Ever bite into anything unsuspectingly and kinda hope for the best?
For the unobservant, which surprisingly included my lovely bride in this instance, it can absolutely happen with the new Trader Joe's Everything and the Elote Greek Style Yogurt Dip.
The name gives a small clue - the "and." Not a "but" like we've seen for elote seasoning, and is common in the "everything but the..." product lines, most notably with bagels. It's an "and," and in what I'm pretty sure is a somewhat inaccurate expansion of the definition of the word "elote," there's actual corn in the elote dip. Like, elote is a type of seasoned Mexican street corn, and not just corn itself, right?
Anyways, yes, there's corn in the yogurt dip, And to be honest, it's an odd feel. It's not off putting, just...odd. Personally, I would have done without and it's kinda weird in the occasional bite when chomping on a chip with a dab of creamy yogurt dip to bite into a smushy corn kernel. Might have worked better during development stages, who knows. If it were up to me, I'd say no corn and keep everything else as is, or if you insisted on corn, making more of a corn salsa-style product and skip the Greek yogurt altogether. There's too much of it to ignore, not enough to really make a central feature of the product...between all or none they went for the middle and missed IMHO. Knowing when it was coming made it a better bite, but the best were the ones without any corn.
No other real complaints, though. I love anything elote and there's plenty of that here. A little heat, a little smoke, lots of spicy depth balanced out nicely with the cool creaminess - it's delicious and kinda addictive. The heat isn't overwhelming, so it may be somewhat of a toned down experience, which has its plusses and minuses. Tons of flavor, though, so I'm not gonna complain much. And the nutritional info isn't as awful as one may expect for something of the sort, unless you eat half the tub....
Still, the corn...
The tub of elote dip was about $3 and worth a buy for sure. Just know what's coming.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Everything and the Elote Greek Style Yogurt Dip: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons
"Like, elote is a type of seasoned Mexican street corn, and not just corn itself, right?"
ReplyDeleteit's both, actually!