Trader Joe's Chicken Karaage

Sonia and I are both fascinated with Japanese culture. We often watch travel videos from the Land of the Rising Sun and we just finished Tokyo Vice season 2. Good show. Needless to say, Japan is on our bucket list for travel destinations. We both even took a stab at learning a bit of Japanese via the Duolingo app. I've since given up. I can barely learn Spanish.

For the most part, we really enjoy Japanese cuisine, too. We're both fond of good sushi. Sonia is big into authentic ramen dishes, and I love tempura anything. So I figured breaded chicken with some alluring Japanese dipping sauce would be absolutely scrumptious.

And I'm sure this dish has its fan base, but I wound up kinda wishing I just had a box full of Chick-fil-A nuggets and some honey mustard instead of this karaage. It's not terrible, it's just a bit oily and not super flavorful. The sauce, made of canola oil, egg yolk, vinegar, and garlic powder, along with a few other things, isn't too far a cry from plain mayonnaise if you ask me.

The chicken is all leg. I'm more of a white meat guy, to be honest. While most were soft and good quality dark meat, a few of the pieces were unpleasantly gristly and chewy. The breading was nice and crispy, but it didn't add a whole lot as far as taste is concerned.

Sonia was busy with work when I asked for her thoughts on this chicken dish.

"S'good," she blurted flatly.

I'll interpret that as something like 7 out of 10 stars.

$6.49 for the four serving bag, found in the frozen aisle. Looks like it's simply "Japanese inspired" rather than a true Japanese import. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you're familiar with authentic karaage. All I can tell you is that this wasn't my favorite, but you can't say I didn't have a go at it. I'd try the dish again but probably wouldn't purchase this TJ's offering a second time. Six out of ten stars for me for Trader Joe's Chicken Karaage.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Lemon Ginger Cheesecake

While slicing my first piece of this cheesecake, I accidentally cut a bit too shallow in the middle of the dessert, leaving a bite-sized triangle of graham crackery crust all by itself with no lemony cream cheese on top still sitting there near the center of the confection. I made another incision to free the little section of grahamy goodness and popped it into my mouth. There was the expected graham cracker flavor, typical of traditional cheesecake, but there was also an unexpected blast of raw ginger.

Dang, I thought. This has too much ginger flavor. There's no way the lemon can shine through all this ginger. It was like a gingersnap cookie with, if anything, a bit too much raw ginger in the mix. Then I dug my fork into the slice, getting plenty of the creamy lemon layers, and tasted it...

Not only did the sweet-tart lemon outshine the ginger, it nearly eclipsed it completely. Each bite got more and more lemony, with real bits of lemon peel and rich, creamy cheese flavors. By the end of that slice, I'd nearly forgotten the gingery zing of that first bite of crust. I actually found myself wishing for a little more ginger flavor. It was nice to have it in the crust, but I feel like the body of the cheesecake could have used some ginger in order to balance out the lemon...and I'm a big fan of lemon flavored desserts.

The texture was just a tad spongier than I would have preferred, but you tend to get that with frozen cheesecakes. It's difficult to replicate that perfect dense creaminess you get with something fresh from a bakery. And the day-old slices tasted and felt tangibly less fresh than those that we tried immediately after thawing. Still, the cheesecake was thick and smooth and had a pleasant mouthfeel even if it wasn't a flawless representation of true fresh cheesecake.

The real draw here is the sweet and sour lemon zing. It's a nice summer dessert, and even just a small slice is quite satisfying. There are supposedly six servings in the box, but I think you could easily stretch it to eight or more.

$7.99 for the whole cheesecake. I don't think Sonia and I will buy this again just for ourselves, but I'd consider taking this to a group picnic or large gathering in the future. I give Trader Joe's Lemon Ginger Cheesecake 7/10 stars. Sonia will go with 8/10.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Organic Uncured Grass Fed Beef Hot Dogs

Ah, nothing's more 'Murican than throwing a package of hot dogs on the grill in the middle of the summer, sun high overhead, beads of sweat on your forehead from the heat and humidity, Old Glory waving above the front stoops of each house on the block, birds singing, dogs barking, children laughing, and the smell of salty, smoky meat wafting through the air. Almost heaven.

On this occasion, however, we opted to cook these weenies indoors. I think the George Foreman approximates a grill somewhat better than an air fryer does, plus we haven't fired it up in quite a while, so we dug deep in the kitchen cupboard and dusted off the old relic. Still worked like a charm. In minutes, we had some nice brown hotdogs ready for buns and toppings.

And the ingredients here don't get much cleaner or simpler. We've got organic beef, water, and a dozen or so organic spices and seasonings. Nice.

They tasted pretty standard for all-beef hotdogs. Not bad by any means. But honestly, I think I prefer the taste of Hebrew National for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.

Texture-wise, the casings on these dogs really hindered my enjoyment of them. With most bites, there was a moment of hesitation where the chunk of meat refused to separate fully from the rest of the hotdog and a bit of skin had me yanking the product away from my face while I clutched the beef with my teeth and pulled in the opposite direction. Once again, Hebrew National for the win in terms of texture. I'm only using Hebrew National because they're the gold standard for all-beef hotdogs in my experience, and I do believe most Trader Joe's carry them, too.

About six bucks for six hotdogs. While the ingredients are impeccable, I just can't go too high with my score since there's a better product on the shelf right next to these puppies. Once again, we're always interested in hearing your opinion of the product, so fire away in the comments section. Nathan and Sonia will go with the same score here for Trader Joe's Organic Uncured Grass Fed Beef Hot Dogs.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.