bad taste in my mouth, and I wasn't quite sure if I'd ever be re-acquainted with the stuff. Well here we are, bechamel, face to face again. 

And on this serendipitous encounter, the bechamel is part of a similarly-packaged lasagna-esque dish just like last time, but now it's got better taste. I mean, I can't quite distinguish the bechamel from the pasta, ricotta, spinach, and tomato sauce. So I still couldn't tell you what it tastes like. But now I won't associate the word "bechamel" with nastiness.

The flavors that I could taste were very well balanced, and I never found myself wishing the cannelloni had any kind of meat or meat sauce, as I often do with vegetarian Italian. There was plenty of pasta and ricotta. If anything was slightly lacking, it was the spinach. The dish required an extra minute of heating, bringing the total time in the microwave up to eight minutes. That's not unreasonable, considering what you're getting.

I'm sure it would have turned out differently with a more traditional heating method, but the product was fairly soupy when it emerged from my electromagnetic particle disruptor oven. All of the sauces and cheeses created a wet conglomeration in the bottom of the microwave-safe heating carton. It was messy but tasty, easy, cheap ($2.49), and fast. Oh—and it smells really good, too. Heating it up at work just might make you the most popular guy in the lunch room. Sonia sat this one out, so I'll score it on her behalf. I'm torn between a 3.5 and a 4, so I'll give it one of each.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.