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

The new vegan green tea mochi are a huge disappointment

They had some vegan mochi like ten years ago, three different flavors, they were amazing. These taste like nothing.

I wasn't able to find the jackfruit curry. Could it be a regional item?

It disappeared from the local TJs 3 months ago. In the one year TJs has been local, they've stopped stocking about 5 items I liked/loved, and have become a less attractive errand for this vegan (pour one out for the bollywood popcorn and veggie chili, too). If they discontinue the whole wheat lavash and zhoug, I might not bother.

Still waiting for the chili mango fruit floes there come back.

I just picked up a can of vegetarian chili, don't know if it's the same one. But yeah, they'll drop even a popular item if their buyers can't get it at a good price.

okay, one opened near me, and i'm pumped. i got the pulled pork today

i am pretty sure i saw a jackfruit curry thing- this was in mpls though

Trader Joe's mystery I'm hoping to solve: Every once in a while I pop into the local store and there are several people in line paying for single bananas with their Link/Snap cards. That's it, just a single banana each. At first I thought that maybe they were getting cash back, but I don't think you can do that with a Link card. Though Occam's Razor would say it's just a bunch of people waiting in line to buy single bananas with their Link cards, I've still been trying to figure it out.

As an aside, via my diligent research I did learn (as revealed in I guess the first episode of the TJs podcast) why they even sell single bananas (for 19 cents each) in the first place:

Most grocery stores sell bananas by weight, and if you need just one or two bananas, you take off as many as you want and weigh them. In the first episode of Inside Trader Joe's, CEO Dan Bane said Trader Joe's used to sell bananas by the pound, too. But they didn't have scales in stores, so the bananas were weighed and packaged before being put on display. That meant the bananas were offered in bags of four or five, and if you just wanted one or two, you couldn't open them up and take out the ones you wanted.

Then one day Bane was at a Trader Joe's in Sun City, California, which is near a retirement center. He saw an older woman buying fruit, but she bypassed the banana bags.

"So I asked her, 'Ma'am, if you don't mind me asking, I saw you looking at the bananas but you didn't put anything in your cart,'" Bane said. "And she says to me, 'Sonny, I may not live to that fourth banana.'"

Bane said they decided the very next day that Trader Joe's had to sell individual bananas. They priced them at 19 cents apiece, and they've been priced like that for the past 13 years.

That lady did us all a favor, too! No one wants to buy too many bananas. That'd be like buying too many avocados. With the way bananas ripen, if you buy too many, some of them will definitely be overripe by the time you get to them.

IDK the answer, but I’ll buy max 4 bananas at a time.

I just used one of TJ's faux asian face masks. It was fine.

a few months ago they brought back the raspberry macaron cake, not sure if it's seasonal or not but I'M SO HAPPY

the corn bread crisps are really good as long as you don't look at the nutritional info/serving size

The vegetable antipasto (artichoke hearts, mushrooms, eggplant, tomatoes, oven-dried and marinated in EVOO w/ rosemary) in the grocery section is a good appetizer and a pretty good deal.

the gluten-free beet crackers are pretty good

...but it also sounds like a McSweeney’s parody of a trader joe’s product

:D

lol yes

for sure

For an honest opinion of the "gluten free" fad, ask someone with celiac disease. Restaurant servers assume they're food hipsters.

i like those beet crackers. We ate a box with hummus.

They now have raclette. and some newish semi-soft french cheeses.

Timely revive. Doing some cheese shopping later. What did you end up with?

RACLETTE!

I am only here for a couple of days so was just doing my shopping for stuff to take back (everything but the bagel topping, rice crackers, other seasonings) so I only got the raclette to eat now. Although I was with L last night and we met up at Murrays. We got some taleggio, a St Marcellin like cheese made in Vermont and another american cheese called Good Thunder? That said it was supposed to be like reblochon and pont l'eveque but it was not. It was still good though.

At Trader Joe's though I feel like there was also a new St Marcellin like cheese that didn't have an AOC but was french.

it's JinGLE JANGLE time

Oh, I got some egg nog greek yogurt too.

Although I was with L last night and we met up at Murrays.

lol by "L" do you mean "f."?

(Thanks, I'll see what we get over here and compare notes.)

L auren.

<3

the frozen bag of gnocchi w tomoato sauce and mozz is so fucking bad

lol steve that seems like exactly the kind of thing you would KNOW would be bad!

sometimes i think i miss tj's but i honestly can't think of anything they had that was that great

i did, you're right, i knew it wouldn't be great but i was hoping it'd at least be passable

the gnocchi had zero flavor and was the texture of like.... a cross btwn play doh and bubble tea tapioca??? it was so bizarre

can't think of anything they had that was that great

They have good prices for low- and mid-range wines. They are a good source for nuts and dried fruits. There's some other stuff they're good at. but ime, "great" is either very expensive, or else it's what you can make for yourself at home from good ingredients. that goes for every store, not just tj's.

ew xp

i do miss their nuts -- good and cheap.

Case in point: tried the black bean and red lentil dried pasta. Both terrible. But I recognize its the concept of legume based pasta that's at fault.

I dig the Brussels sprouts on the stalk available of late. Maybe 20% less expensive than the bagged fresh sprouts, but no more time consuming, as those require trimming. Slice halfwise, toss in EVOO salt & pepper in your baking pan, arrange cut down w/o crowding, roast at 425 F for 20 mins. You can toss on some garlic cloves in skin if you want fancy.

I kind of like that frozen gnocchi in a bag. But I also fried the shit out of it and put a ton of hot pepper into it.

When I come back to the US one entire suitcase is almost full of trader joes stuff to bring back. I probably posted somewhere upthread on what I bring back but it's just 40% cheaper than anything I could find similar to here. It's comfort. When I was living in NY someone from chile came to visit and she totally bought like 8 pink himalayan salt, 4 green dragon sauce, rice crackers and tons of yogi tea to take back.

xpost i saw some purple brussel sprouts in a bag that I wanted to try but figured I didn't have time to make them.

Also do you toss them in seasoning before baking? I go back and forth between whether it's better to do it before or after. I was making it a weekly habit to roast ~1-2 kilo of brussels for the week to snack on or use as salad toppings, mix in with rice or quinoa, other stuff as a quick meal. I do a lot of balsamic/ garlic but have also recently been doing lemon zest, garlic and nutritional yeast

Roasted brussels sprouts don't really need much seasoning besides salt & pepper, I think. I put that on before roasting, with the olive oil. I like the TJ's Traditional French Brie. It's got a nice, slightly funky flavor. It's good with their Multigrain Crackers (the ones with a hint of onion powder).

wait so should i try the frozen gnocchi again and fry the shit out of it? bcz i just followed the instructions which basically just reheated them but did not cook them at all

I like my pastas to be really al dente or baked (crisp edges), and on the dryer side, that is the reason I fry the gnocchi to get a crisp on them. Gnocchi is so hit or miss when you buy it because of the texture.

But I have bought the tomato and sweet potato gnocchi from TJs a bunch of times and liked them both ( I always add more seasoning though). Oddly enough I really really like the cheap monoprix brand of gnocchi a lot because it is super firm..

they currently have a "cauliflower gnocchi", in keeping with the cauliflower everything that's out there at present (pancakes, pizza dough, rice)

hello everyone...the crispy crunchy salted toffee cookies are amazing (and gluten free if you're into that kind of thing). apparently they've had a chocolate chip version of this cookie for a while that I've been sleeping on too. i generally dislike pastries made with rice flour but these cookies make it work, A++ will buy again

Mentioning alternatives to wheat, I will never ever buy lentil or chickpea flour based pasta again. These TJ products turned out inedibly mealy no matter how carefully cooked.

Also, I'm a stopped clock. Looks like I vented on this in December.

you wouldn't be a stopped clock if you ate more lentils!