Praise for Trader Joe's

[MoonGod]

I love that place. All sorts of good things to discover there. Took me quite a few years b4 I realized it, though.

Any other TJ's fans here? What are some of your fave goodies there?

Some of mine: pizza dough (pref. wheat, but both are good), frozen key lime pie, tofutti cuties, flatbread, and a ton of things I know I'm forgetting.

[SOteric]

1. I'm a T.J.'s fan

But I make a lot of my own product and tend to just shop there for ingredients. They carry some excellent brands of chocolate and great prices. I can find both hard and soft wheat flours there. I can usually find a quality Tobiko. The nori they offer is the nifty sort in large sheets. Oh so much it doesn't all come rushing to mind.

[cally]

2. Aww, I love TraderJoe's

I love their frozen garlic cubes. I've never minced a garlic since I found those. The thai peanut sauce and hummus are wonderful. Then there are the cheeses. TJs has the best prices on cheese.

[Crowdance]

3. The tenderest tortillas on the planet

Not to mention the fresh salsas! My only problem: just when you fall truly, madly, hopeless in love with a product--just when you REALLLLLLY NEEEEED it-- it disappears from the shelves. What's up with that?

[brook]

12. Glad I'm not the only one.

I've been a weekly TJ shopper for about 20 years - and I do really love them. However, recently I have noticed stuff disappearing. First the nifty votives in the pretty glass jars; then the Marsailles soap. I wouldn't mind so much except that these are things I have never been able to find elsewhere and which were regular items on my list.

Do they tell you the same thing when you ask about a missing product? "No longer available to us"?

I don't know whether to attribute this to the new owners or to world circumstances. What do you think?

[MoonGod]

15. With regards to the missing votives...

... I think I know what you're talking about and they seemed to disappear from shelves everywhere (I didn't shop at TJ's at the time) at about the same time. I was quite disappointed.

[Iris]

4. mmm - Chocolate covered cherries!

[MaryBear]

5. Mmmm

Frozen mango chunks,
Frozen stir fry vegis,
No fat meringue cookies
...come to mind.

I used to worry about pesticides etc and where the food came from. On my last trip to Trader Joe's, I noticed lots of organic products.

[GCP]

6. Chocolate-covered bing cherries!

YUM!!

:9

[TheBigGuy]

7. Ive been there...once...i sort of like Junge Jims, though..

...its sort of a regular grocery store crossed with a quonset hut crossed with a bunch of wierd foreign speciality items (like meat cuts and veggys ive never heard of before)

its sort of in a real redneck part of Southwest Ohio (outskirts of Hamilton), so you get a real strange mix of shoppers...Jerry Springer walk-ons + people in saris and burkahs...

http://www.junglejims.com/

Trader Joes (at least the one by me) reminds me a bit of Jungle Jims, but alot smalller.

[DinahMoeHum]

8. Love their dried slab apricots and pineapple. . .

I live within a couple of miles of 3 great grocery stores that are NOT big name supermarkets: Trader Joe's, Mrs. Green's (a health food supermarket) and Hay Day (a gourmet food store with local produce)

Who needs Safeway or Pathmark anyway?

:9 :9 :9

[DagmarK]

9. I love TJ's and I passed it by for a number of years......

Shoot......I love the bags of fresh frozen cooked prawns for about $5.

And before the invasion.....I bought a case of some really good french red wine......$3 a bottle, heh heh

I will try the key lime pie......I LOVE real key lime pie. but I don't like it when it's just really SWEET......is theirs really tart?

[Catshrink]

11. That $3 wine was awesome

It's Charles Shaw if you haven't tried it... I like the merlot a lot.

Their frozen carrot cake is great. I love all the chocolate stuff and all the cookies. They have tubs of cookies, "cat cookies" for people, that come in either vanilla or chocolate. Yummy. And they are very low fat.

[athos1126]

14. NOOOOOOOOO! TURN THINE SOUL BACK FROM THE DARK SIDE!

Two Buck Chuck = on my nerves.

And it's two bucks in CA :evilgrin:

Try Sange de Toro. You won't turn back ever again.

[MoonGod]

18. Charles Shaw is not French...

... so I don't think that's the wine Dagmar was talking about...

I have a friend who was quite pleased with Charles Shaw, though... particularly the Chard. He was stranded up in the hills without a car, so whenever I went up to visit him, he'd have me bring a couple bottles up

[MoonGod]

17. Not too sweet for me...

... and I tend to complain about things that are either too sweet or too salty.

I thought it had the perfect balance between sweet/tart... and a whole lot of creamy wonderfulness.

[GregW]

10. I make my own breakfast cereal at TJ's

Mix equal parts of (Granola or raw muesli) and Mt Baldy Trail Mix.

Add 2% milk

Yumm!

[athos1126]

13. NOOOOOOOO!!!

I work there, and it sucks. I mean, I love my coworkers, with only one exception, I love our products and I like the company enough. It's you customers I hate! Hehehe, not all of you of course, but sheesh, we're kind enough to offer samples, throw your damn trash away! We got tons of carts for you! Put them back so the poor kid who has to go out and retreive them all doesn't get sunburnt. And please, Chuck Shaw has thrown out my back three times already. Buy something else!!! For an excellent red wine, both in flavour and price, try Sangre De Toro, it has the little plastic bull on it. For a good white, try New Zealand chardonnays and sauv blancs. You will find them most lovely!

And please, for the love of god, when you get to the register, HANG UP YOUR CELL PHONE and EXCRACT YOUR SMALL CHILDREN FROM THE CART! Your three year old who thinks they're "helping" is really pissing off the checker. It's not helping when they stomp on the eggs and yolk gets on everything, then not only do I have to ring up and bag all of your groceries, but re-clean my checkstand.

Of course, not all of my customers suck. It's the extreme exceptions that piss me off to no end.

[MoonGod]

19. I assure you...

... I am one of the good customers. ;)

Worst I ever do is ask if the chocolate covered licorice is any good, 'cuz it seems nasty.

[JohnKleeb]

16. I was considering working there

I heard the pay was nice but alas I am not 16 yet. My friend worked there I think.

[ForrestGump]

20. I love Trader Joe's

Regular highlights include their refrigerated chicken burrito, Chinese dumplings, hummus, blue corn chips, salsas, breads (I love the cracked-wheat sourdough), and special things they have from time to time (my most recent favorite: some of the licorices and the 'no pudge' brownie mix). And, of course, those little chunks of Ghirrridellhhii chocolate and the 'Pound Plus' bars, though not too often. I like their sushi, too, and I love some of their salads, especially the Chinese chicken salad. The salad with the tofu egg salad's good, too. Their sushi's yummy, too. And who could forget their canned chili, especially the chicekn chili and thei new turkey chili. And even their beef stew's better than any other. And those little pizzas that they started selling a while back - yummos. Also basic stuff like cereals, fruit-sweetened jams, milk, juices, some produce, etc.

A dangerous place. It's cheap, the stuff's good, and a lot of it even has the added benefit of being relatively good for you.

I love Trader Joe's!!

EDIT: I mis-spelled Ghirid....whatever that San Francisco chocolate is but, upon editing, I realized that although I knew it was wrong I couldn't make it any better. So I made it worse. It's all very logical. probably.

[DoctorBombay]

21. Proud shopper of the Redondo Beach TJ's

The salsa. Best in the world. I love the cereal bars. Good produce, too.