Product Review: Tai Pei [frozen Asian-inspired food]
Those of you who know me personally know just how big a fan I am of Chinese food. And that's big. Tonight I went to Walmart for medicine and to get my oil checked, and Roo asked me to pick up something for dinner as well.
I'd been craving Chinese [as usual] and decided to check through the frozen food selections to see what Boise had to offer. Tai Pei is an inexpensive brand and the Boise store had a wider range of products, including [apparently New] pork or chicken egg rolls and pork or chicken potstickers. I chose a box of chicken potstickers, a box of orange chicken for myself and Bourbon Street chicken for Andrew.
The sauce in the orange chicken was decent, but the serving size is small compared to the box [what isn't, now days]. There were three nuggets of chicken, and despite heating for the instructed time, I still had to heat further so the chicken wasn't cold in the middle [yes, microwave temperatures vary. I know]. Andrew said his was mediocre, but at least the "farmers market" of vegetables weren't squishy :P
However, I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the potstickers. They weren't tiny; same size as those you'd get at a Chinese restaurant. It's recommended to cook them in a skillet but I wasn't looking for a long prep time so microwave it was! After heating them [in the box, but with some water added per instructions] the ones on top were still frozen. I was disappointed and just knew they'd be like wet cardboard.
A dipping sauce is included in the package, so after it thawed I poured it over the potstickers and heated them another minute. What resulted was in one word: Delicious. The potstickers were *full* of veggies and chicken, and actually had more meat than vegetables. At less than $2 a box, I'd gladly buy these again. We'll just see what different main entree will accompany them.
I'd been craving Chinese [as usual] and decided to check through the frozen food selections to see what Boise had to offer. Tai Pei is an inexpensive brand and the Boise store had a wider range of products, including [apparently New] pork or chicken egg rolls and pork or chicken potstickers. I chose a box of chicken potstickers, a box of orange chicken for myself and Bourbon Street chicken for Andrew.
The sauce in the orange chicken was decent, but the serving size is small compared to the box [what isn't, now days]. There were three nuggets of chicken, and despite heating for the instructed time, I still had to heat further so the chicken wasn't cold in the middle [yes, microwave temperatures vary. I know]. Andrew said his was mediocre, but at least the "farmers market" of vegetables weren't squishy :P
However, I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the potstickers. They weren't tiny; same size as those you'd get at a Chinese restaurant. It's recommended to cook them in a skillet but I wasn't looking for a long prep time so microwave it was! After heating them [in the box, but with some water added per instructions] the ones on top were still frozen. I was disappointed and just knew they'd be like wet cardboard.
A dipping sauce is included in the package, so after it thawed I poured it over the potstickers and heated them another minute. What resulted was in one word: Delicious. The potstickers were *full* of veggies and chicken, and actually had more meat than vegetables. At less than $2 a box, I'd gladly buy these again. We'll just see what different main entree will accompany them.