What's NOT good at Trader Joe's?

I find that any produce I buy there goes bad far more quickly than what I pick up at the regular grocery store. I also don’t like their meat. The ground beef I bought there had a peculiar smell.

I agree with those who say that the bread at TJ’s is subpar. I find it goes stale far quicker than the bread I get at the regular grocery.

I don’t like their salsa. I like mild salsa and every single time I have tried to get mild salsa there it has been way too spicy.

I once bought some frozen salmon patties that tasted pretty bad. Their frozen salmon in general was unreliable in terms of taste and texture so I stopped buying it.

OTOH, I bought their spicy salsa recently and thought it wasn’t spicy enough. The SO said it was as spicy as she likes to get.

Regarding salsa: I found almost no jarred sauces that I like… Too mushy, too spicy, whatever. There’s only one exception it is Goya brand pico de gallo.it tastes remarkably fresh for jarred salsa and it is flavorful, not painful.

Cheese goes either way for me- I’ll buy feta, fontina, Dubliner, chèvre, Brie, and Mozzarella, but their cheddars and Monterey Jacks mold too quickly and don’t save me any money compared to Fred Meyer or Safeway cheese.

Their celery never lasts in my fridge like “normal” grocery store celery. I don’t know if it’s because of how far down the stalk it’s trimmed, or the packaging, or both. But it always ends up gross and wasted.

Haven’t had the Cowboy Caviar, but the corn salsa just tastes like sugared red peppers, which is a bummer. I wish it tasted as good as it looks.

There’s also a chicken sausage I tried once on my Mom’s recommendation that I nearly spit out I hated it so much, but we’ve since determined that it’s the cheese in it. I just don’t like Asiago cheese with poultry.

(Speaking of my mom- she eats Trader Joe’s sandwich bread and seems to like it, but that could be necessity versus true enjoyment. It’s hard to find whole grain high fiber bread without sunflower seeds, so she’s kinda stuck with TJ’s or spending way more cash than she has for overly fancy bread.)

I just tried the seasonal pumpkin waffles, and they’re not only not very good, they aren’t even particularly pumpkiny.

Just got back from Trader Joe’s. (Acorn squash, $1.29 each! w00t! I bought four.) As I was looking for a sandwich my eyes passed over the Vietnamese Spring Rolls. I’ve had them before. Will not have them again.

Just remembered one: Trader Joe’s Sriracha, while maybe not awful, is pretty uniformly inferior to to the standard brand by Huy Fong. Besides not tasting the same, it is IIRC quite a bit more watery, which defeats some of the purpose of using it over other hot sauces. Short comparison.

It’s also way too sweet. Cock sauce should NOT be sweet.

I actually like it. (I have it at work. Huy Fong at home.)

The freeze-dried veggie things are pretty bad. The freeze-dried kimchee is especially godawful. Never again.

The freeze-dried fruit things are lousy as snacks right out of the bag, but they’re useful for cooking with or flavoring things if you smoosh them into powder.

They don’t have a diet iced tea so I have tried different permutations of their unsweetened iced teas and I have not liked any of them yet.

‘Diet iced tea’ is just ‘tea’. (Seriously, who adulterates perfectly good iced tea?)

I prefer unsweetened iced tea as well so this isn’t a problem for me. :wink:

I forgot about this thread so thanks for the bump as I have something to add. I got some TJ’s Pineapple Salsa. It tasted like regular salsa which was kind of disappointing, but what was really bad is that it had a 1/4" layer of mold over the entire top after just four days post-opening. Good grief! It doesn’t have preservatives, but I would’ve thought the acidity in the tomatoes would’ve retarded mold growth. I’ve had jars of salsa for much too long that never formed mold.

FWIW while I prefer Diet Iced tea, I like unsweetened tea just fine, just not theirs.

Make your own. It’s cheaper, fresher, and the best.

I like ginger beer, but I don’t care much for the brand that TJ carries. Ginger beer is supposed to be sweet/spicy. Theirs is way too fruity for my taste buds.

I’ll add that, while I like TJ’s orange juice, my wife isn’t very fond of it. But then, she’s not very fond of any kind other than fresh-squeezed or Tropicana (and those only if they’re pulp-free).