Trader Joe's ¡Mango! ¡Mango!

Seeing as that Trader Joe's, despite their otherwise healthy-ish vibes, is basically a store jam-packed of all sorts of impulse buys just begging to happen, Sandy and I have made ourselves a pretty simple rule for shopping there. We're each allowed to pick out one snack or treat for ourselves (ideally, we'll share), and if we both behave and keep pretty close to our budget, at the checkout we'll pick out one snacky kinda thing to share for the ride home. I'm sure it sounds kinda silly to motivate ourselves to "be good" in a manner not unlike you'd motivate your toddler, but you know what? It works! Like a charm! I mean, we tend to go there for just our snacks and lunch stuff and the odd ingredient for a dinner (opting to hit up farmer markets for our produce, most of our meat, etc) so it'd be easy for us to get carried away, especially when walking down the ice cream and candy aisle, or as I call it, Temptation Lane. No matter. The stands by the checkouts have tended to have some pretty great finds, from a recent favorite of ours, a dark chocolate speculoos filled bar, which rivals only the caramel/black sea salt bar as the best chocolate slab God has ever bestowed upon humanity, to things like candied squishy penguins. We've almost always been happy with what we find there.

We've kept hearing how good TJ's ¡Mango! ¡Mango! fruit gummies are, and so finally recently relished the chance to give them a try at last. As you might be able to guess by the blue denim covering my wife's knee area that served as this week's photo backdrop, we didn't wait long after loading up the Tucson to bust them out. We love our gummies, and greatly enjoy almost anything Trader Joe's and mango related (like our favorite granola), so, man, we were eager.

And to be honest, the mango^2 chewy guys were a bit of a disappointment to us. That's not to say they were completely bad. First off, each gummy wasn't, in fact, all that gummy. Instead they were tougher, much chewier, and very firm, despite the packaging claiming that they were going to be soft. That's not necessarily horrible, but I think that the texture kind of added to the general lack of flavor. I don't need a cavity cavalry's worth of sugar to make something taste good, but mango can be (and in this case, is) a relatively subtle flavor, and so having to put a few good, hearty chomps before any flavor starts leaking out is not optimal. It wasn't just that, but in our bag of about 40 candies, only seven had any yogurt parts on them, and maybe that many had passion fruit on them too. That's just not enough, even though the ones that did were only marginally better.

Overall, both Sandy and I just weren't all that impressed, especially after our pretty good experience with those penguin-themed Gummy Tummies. I think Sandy was kinda hoping the ¡Mango! ¡Mango!s would be a bit more like them, as she said she wished these were softer and had a liquidy part to them to add a little more flavor. I agree, although I would have settled for a wee bit more mango-tinged goodness. They weren't bad overall, but we'll be looking for another treat next time at the checkout before we reach for 'em again. If you're a fan, that just means more for you. From here, though, we're gonna split things right down the middle.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's ¡Mango! ¡Mango!: 5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Coconut Water Fruit Floes

An apartment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania isn't supposed to be ninety-five degrees in May. And yet, thanks to weather manipulation, a broken air conditioner, and living on the top floor of a six-story building, here we are—my wife and I, basking in our underpants on the day after Memorial Day (God bless those who paid the ultimate price for our country) sweating our butts off, crowding next to our brand new tall, skinny fan (didn't fans used to be round?) and wishing it were January again, pining for some relief from the heat.

Thank goodness for Trader Joe's. In the past, we've reviewed a few other fruit floes, discussed the meaning of the term "floe" and sang the praises of TJ's other frozen delights. Today, it's all about the coconut.

These frozen treats taste like Goya's Coconut Cream. Which, if you're familiar with it, is the nectar of the gods. A fattening nectar of the gods, to be sure, but absolutely worthy of the term. And if you're like me, you're fine eating the coconut cream plain, straight out of the can. But most people would consider that weird, desperate, and /or socially unacceptable. I consider it delicious.

And now, thanks to the wonders of hippie, underground, independent grocery store magic, that same taste can be found in a widely-acceptable bar/floe thingy. It tastes like real coconut. It has real coconut in it. It's not totally bad for you. It's highly refreshing when you're on the verge of heat-stroke (as I am right now).

Probably mostly due to the excessive heat and delirium that comes with it, Sonia gives it a 4.5 star rating. I'll go ahead with a 4 star rating, because it's such a beautiful balance of coconut-milkiness and coconut-wateriness. Trader Joe's Coconut Water Fruit Floes are magical coldness in a world of red hot death and sixth-story "hot-air-rises" in a "science sucks when applied to reality" kind of way. I love you. It's too hot here. It's only May. Abandon all hope, ye who plan to be alive in July '12. Eat lots of these.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.