BEST & WORST Trader Joe's CHINESE FOOD Taste Test! Thai Noodles, Korean Pancake

you know what i gotta stop kidding with myself i'm gonna need a cart oh my god trader joe mochi let's see if this is better than hofus mochi mango choco peanut butter what all right let's get some of this choco peanut butter thai tea mochi i can't say no to that oh my god this totally tricked me i thought it was like a bubble tea ice cream bar yeah close enough oh my god it's even tough getting out of this freaking ice cream section new york style cheesecake are you freaking kidding me that took so much willpower to just tell myself just keep walking don't look back that feeling is really no different than moving away from your soul mate just saying all right here we go this is the stuff i wanted to try mandarin orange chicken compound chicken oh trader means a name i can trust any relative of trader joe's is a friend of mine shitake mushroom chicken chicken teriyaki tempura chicken and really this stuff is not even expensive like a big pack it's like five dollars watch the shrimp bowl bibimbap bowl holy crap looking like 350 for this hello my friends korean scouting pancake spicy thai eggplant with basil vegetable chicken spring rolls lemongrass chicken sticks beef with uh i would have got you but beef you really picked some really nasty friends pad thai all right all the food's in the freezer first thing i'm going to do make a batch of rice wash the rice at the water employed the water rice racial chinese finger measuring method yeah it's about good while the riser's cooking let's try some of these spring rolls in the scallion pancake chicken spring rolls white meat basil garlic and ginger looks good so these are gonna cook in the oven and these i can cook on the stovetop while i'm waiting for the oven to heat up let's fry up some of these pancakes so these are the korean hey there wasn't a lot of korean items in the uh frozen food section whoa so there's four pancakes in here oh and these are seafood pancakes scallions shrimp everything's super visible looks pretty good toasty on the outside soft on the inside this is not a bash guy in pancakes toasty crunchy outer edge nice and tender in the center it is a bit oily there's a mission jump down i'm gonna make some pancake sauce like the texture is good but i do feel like the flavor needs a needs a little bit of kick so vinegar soy sauce sesame sauce not to to my own hot oil but wow it really just makes everything better all right this thing was good on his own texture came out perfect you can taste the scallions the slight sweetness of the carrots but it was just kind of like salty and oily it wasn't doing much else but now now it's break dancing baby this thing is like playing spin the bottle at a boring party help bring the excitement our egg grill is going to take like 20 minutes so in the meantime my rice is done let's start stir frying up some of these dishes and the first one i got here is the shiitake mushroom chicken all right this looks good i love shiitake mushrooms and greens here actually looks really inviting a savory dish of marinated chicken shiitake mushrooms edamame and green beans and ginger soy sauce okay they have the little sauce pack and then the chicken as you can see the chicken is separated from the green beans and the shiitake mushrooms you gotta heat the chicken in the vegetable in the microwave first and then we gotta stir fry it [Music] this looks so good it smells so good too nice big old chunks of actual chicken entire shiitake mushrooms green beans edamame look at the sauce sinking into that rice making that look all good the ingredients are great like i said big old chunk of chicken really meaty snappy little edamame beans green beans even though we're frozen has a nice little snap with a burst of chews and a hint of sweetness and the flavor is not bad i taste the mushrooms i taste a little bit of the ginger it was definitely lacking it's sort of a wow factor to it also i don't know what's causing it but the shiitake mushroom has a bit of a funky taste to it like a bit of almost like a chemical-ish flavor to it it's good texture and overall it's not horrible but you are able to pick up a little bit on that on its own i feel like ingredients great sauce kind of average just gonna fix that a little bit see if my hot oil can do its magic on this dish oh yeah much much better the dish getting the hot oil sprinkled onto it is that somebody walking down the street and getting pulled into extreme makeover oh so much better it needed a little kick there was just nothing really exciting about this dish like i said hot oil brings the excitement the hot oil is to spin the bottle game at a party now it's got the kick it's got the aroma on its own it was just okay but the hot oil really put the fun in fungi even helped to reduce that funky flavor overall not a bad dish got in front of me the chicken spring rolls i think that thing just burned a little skin off the roof of my mouth but oh my god that was worth it wow oh this is good this is very very good usually i don't love chicken and things like this but this thing is crunchy at all the right places the skin really light and flaky inside you got some nice vegetables the flavor is good 100 needs a little dipping sauce or something this is what i kind of wish i have some spicy mustard but i don't i do have my hot oil dipping sauce which i'll try on its own the spring roll is really good already a little actually makes it even better i'm just going to go ahead and add a couple drops of wasabi oil into my dipping sauce and if you never have wasabi oil this thing is designed to hurt you so don't put too much like a few drops but i love a little wasabi flavor whenever i'm eating spring rolls yeah that's really good this is better than like 80 percent of those door stopper ish egg rolls you'll find at those westernized chinese restaurants lemongrass chicken sticks they're described on the box as tasty exotic that lemongrass flavor is very very apparent wow it is kind of exotic one bite for me i could kind of almost picture myself sitting somewhere in a food court in thailand munching on this thing thin outer wrapper look how thin and flaky the wrapper is i love the smell of lemongrass [Music] this thing smells good it tastes good definitely not your typical spring roll i'll put this on the recommend list so far so good trader joe next let's try the compound chicken in the sriracha shrimp bowl now i don't want to jump the gun here but i feel like just looking at the packaging in the picture i think this is going to be good also since it's by trader me trader joe's asian cousin or wife or whatever i've got faith oh this is great this one i just have to put it into a skillet i don't even have to put in the microwave at all so this one get the chicken in here vegetable pack of peanuts some sauce [Music] this looks and smells like the real thing as this was cooking in the wok i could feel my heart like beating gradually faster like i was anticipating something beautiful to just kind of materialize in front of my eyes and here it is oh that's good that's good or compound or mean oh my god just outdone yourself if i went into a citron restaurant and they served me this dish i wouldn't ask questions i would not i'd ask for some extra rice because of how saucy this is but no question and i would never think this was a frozen meal this is absolutely amazing some of the key things i look for in a good compound chicken is it's sweet and vinegary and this absolutely hits those marks is the sauce thick and yes it is does it have the crunch from the peanuts yes it does it's a spicy yes it is and this thing is also peppery and a little bit of nummy hey one second i am devoting an entire plate of rice to this chicken in the ultimate compliment no hot oil required none this is absolutely fabulous i don't know why people are still spending money on the pf chain frozen meals we'll review them one day but i doubt they're around four dollars i doubt they're gonna be nearly as good as this i honestly feel like trader joe's could just have a restaurant somewhere and they just serve stuff from the grocery store nobody will complain wow everything about this the quality tender chicken to the crunchy vegetables the snappy peanuts in that ridiculous sauce might be one of the best frozen dishes you can get anywhere this is trader joe's sriracha shrimp ball yeah definitely tons of sriracha oh i did not realize how much broccoli was in here it's like a broccoli minefield everywhere ew some baby corn some shrimp this whole thing smells like it's covered in like chinese sweet and sour sauce oh oh my god oh wow wow i'm really surprised wow josh all right just bloody awful oh and no wonder it was made by trader joe's not trader me when it comes to chinese food let you better have handled it okay this is on par with those horrible dumplings i had last time all right so i followed the directions perfectly from this brown rice so i'm so i'm not expecting the rice to be all that soft and that does have a lot of chew to it there's no flavor i mean it's covered in sauce i smell the sauce there's no flavor it's it's just absolutely blend the best thing here is pretty much just the edamame beans and that's really only because edamame on his own still tastes really darn good i really don't know why but in my mind i'm just kind of picturing trader joe and trader mean fighting over this dish with mean going no no we cannot add it to the freezer section and joe's like nah it tastes good no it doesn't gel no it does not and this thing tastes like trader joe's took a page out of saffron rose cookbook completely lack of flavor ain't no hot oil saving this thing nor do i want to waste it on broccoli i'll put this under must avoid and listen to your wife next two things we're trying is the tempora chicken with sweet sour sauce well i thought the last one has sweet and sour sauce too so not gonna hold my breath for this it's by trader joe's son dude how many freaking incarnation of traders are there then we're gonna try the beeping bot bowl so this one's pretty easy it's gonna microwave this i have to throw this into the oven inside sweet and sour sauce packet and the rest is just chicken so they called the japanese dish trader joe's sun i'm surprised the korean dish isn't called trader joe oppa first impression what is that brown stuff on top you see what i'm talking about like so this is some kind of meat and i use that word in the loosest term possible that means pretty [Music] chili sauce goes on top it's not bad but chili sauce is really nice i think that's actually beef yeah it didn't look like it but it's actually beef i thought it was some kind of like impossible meat or something this is not a bad dish it actually tastes like a bibimbap veggies are nice sauce is good rice is good not up to compound chicken level but not too bad this smells fantastic that's yummy chicken is crispy nice and moist inside sauce is good it tastes like it's a typical sweet sour sauce you'll find in any chinese restaurant if you're really into sweet and sour chicken sweet and sour pork those kind of dishes you might like this i it's personally not really something i love so for me yeah it's yummy but not really my thing i think this will be the last time i get something from trader joe sun now the last few dishes i'm gonna try we have the vegetable pad thai the spicy thai eggplant and from trader me we have barbecue chicken teriyaki and we have mandarin orange chicken i'm thinking the mandrel orange chicken is gonna be kind of similar to what we just ate oh wow that's cooking let's try these you don't need to travel to thailand to indulge an authentic vegetable pad time we have done the traveling for you that sounds more like a like a bad thing you wanted to travel and that's it's okay we we've done it for you we have fun you missed out on a lot but but it's all right we brought you back pad thai rice noodles vegetables and tofu are tossed with just the right amount of mildly whoa mildly praqued sauce i don't even know what that means it's sprinkled with cashews what is point okay pequint adjective having a pleasantly sharp taste or appetizing flavor spicy we're tangy why why don't you just say that instead of like being all going all harvard on us for me because i don't know this word but queens so they just mean uh right amount of mildly spicy sauce there you go that's uh bold words all right trader joe hope this is not just another sriracha rice bowl incident seriously those are some bold claims you don't need to go to thailand we brought thailand to you in a microwave meal seriously am i the only dummy who doesn't know what the queen means like feels so stupid these are words that i should know i feel so inadequate me and my use of spicy and and tangy and not piquint honestly i don't even know if i'm saying that correctly who knew trader joe's was also such a scholar maybe that's how he got triggered me us asians we love an educated mind all right here's thailand it's not it's not but quaint okay it's piquant pecans all right thank you dictionary.com okay i didn't know how to pronounce pikant okay sorry sorry all you pecan word knowers okay so anyway pad thai ooh look at this a layer of sprouts on the bottom that's kind of cool it's a lot of sprouts like like a whole mattress full of sprouts let me get a bite of thailand here my gosh that's pretty good it tastes very pecan tea i was all ready to make fun of it because i didn't think it could be all that great the way they oversold this thing but the noodles are chewy the sauce is perfect it's a little nutty little sweet spicy zesty [Music] everything they said it would be this is one of the best things i had today unbelievable i did not think this would be even close to be able to live up to what they said but wow like excellent pad thai just delicious i mean i wish there was more now yeah trader joe's definitely allowed to use um however many of those pecan words because he really backed it up with this [Music] everything from the sprouts to the scallions there's no meat inside i'm still loving the heck out of this 100 recommend next thing spicy thai eggplant oh there's that word again trader joe's spicy thai eggplant with basil is peacock but not too too spicy gosh it smells so good i mean all you smell is that beautiful thai holy basil definitely a plus on the aroma [Music] i think it's pretty good flavor actually is pretty subtle if you catch a little bit of the chilies it is really spicy but like i said a silky eggplant not as good as the pad thai but pretty solid good job on the thai food trader joe i think plant is plump and juicy too i'll give that a recommend that's good if you're into stuff like this like the orange chicken or general shells chicken this is pretty good chicken is crispy sauce is zesty and sweet and fruity and a little spicy this stuff used to be my guilty pleasure i told you guys back when my family used to own a buffet i mean essentially it's the same fried chicken constables the last dish we tried but the sauce i think tastes much better here we have twitter means involved you know it's going to taste good we have trader joe's involved you know it's going to taste pecans our last savory dish barbecue chicken teriyaki looks like a decent enough teriyaki chicken oh that is delicious chicken is juicy really tender sauce is amazing i think though for me the next time i cook it even though it's not in the directions i would maybe grill this a little bit because it is missing that smoke if i had a little more char a little more sheer i think this would be even better but as is it's really not bad teriyaki chicken all right this is this is my favorite part of the tasting mochi time this is thai tea mochi it says there's no dairy in here if trader joe's mochi tastes better than uh whole foods emoji there really is no reason to ever go to whole foods again like ever okay so these little tiny bits mochi balls oh this is sublime oh man the whole thing is so incredibly velvety and smooth oh my god it just tastes absolutely luxurious oh this is amazing get this no dairy really it literally tastes like a piece of mochi went up to a thai iced tea and just give it a big old hug wow this is great this is really really good chocolate peanut butter mochi delicious i mean first of all there's no way any of this could not be delicious right it tastes exactly what you think chocolate peanut butter covering sweet vanilla ice cream never had chocolate peanut butter mochi before reese's pieces need to get into this game and this is the one i thought it was thought it was bubble tea this is a cold brew latte icicle another successful food hunting day over at trader joe's also what i love about this place besides the fact that it tastes so good is that everything was pretty reasonably priced like a big bag of chicken that could probably feed two people about four or five bucks best thing today kampal chicken that pad thai those two i would say is my must must get items but the eggplant was good the trigger mean dishes are good one really bad dish but overall fantastic trip [Music] wow this is really good i'm glad i'm sticking there for boba and one last thing guys i get messages all the time from people and this is you know the last five six years asking me for shout outs or a personal video message for someone's birthday or anniversary or special occasion and i try to do as many as i can and i never charge anybody money for it because to me it's like it's it's not a big deal it's just a video message but over the last year or two i've been getting a lot more of these requests maybe to the tomb of about one to three per day that someone will message me asking me to record a video message so it's starting to get really really difficult for me to get to everybody and then over a month ago i sent out a message on instagram asking if any small businesses needed help because i know a lot of small businesses are struggling from kovitz some have been looted it's just a horrible situation for small business owners and it hit me pretty hard because my family i mean we came to the states and our first business as a family was it was a small restaurant and we owned a restaurant for i think about 20 years my family has and i worked in them and that's what kept the roof over our heads and sent me to college and a lot of these small businesses are losing everything and that's another reason i started to go out to film small businesses because i want to feature more small businesses and help them as much as i can and i got this email from one of the one of the small businesses that i featured and it really touched me i'm not gonna say uh which business is from because there's some private information in here but basically this owner said that because of you our business is back to life it's been three months just me and my pregnant wife and our baby is coming in a month now so if the covet is still not going away we will probably shut our restaurant down but because your videos so many of your followers came to the restaurant to try and you gave us faith again thank you so much for helping us survive during this hard time and i'm not reading that to pat myself on the back but these are real situations that these small businesses are are going through and i'm trying to figure out like what exactly can i do to help as many as i can so again one of the solutions i came up with was to go out and feature more of these small businesses and the other thing i'm going to do is that i'm going to finally join cameo and they've honestly they've been bugging me for like two years or however long they've been around i just keep i keep getting emails from them like every single week so finally i'm joining cameo and anybody who needs a shout out or anything like that hit me up on cameo and a hundred percent of the uh of the of the revenue i'm gonna donate all the revenue to help small businesses um the link for my cameo is down below doing it for a good cause so please if you still need a greeting let me know alright guys as always thank you all so much for watching see you later

Channel: Mike Chen

Views: 1,189,665

Keywords: trader joe, trader joes, best trader joes, chinese food, grocery story, grocery, market, frozen food, asian food, thai noodle, chinese noodle, asia, asian, thai, thailand, chinese, korea, pancake, foods, eat, eating, kitchen, cook, cooking, oven, stove, chef

Id: ICP7QwcxDS0

Length: 21min 47sec (1307 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 28 2020