The chicken/lime frozen burgers. Blech. Ate one, threw the rest in the garbage. Had a guiltless frozen sole with spinach entree. Horrible. Threw that out too.
I get Valrhona chocolate there all the time, and love it. But once I got a bad batch. It wasn’t horrible, and I eventually ate it, but it tasted weirdly “off”.
I don’t get many of their entree type stuff, so I’m not familiar with most of what people have mentioned.
Huh, from your description, that sounds fabulous. I really like phyllo dough as a pot-pie topper. Maybe I should try picking some up.
Maybe they are sloppy about hygiene when they cut and package the cheese, and they cut non-moldy cheese on surfaces where moldy cheese (like bleu) has recently been cut.
I don’t buy cheese there, but I’ve never had Parmesan Reggiano mold ever. If I keep it far too long, it dries out and gets unappealing and hard to grate. But it doesn’t mold. I thought it was too dry and salty to mold.
I’ve had it almost as brown as the rind, but it (and the rind) taste great when grated. I used to have one of those rotary graters like they use at Olive Garden, but it broke. I’ve found that you can’t beat a microplane, no matter how hard the cheese gets. (I also use it for nutmeg.)
I mentioned cookie butter as a thing I know that they sell but it’s not a TJ’s thing. I read about it in their newsletter, and then did a total impulse grab of it at Costco. I rounded the corner and found that they had samples of it. It was good but not something I could see myself going out of the way to eat. So I put the can back. Not the intended purpose of the samples, I’m sure. I don’t know how the concept of the ice cream sounds (haven’t had it) but cookie dough ice cream is resplendent.
Haven’t had the pie to my memory, but that first part sounds tasty. As for the crust, I know what you mean, it’s like eating plastic or something hard. There are people out there who cut the crust off of everything. Those aren’t people of whom I have any understanding.
Also, I will blue cheese mold “take” on other cheeses? I don’t think cross contamination will affect your rates of getting the bad kind of mold.
I found their hot salsa (the lower priced one) to be very unflavorful and worse than the commercial brands.
Quinoa. Not necessarily theirs, although theirs is the only one i’ve had. I just don’t have any use for quinoa at all.
I really did not like their peanut butter
Their just-add-water pad thai and peanut-sauce noodle bowls are disgusting, I don’t know how they managed to screw these up, but it is impossible to turn them into anything other than a sticky gelatinous chemical-tasting lump.
Not a fan of their canned clam chowder. It tastes like it’s somewhere between ‘past shelf life’ and ‘death by red tide’.
I’ll third this. Their cheeses seem very poorly wrapped and sealed. Especially the yummy softer cheeses, they are usually molding within the wrapper after only a week at home. It’s a shame because I used to stock up, but it seems something changed the last year or two and shelf-life of their cheeses that used to last months is now terrible.
Channeling my wife:
Chicken Andoule sausage: “Just didn’t like it.”
Hummus without tahini: “Tastes like you just put beans in a blender.” As I recall, it wasn’t obvious on the label that it was tahini-free. ETA: She wanted real hummus, not tahini-free.
Salmon jerky: “Oh god, that was bad. I ended up giving it to the dog.” and later “Salmon jerky. That was the worst. It tasted like you left a piece of fish out on the beach for a week.”
She also said their fresh produce isn’t that fresh. That might vary from store to store.
She agrees that the cheese doesn’t last very long.
She also complained about the sardines. The last two cans she bought, one had three sardines and one had only two. (The sardines were too big, it’s not that the can was half-empty.)
I tried their cowboy caviar (corn and black bean salsa), and it was inedible. I think sugar was third on the list of ingredients.
I’m also a multi-decade TJ shopper… hell, I remember when they had nothing but wine and cheese!
But unlike you, I have found many things utterly disgusting to even contemplate (fish jerky springs immediately to mind.)
I’m gonna violate your OP and just use my space to sing the praises and mourn the passing of things which were excellent but failed to catch on or for other reasons left the shelves:
[ul]
[li]Lemon Glazed Angel Food Cake (that one is from the 80’s) [/li][li]Heritage Pork Chops, Caveman-Style (12 inch rib bone with a slab of heritage pork at the end) [/li][li]Turkish Pistachios! Oh it is to weep…they RUINED me for any others. (Can be had via mail order, but at a very dear price. Worth it. Totally.) [/li][li]and most recently, they had a flirtation with Tates Bakery, selling the world’s best commercially produced chocolate chip cookies as a house brand. For about 12 minutes.[/li][/ul]
All these amazing things are gone, and yet I’m still pretty sure they are peddling fish jerky. I can’t begin to explain it.
Occasionally, I have seen Wisconsin-style “squeaky” cheese curds at Trader Joe. Not good. They don’t have the texture of squeaky cheese at all.
I think they buy stuff that is a little too close to the “sell by” date and that gives them a bargain price. They sell a ton of the stuff because of the great price. I just plan to use it a bit more quickly when I buy any standard stuff from TJs. Their fancy cheeses do better.
What I haven’t liked:
Mochi ice cream
tortilla chips, popcorn, any of the munchie stuff
jarred spaghetti sauce wasn’t very tomato-y
chicken stock is way salty
some of their frozen entrees claim two servings and it’s barely one.
The Best Ice Cream Bars Bar None or whatever they’re called are horrible. Grainy wand watery and yuuuukkk.
i brought that over to a friend’s and was mortified at how bad it was. But her 3 little boys thought it was the most delicious thing ever. And ate it all up Weird.
I just tried the chicken pot pie and liked it a lot.
I agree about the bread. Very dry and heavy. The frozen meals vary. Some are really wonderful (the vegetarian Indian and Mexican ones) and some are a rip-off (anything Asian or promising more than one serving of meat.)
I like many things from TJ’s. However, I bought their frozen Korean style bbq short ribs once. Once.
Oh, and their spiced apple cider. Awful.
The soy yogurt is absolutely dreadful.
I don’t know what they can’t make good bread. If I wanted dry, heavy bread I’d make it myself! (OK, I’ve only made bread once. I need practice.)
I’m wary of their frozen meals. I’ve enjoyed their refrigerated meals though. (e.g., Chicken Tikka Masala. Not great, but not bad at all. And their meat loaf and lasagne are good.)