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Reputation: 1884

What is the worst Trader Joe's food you have consumed?

I like most of the items I get from there, but occasionally I'll get something, classify it as Not Good after tasting it, and then notice that the item disappears from the shelves soon after.

During the height of the no-carb diets they seemed to experiment with a variety of no-carb snacks (made mainly from tapioca starch I think) and they seemed to flop, which made sense since the snacks tasted odd.

The meatless nuggets (that I think they still sell) were surprisingly bland, but perhaps I just heat them incorrectly. All I remember is that I couldn't eat more than a few of them.

(I swear there was a question about people's favorite TJs food items, but I can find no trace of that question. Maybe the questioner deleted their account? In any case, thinking about that earlier question is what spawned this one.)

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12 Answers

  • Image00666_small
    Reputation: 3564

    I'll second the fact that their produce is crap. I've had grapes from TJ's that were so unripened and overwaxed, I thought for a second that I was somehow eating my grandmother's ornamental fruit bowl.

    And it is so ridiculously overpackaged. Tomatoes come in a plastic clamshell with another plastic tray inside. WTF? Yet, when you get to the register they encourage you to buy a reusable bag if you don't have one. It makes no sense.

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  • Goonies_small
    Reputation: 956

    Their Sushi rolls. They seem to consist of cat food, raw stale carrots, dry rice and sesame seeds.

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  • Hair_hipstamatic_small
    Reputation: 1711

    I only buy certain things from Trader Joe's - mostly frozen food and packaged things like crackers. Oh, and hummus and naan. But that's it. So I think I tend to avoid the bad stuff that way. I had some flatbread pizza at a friend's house a few months ago that was not so great, it was frozen and had mushrooms and something else on it.

    The question you were thinking of was probably this one:
    http://questionland.thestranger.com/questions/9051-what-trader-joes-item-would-you-stockpile

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  • Images_small
    Reputation: 153

    One time I purchased a trio of fresh bell peppers from TJs. They were packaged in plastic. When I cut open one of the peppers, a bunch of winged maggots flew out and I freaked out for a long time. I guess that was my worst.

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  • 11443802614723fe566385e_small
    Reputation: 1178

    Their instant coffee tastes as bad as every other instant coffee that I've had, with the exception of the Starbucks Via stuff.

    As much as I hate to admit Starbuck's superiority in anything, their Via is the only instant coffee that actually tastes like coffee and not coffee flavored diluted sludge. It lulled me into a false sense of hope that TJ's stuff might be passable.

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  • Larry_2_small
    Reputation: 295

    Their frozen spanakopita is bland and overpriced.

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  • Horse_ass2_small
    Reputation: 751

    There is a lemon tart (not frozen) which is so sour it makes you think of toothpaste somehow. Oh just god awful. Had a hard time trying to figure out who the hell they were making it for. Also wish they would have real French bread and charge more for it.

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  • Icon_small
    Reputation: 1627

    I had enough bad luck with avocados there, I stopped buying them. Their grapes are usually good in my experience, but I did buy a bunch a few months ago that we're horribly sour. I held off buying them for a while, but they seem to be back in decent shape.

    I hate their "dunker" chocolate chip cookies. Those things are blander than Chips Ahoy, very disappointing. They also have a chocolate, peanut butter & jelly, potato chip concoction that sounded amazing, but the execution was flawed. Among other things, the chocolate was waxy and flavorless.

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  • John_collins_200x300_small
    Reputation: 1040

    I'm usually pretty impressed with the frozen section (the mac and cheese is awesome), but a couple things miss the mark.

    a) Vegetable Panang Curry. The curry itself is OK, maybe a bit too spicy (you can see the chili oil pooling on the surface), but the veggies are extremely tough and fibrous. Not at all pleasurable to chew.

    b) Certain burritos. They are usually fine if you cook them in a conventional oven, but that just takes long. The microwave method usually results in undercooked middle, which means it goes back in the microwave repeatedly and pretty soon the tortilla edges are hard and the bottom is soggy. There's also the problem of inconsistent filling. Sometimes it's all beans, sometimes you get cheese, sometimes there's a huge piece of steak in one half that stays frozen forever, meanwhile the other half is a pocket of molten bean lava.

    c) I know I can't expect much here, but the frozen asparagus is also really tough and fibrous.

    Elsewhere in the store:

    a) Peanut satay sauce. Totally personal preference, but I don't like my peanut sauce to have so much soy sauce in it. I like a more coconut-heavy peanut sauce.

    I disagree with Mahtli69, though, who said they don't like the sauces in general. I think their red and yellow curries are awesome. Their masala sauce is a bit heavy on the tomatoes for me, but I remember it still tasted good.

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  • Ozomahtli_small
    Reputation: 2398

    I've been unhappy with just about everything from Trader Joe's that isn't frozen. Their produce is not good. Virtually every sauce and marinade that I've tried is crap. And, I don't even like their cookies.

    There was a previous question about favorite microwaveable TJ foods . Is that the one you're thinking about?

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  • Nyan-cat-ftw-video2463_small
    Reputation: 1747

    I find their produce frequently sub-par

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  • N658991070_769_small
    Reputation: 29

    I love TJ's, but I once accidentally bought a jar of *sweet* olive spread by mistake. It was utterly horrifying.

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