Trader Joe's 3 Seed Sweet Potato Crackers

Every once in a while, Sonia and I will get so busy that we'll go a few weeks without a Trader Joe's run, and we'll glance in the cupboard and realize there are no new TJ's products to review. I freely admit this was one of those occasions. Fortunately, there was one product we bought a while back that hadn't been reviewed at the time of purchase: these "sweet potato" crackers. We're pretty sure this item is still available, although the post about them on traderjoes.com has already been archived. They also offered a 3 seed beet flavor that we skipped.

First off, these snacks didn't taste a whole lot like sweet potato. Barely a hint. They tasted much more like traditional corn-based tortilla chips, but with a nice seedy nuttiness. 

Likewise, they behaved like little round "chips" rather than "crackers," despite clearly being marketed as the latter. If you've tried the Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips—again, not 100% sure they're still on Trader Joe's shelves currently—you'll know that despite functioning as tortilla chips, they actually tasted noticeably like sweet potato, as observed by Russ and Sandy.

For $1.99 per box, the value isn't bad at all. There are plenty of chips, er, crackers, in the package. By virtue of their diminutive size, they work well in soups, although I'd much rather have dipped them in salsa or queso sauce like real tortilla chips. 

They're crispy, crunchy, salty, slightly oily, and as mentioned before, seedy. I think in many ways the beet flavor would probably work better, since there's more earthiness in the flavor of a beet that might blend a little better with the taste of flax, chia, and sesame seeds.

They're gluten-free and kosher, and not a bad value for the price. We're certainly not hating on them, but we've seen at least one sweet potato chip/cracker in recent memory that's a little tastier. Looks like it'll be three stars from me again and three and a half from Sonia.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Sriracha Shrimp Bowl

This was gonna be it. This was gonna be my revenge.

For all the slightly too loud talk with a little bit too much TMI. For all the ice crunching and nail clipping and shoe stripping. For all the times my jokes weren't laughed at - I mean, I'm not always funny, but be a little polite, ok? For all the burned popcorn and odd smells and perfumes and other scents, whether from something mass produced or from something...rhyming with what I just wrote.

Yes. I was gonna microwave Trader Joe's Sriracha Shrimp Bowl for my lunch at work, right in the central break room. I was going to parade it proudly back to my desk, as the aroma of nuked seafood and various spices would waft around the cubicle farm.

I try to get along as best I can....but today would be different. Revenge, in this case, would be a dish best served hot.

Too bad it didn't quite turn out that way.

Surprisingly, this spicy shrimp and rice bowl is not overly aromatic, whether from a seafood or a spice perspective. It's almost completely innocuous. I don't think a single coworker noticed. No one asked. No glares. No nothing. I just looked like a dude eating lunch at his desk.

Overall, it makes for an okay lunch. For $3.49 you can't expect too much, so that's how I'm trying to approach this. The biggest issue seems to be the shrimp itself. My bowl had five in there, which seemed to be a reasonable number. But the shrimp just didn't taste all that great, mostly because it wasn't seasoned, and the sauce didn't have a chance to really flavor the shrimp either. The result was every bite with shrimp had a big, fleshy, taste-tempering feel that wasn't too spectacular.

Everything else was about on par, though. Mostly brown with a few red grains spinkled in, the rice added a hearty, earthy bite, while the veggies remained steamed yet firm enough. And the sriracha was about what one could expect, and it definitely helped tie it all together, too.

I'm not sure if this says more about me or the dish, but one letdown was, only about an hour after eating it, I was kinda hungry again, enough to consider running downstairs to our work cafe for chicken fingers or something along those lines. I'd definitely advise not considering thes hrimp bowl to be an entire lunch in of itself, but pack along some fruits or veggies or something to help complement it all.

Good chance I'd buy this TJ's rice bowl again. There's only so many times I can eat leftovers per week, and I certainly can't buy/order out every day...unlike most of my coworkers...but that's another story. Just me grading it this time around, so gonna double up.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Sriracha Shrimp Bowl: 6 out of 10 Golden Spoons