The Trader Joe's Product Discussion Thread (S/D)

I gotta say... my favorite beef jerkey is Trader Joe’s brand

anyone tried the instant iced coffee? it's weird! i think it's good but it might be bad.

Can’t believe I missed the window to stock up on maple butter. I swear it was only available for like 3 weeks???

I've always liked the canned dolmas at Trader Joe's. They have recently stocked quinoa-stuffed dolmas in the same section, I think they are even better

xp haven't heard of maple butter, but it sounds good.

Some things are seasonal. I bought Autumn cheese there last year at this time, liked it but went back to find it gone. I found it again this year though.

My favorite ever purchases from Trader Joe's have been the peonies, which are only available in May

the most recent new thing there that I found there was "heirloom chicken", a ridiculous name but it is a whole chicken that is small, and it makes the best roast chicken

Sounds like a heritage or game hen.

it's good for the Zuni roast chicken recipe

most of the chickens raised for the mass market are just too large for roasting or selling rotisserie chickens!

that’s part of why costco was having trouble sourcing enough for their cooked rotisserie chickens and ended up buying their own chicken farm

I miss the gluten-free bread & bagels & chocolate cupcakes A LOT lot. It's not that they're super great compared to actual bread, it's that they're adequate and nothing else out there is (that doesn't also contain stabilizers and soy additives that I don't eat).

their gluten-free cupcakes were really good -- and I can eat gluten, so the GF cupcakes were actually better than some of the "regular" cupcakes I have had.

The green dragon hot sauce is the shit. I put it on everything.

green dragon is amazing, mix it with some mayo and it makes a killer flavored mayo/dipping sauce

I was disappointed with green dragon sauce at first because it seemed a little too sweet, but decided I like it

their new fromage pavé is really good

Did they get rid of the faux-Stoned Wheat Thins? Haven't seen them at my local for months.

Wish they'd bring back the lemur tea.

Yup, the faux-Stoned Wheat crackers have disappeared here, too. That's a death knell at least 80% of the time.

there are many Trader Joe's products that are suddenly discontinued, but there are equally as many new products there that I discover there when I go back

Are the lebkuchen back this season? If so, I may have to brave the store. I love those things.

sounds interesting. haven’t focused on their sweets but in the recent past I have discovered dolmas stuffed with quinoa, beef pho, different canned and jarred olives, artichoke hearts, plu gras butter, eggplant hummus, double cream gouda, fromage pavé, soup DUMPLINGS!, flour and corn tortillas, and heirloom chicken

not sure how DUMPLINGS! came out capitalized there tbh, I certainly didn't do it

ha ha. I didn't capitalize it, but I approve of the idea of DUMPLINGS!

whenever the word DUMPLINGS! appears ilx will automatically capitalize it and add an exclamation mark. this is a long standing tradition.

My parents have friends in Germany who used to send us lebkuchen every Christmas, and the Trader Joe ones are every bit as good as the German ones. Like, I genuinely can't tell the difference.

I will have to look for them

trader joes raisin bran was off the shelves for six months. when it came back the box and contents were different and it is now made in germany. it tastes exactly how you would imagine central european breakfast cereal tastes. i mean i like it. but it's definitely a style.

If so, I may have to brave the store. I love those things.

(the TJs near you is the only supermarket/grocery store I've seen enforcing limited numbers indoors, & with people fairly consistently spacing in the queues outside)

Yes, they're very good about it, and I do feel safer there than at other stores in the area. Most of the things I buy from TJs last a long time, though, so I still don't go that often.

trader joes raisin bran was off the shelves for six months.

I haven't seen it in maybe a year!

It’s back on the west coast but the box is very different.

I missed the peony season in May and early June this year at Trader Joe's because I didn't go shopping at all

the employees are pretty well-informed about what is on the outs and what is going to stop being stocked due to supply chain issues

I was buying some chicken taquitos (rip, lost them in my refrigerator dying) early this year and the checkout cashier told me it was probably my last chance for the near future because their supplier basically stopped all orders

if you want to know, someone in the store might know!

Iowa brewery beer now in California TJ stock

Toppling Goliath and they've the best water

Toppling Goliath also in Cal Total Wine stores. I have had the Pompeii.

Toppling Goliath has been in California for a while, I mean they are even in Tokyo. I had a reasonably fresh Pseudo Sue can last autumn... for ~$10 though.

Love the dark chocolate sunflower seed butter cups. I always buy a bunch and throw em in the freezer.

Aren't they basically just peanut butter cups with a peanut butter substitute?

Did they get rid of the faux-Stoned Wheat Thins? Haven't seen them at my local for months.

NOOOOOOO

Yeah, but sunflower seed butter is tasty. And they're only like 80 cents.

T0ppling Goliath has a few decent beers but they’re overrated, overpriced (although maybe not at TJ’s?) and the people who run it are apparently jerks. Some of the reasons people believe so are less relevant to me as a non-beer nerd, like the fact they’d do special limited releases and gouge on prices, and the local lore is that after they sold one limited edition batch and screwed up the pricing, they called people who had bought the beer to ask if they could please send an additional payment because they were undercharged (!)

I went to a taproom beer tasting thing locally (free beer!) and the presentation was ok but they’ve got this funny chip on their shoulder about a few things. There was also some funny controversy a lot of companies run into when trying to capitalize on demand where they used a contract brewer to make up the slack as they rapidly expanded (defensible, imo) and then when a batch wasn’t as expected they did a lot of waffling about whether they used a contract brewer, for how many batches, and where those batches were sold

lol and the Pseudo Sue thing where they ended up partnering with the Field Museum after the fact when threatened with copyright infringement which was more of a business “whoops” on their part

The Pompeii IPA was $12.99 for 4 pint cans at Total Wine (the more expensive ones came in at $18.99, which I wasn't willing to spring for). I doubt if TJ would be less, though my google search shows $10.99 at Binny's. Is Binny's a big supermarket sized liquor store?

In the Chicago area, yeah

You know what I miss? Trader Joe's used to sell a cinnamon/sugar grinder that my kids and, well, everyone loved. But alas, awol since 2017.

I wish they also sold the pepper in non-grinder jars of the same size, so I wouldn't have to buy a new grinder every time I buy pepper (salt too, I guess). Seems wasteful.

I was picturing a sandwich roll with cinnamon and sugar on top

they had an amazing product called flower pepper that was literally dried edible flowers and peppercorns -- AMAZING
and long gone

Wonder if you could replicate that with flor de jamaica (dried hibiscus flowers used for agua de jamaica tea) and peppercorns in a mill.

Nah hibiscus is way too much imo — this was like marigold petals, maybe dandelion and other more delicate flowers