Ranking Trader Joe's Chinese Food & BOBA Pt. 2

It don't taste Chinese, but it tastes good. Trader's f***ing Joe's, man. Today, I'm ranking all of Trader Joe's Chinese items from best to worst. This is part two. I mean, I'm a Chinese guy. I eat a lot of Chinese food. I got opinions about this. By the way, they have a boba kit. Here's what we're working with. I got to pick up some items that I didn't pick up in part one. People said that I didn't do the orange chicken justice by giving it the rice bowl. So I got the full serving here. Obviously, I'm excited about this boba kit that you're going to melt down. The Kung Pao chicken, aka, Kung Pao Chicken. And then, actually, this shiitake mushroom dish is, I'm pretty excited about this one. Oh, beef and brock. Got beef and beef. Chicken cilantro wontons. Philly cheese bao buns. This is a little fusion dish. Pork shumai. Definitely more similar to the dim sum version that you would get at a Cantonese restaurant. However, I still think it's more Japanesey. Let's check them out. The chicken and mushroom dish. They wanted you to defrost the chicken. But I say, just flipping the chicken, flipping the chicken. Will I lose any peas or chicken? Stir fry sauce. All right, so how close does this look to the photo? Oh, I would say this looks almost exactly like the photo. Wow. Okay, so chicken mushroom as a combination is just really popular all across Asia. But there is a very beloved chicken mushroom dish that I love in Cantonese that's steamed called bak kut kai. And then there's all different forms. You can get it in congee and stuff like that. But this one, I will say with the little edamame, a tiny bit Japanese influenced. Try the shiitake. Shiitake tastes a little weird. But overall, I give it like a 3.5 out of 5. If you like the idea of shiitake mushroom, which is hard to find even at a place like Trader Joe's. Check it out. Next up, we got to try this Kung Pao Chicken, aka Kung Pao Chi Ding, which is a real dish as we know. I'm actually going to cook part of this in the air fryer. Oh man, I'm splitting up the beef and broccoli with the Kung Pao Chicken. Man, this is looking like a Panda Express kitchen right now. Are you kidding me? I'm about to cook it all in the air fryer. Can the air fryer really cook good Kung Pao Chicken and beef and broccoli at the same time? A little spray down. I don't even need as much oil as last time. I think that's good enough. At the dual creation. Okay, brown the broccoli a little bit. I don't mind that. This looks pretty crispy. Maybe I'll just flip them a little bit and put it on for maybe like two more minutes. All right, here we got the chicken fried rice. They touted that it's going to be ready in five minutes. It has eggs, chicken, vegetables. Let's go. Lock fried rice. Guys, FYI, you can cook your fried rice in the air fryer, but it kind of comes out more like Bo Tai Fon with the top is crispy, which isn't bad, but it's just maybe not what you want. All right, it's come out. It is a little bit torched and burnt on certain edges, but I like it. I'm just going to pour some of this Kung Pao Chicken sauce on top. And then you got your beef and broccoli sauce, which is usually some mixture of oyster sauce. And this definitely looks like some American Chinese food, man, from a restaurant. Combo plate, baby. What restaurant is that from? I don't know. Let's check out the fried rice first. That's in the middle. Flavor-wise, it's pretty good. The chicken pieces are nice, but the egg that's like cooked and then frozen and then cooked again, it's kind of weird. I will say that. All right, let's try this beef and broccoli. Mmm, all together. The beef and broccoli sauce is a little bit more like sweet Thai chili, which isn't bad, but it's just not what I was expecting from beef and broccoli. The Kung Pao, I am impressed they give you that chili to cook. So I might actually have to eat that though. It's the Kung Pao Chicken. It's not bad. Let me eat this chili though. Oh my gosh. All right, let's try some of it with Sma La too. I do like how cooked the vegetables are in the air fryer though. That's really good. All right, the beloved orange chicken. A lot of people were mad at me, which I was a little bit caught off guard. Apparently, there's a lot of orange chicken fans out there. My bad. Here, I got the one. I'm going to air fry these. You can spring egg rolls. You know, I had to dip some spot. I haven't really had that many chicken egg rolls. So obviously, I think this is one that's appealing to everybody out there. All right, fun fact. A lot of Trader Joe's Asian items are actually made with a manufacturer in Asia. So usually, what they'll do is maybe like either tweak the original recipe of an item that they already have or just white label it and change it to Trader Joe's. I got an orange chicken, chicken egg rolls, spring rolls. You got your pork shumais and your Philly cheese baos. I'm going to air fry these to see how they go because, you know, I kind of want to know what they're like when they're air fried. Make sure when you got an air fryer at home, get that parchment paper. It makes cleanup super easy. Look at this. Everybody, this air fryer, it cooks from the top and the bottom. And regardless of what Trader Joe's instructions are, I'm doing six minutes, 370. That's pretty solid. So I think the air fried dumplings are good. But let me just flip the orange chicken because I want to get it really crispy. I want to give Trader Joe's my honest good effort here. So I'm about to flip these and put it in for probably another two minutes. The orange chicken is done, fully crispy. Let's take a look. Oh, oh, oh, it's still sizzling. And I was able to steam up my Mandarin orange chicken sauce in my steamer. That's what I love, man. OK, easy, easy. Just take my parchment out. Oh, man, this looks like some Dongbei guobaorou right now, which is often said to be possibly the root dish of orange chicken bun. Anyways, guys, this is how you guys want it. Crispy, big chunks of chicken in some warm sauce. Let me try it. Trader Joe's orange chicken. Oh, man, you know how you get close to something tangy and you smell it and you can feel it go through your nostrils like what? It's better than the bowl. It's way better than the rice bowl. Wow. And in the air fry, I think it does it justice. It really does. Top it off with a little small made in America. All right. Let me just revise my earlier review with the chicken rice bowl that was microwaved. It doesn't do it justice. I got to give this a four point five out of five. When done right, put it in an air fryer if you can. This is good. By the way, if you guys do not have a steamer at home, make sure you get one. A lot of people were asking me about this little guy. I got this from Amazon. I'll leave the link down below. Man, what I love about the steamer is that it actually allows me to cook a lot of traditional food the traditional way. Because steaming at the house, usually, man, you need those big, you know, tin or bamboo with a big wok and everything like that. But man, with these steamers, it makes it super easy. So definitely get yourself a steamer that can steam more than eggs. I got the air fryer going. I got the skillet going. I got to try these steamed items real quick. Let's go in with the pork siu mai. I've never had this. And again, it is the shumai. That's how they spell it. It is the more Japanese way. So I think it's a pork Japanese style siu mai. Oh, it does taste more Chinese. Not bad. And for a little small lot, guys, small lot is made with real truffle and made in America. Eight ounces of deliciousness right here. Siu mai is one of those dishes that is in Thailand. It's in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and even Japan. So it's just all over. And, you know, it is by way of probably Cantonese people, though they do have a northern siu mai, but it's like a little bit different. So anyways, that's pretty good, though. Let me try the cilantro wonton. This is definitely a fusion dish. I do not recall any traditional wontons having cilantro in it. Very green, fragrant. I like it. Let me just break one open. Oh, OK. It's got a little vermicelli in it. That's cool. That's really not traditional. Almost tastes, I would say, maybe if anything, almost like a Korean mandu. All right. Here's the Philly cheese bao, a fusion dish. You'd find this at like a fusion Asian restaurant. Oh, that's juicy, baby. Oh, my goodness. Hey, you know, why don't you get... You got to get yourself a nice Philly cheesesteak bao. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm in Philly. I'm not in Philly, but I get the cheesesteak. Yo, that's pretty good. It don't taste Chinese, but it tastes good. This Philly cheesesteak bao looks amazing. That's nice. Oh, I got some siu mai here. What is the chicken? Let's look and find. That's a little bit of the wontons or the aka the wonton. Oh, this crispy egg roll. Okay, it's a little soft on the corners, but it is crispy on the side. Oh, crispy chicken egg roll. Let's cut it sideways. Okay, not bad. Not bad. Looking very Americanized. Let's check out this Philly cheesesteak bun. I thought it was really good. Oh, that's crispy. Nice, nice. All right, let's cut this siu mai solid. Let's cut this guy right here. Trader Joe's chicken spring roll. It tastes kind of like the egg roll that you would get at Jack in the Box, but I'm not gonna lie. I always kind of like that one. So it's not bad. Are the dumplings better from the steamer or the air fryer? Had a little crispy edge. That's actually kind of nice. Siu mai, pork siu mai. Maybe I like that one steamed. Philly cheese bao. Yeah, I don't know. I think the steamer made everything a little bit hotter. But having that crispy outside is kind of nice. It almost feels like a pan-fried sheng jian bao, Philly cheesesteak style. I am making Trader Joe's boba kit. It actually is from Taiwan. This is concentrated tea and boba and sugar. I actually steam the packet. So if you have a steamer, it helps. I'm gonna pour it in. I can smell the brown sugar. Are you kidding me? All right, I just have some almond breeze, light vanilla. Throw a little ice in there. Trader Joe's boba out of a wine glass. Look at these pearls. Let's see if they're still tender. Yo, they're gooey. They honestly are gooey. It's not like the fake boba, like the konjac ones that just cut through real easily. These are like real pearls. Trader's ******* Joe's, man. This sun tzu nai tau is pretty good. Wow, I'm impressed, man. I might have to give it a five out of five. It's a must try if you don't have boba shops nearby. All right, so for final rankings of Trader Joe's Chinese items. I mean, first of all, I picked the little bit more complicated items. I did cook some of them in the air fryer, some of them on the skillet, some of them in the steamer. Luckily, I didn't microwave any of them. Here's my first tier items. These are the ones you should get. The chicken fried rice, although the egg is a little bit weird. Overall, it's a good dish. The boba, very impressive. I'm not gonna lie. The boba is chewy and it actually really does feel like boba. And you know, if you put whole milk in it, I can imagine. Philly cheesesteak bao. This is a fusion item. You can argue whether it's actually Chinese or not. Obviously, it's Chinese inspired. It's really good. Orange chicken. Yes, yes, yes. I get it. If you air fry it or you put it in the skillet, it is better. This is totally worth getting, as you probably already know. The chicken spring rolls, honestly, were pretty good. I like how clean they taste on the inside. Good flavor. It does feel like a Chinese American egg roll, obviously, but yeah. The kung pao chicken. This is the lowest of the high tier. But I would say it was very decent if I cooked it all together. I mean, you got the peppers in there, the onions, and the sauce was very decent. So ultimately, these are the items you must cop. Now, in the second tier is everything else. The pork shumai. I don't think you have to get this. I'm not in love with this. The shiitake mushroom. It was not bad, but it wasn't great. The cilantro wontons are pretty high quality, but they just don't feel Chinese to me. And then the beef and brock. The beef and brock. There was parts of this dish that I enjoyed, that I thought were really good. But ultimately, the sauce. It's the sauce that doesn't make sense to me. It's a little bit Thai chili-ish. And that's just not the sauce that goes on beef and brock. So again, not a bad dish, but just not on point. Overall, Trader Joe's, once again, very impressive with their Chinese food. Although certain dishes obviously are missing a layer and the flavors are not correct. But man, I will tell you this. The food that they import from Asia is probably better. But again, their Chinese-American dishes like this one, very, very solid. A lot of it, if it's not coming from Asia, it's probably coming from Monrovia, California, which is right next to the 626, which is right, pretty much, where some of the best Chinese food in the world is. So anyways, guys, check out smallasauce.com. That is our very own truffle-laced chili oil. Real truffle. Made in America. Eight-ounce bottle. Really fun to use. Get it right now. Pre-orders are ending soon. So smallasauce.com. And man, shout out to Taiwan because this boba, man, they delivered a homemade boba. This is the best homemade boba I've ever had. All right. So let me know what other Trader Joe's cuisines you want me to try. There's a bunch out there. But leave it in the comments down below. Please hit that like button. Check out more episodes because I'm back in the kitchen, baby.