A Clunker from TJ's, and soon to be discontnued items

The Ginger Peanut Noodle Salad isn't new, but I hadn't tried it before. It sells for $2.99, if I remember correctly, and it's located in the refrigerated section, but not the one with the milk.

This dish looks fine in its little clear plastic carton, and I figured it'd be tasty, if maybe a little salty. I was wrong; the noodles are bland and the peanuts are mushy. Ginger? What ginger?

I topped half of mine with stir fry the other night and gave up after a few bites. Just not into it. Tonight I used chopped fresh veggies (carrot, red pepper, onion and parsley) along with about a cup of frozen snap peas and made a new dressing with garlic, fresh ginger, white balsamic vinegar and sesame oil plus a bit of teryaki sauce that I needed to use up. Dressed like that, the whole thing was better, though I could have done the same thing with buckwheat noodles and come out way ahead on price.

At three bucks, it's not a bad base for a cold noodle salad, but when you could do better by cooking your own noodles and chopping up some peanuts, this product kind of doesn't make sense.

The only thing from the latest disco list that might interest you is the mango salsa. It's way too sweet for me, but some people like that kind of thing. If you're a fan, you might want to stock up now. Also, if you like the bargain Cafe Duran at $3.99 a pound, it's going away. This should come as no surprise.

If you get your Scharffen Berger chocolate at TJ's for the bargain price of $1.99 per bar, the 80 percent and 72 percent cocoa bars are going away, which is too bad. I've done my damnest to sell the 80 percent bars; that's some good chocolate.

Comments

[AdamH]

Thanks for the heads-up!

If you ever see the Italian Roast coffee on the disco list, make sure to sound the klaxon!

[Doug]

I always found the peanut noodle salad to be way too salty. After years of avoiding salt, my body doesn't tolerate it well, and after a few bites of TJ's PNS (the ones I managed to swallow, since that much salt triggers my cough reflex) my feet would swell up for the rest of the day.

However, if TJ's ever discontinues the steel-cut Irish oatmeal, I shall mourn.

[fedward]

The salt is my one consistent complaint about TJ's packaged foods. I don't worry too much about fat in most of them since it usually stays in the tray or pan (depending on preparation) but there's no way to desalinate, say, canned soup.

[Amanda]

Stuff from TJ's almost always has way too much salt because it's a preservative, but we can get away with using it while still claiming not to use preservatives.

Clever dodge, that.

I might not have noticed before living with an almost sodium-free diet, but I definitely do now. Prepared food has a ton of salt, which is one of the reasons it's so bad for you.