Black Bean Rotini

This is a new Trader Joe’s product.  I found it on an end cap (you know, those shelves on the end of an aisle that retailers use to get your attention to sell you stuff).  I need to pause here to say this:  I do NOT read other online reviews of Trader Joe’s products before we try them. I do not want our opinions to be in any way influenced by what other people think of products.  However, you can bet your sweet bippy that as soon as I finished writing this review I am gonna check and see what other people thought about Trader Joe’s Black Bean Crap-ini – errr, I mean Rotini!!  But before I can begin my review, let me just say this:  if anyone else gave this a GOOD review, they are either getting paid by Trader Joe’s or they are drunk.  This is a super shi**y product. 

See this?  Don't buy it.

This is a horrible product.

We bought this rotini at our Northern Virginia Trader Joe’s.  It seemed interesting!  We planned on making the recipe for the shrimp pasta dish on the back of the bag, but we didn’t have time to make it at home, so we brought the crap-ini with us to Florida.  Last night we followed the recipe on the back of the bag, but we had to improvise a bit since there is not a Trader Joe’s near us here.  Instead of using TJ’s “Mushroom Medley” or “Roasted Peppers and Onions”, we used fresh mushrooms, peppers, and onions.  We didn’t have a jar of TJ’s Alfredo Sauce with us (which got a great review in this blog here ) so we bought another brand of sauce.  And instead of using TJ’s frozen shrimp, we went to a special fish store (Hull’s in Ormond Beach, FL, which rocks!) and bought fresh local shrimp.  Yes, we put a lot of heart into this meal…

The part we made – the veggies, sauce, and shrimp – was really good.

The pasta part – the Black Bean Rotini – was DISGUSTING.

Even David didn't like it.

Luckily we TASTED it before we poured our delectable sauce over it!  I would have been steaming mad if that excuse for a pasta had ruined the tasty sauce we made!!  I almost barfed when I tasted it, then we literally THREW IT AWAY.  We had made half a package and we pitched all of it into the garbage can.  We do NOT throw food away – there are too many people who go to bed hungry, and we do not have money to waste.  But that stuff was too gross to eat…  I taped up the other half of the bag and put it in our stuff to bring back home with us so that we can return it to Trader Joe’s.  And you can bet I will give them a link to this review when we return it so they can see exactly what we thought of it. 

I call it “Black Sh*t Rotini” instead of Black Bean Rotini.   We ended up eating our lovely shrimp sauce over leftover, reheated rice, and that was way better than the crapini!! 

The Black Bean Crapini was interesting LOOKING, but that is the only positive thing I can say about it.  It is a horrible texture in your mouth and the taste of it is soooo bad!!!  I mean, I like me some black beans, and I love me some pasta, but THIS, this ain’t either of those things!!  I give this product a big, fat ZERO (and I think only 2 other things have gotten a zero in this blog – the super disgusting Pumpkin Scones ( reviewed here ) and the undrinkable Cranberry Juice ( gross juice reviewed here ).  Heck, even that yucky Coconut Water got a .75, the Cherry Cider that tasted like drinking cough syrup got a 1.75 ( coconut water review here ), and the most ever read review on this blog, the “Head to Toe Moisturizing Balm” eeked out a 1.5 ( read this review before you invest in this head to toe crap ) !!

This coconut water was pretty rank, but it was still better than Black Bean Rotini...  Review here

Here is what David thought of it:  “I would have to concur with what Susan said.  It is BAD.  I mean, not as bad as rancid meat or fish, but the consistency is PASTY…  And then it is nothing like a PASTA…  There was nothing appealing at all in the taste.  I am a guy who rarely throws stuff out, but I didn’t want to eat it at all.  I would rather just find something else to eat, which is what we did.

Maybe, if you are a, you know, some sort of a vegan-loving straight-up masochistic vegetarian who likes things that taste bad, then this Black Bean Rotini will be appealing!!    I mean, I love me some bean thread noodles!  You can make noodles out of beans that are tasty…  But this???  Oh my God…

But this is a win!  This is a good news story.  TJ’s rotating stock encouraged us to try something NEW, which we did, and even though we didn’t like it, we are going to be able to take it back, give them our feedback, and get our money back.  That’s why we love Trader Joe’s!  I would have to give it a zero, too.”

We will take our money back for this one please.

Well, it looks like this is one that David and I agree on -- it is one of the worst Trader Joe’s products that we have tasted.  We very rarely use Trader Joe’s liberal return policy, but if annnnything deserves your money back, it is this bag of crap.  Seriously, if you have not figured it out yet from the rest of this review, this black bean pasta is horrible.  #NewProductFAIL. 

No, we did not overcook it.  But it was not a winner in our book.
Sorry for the crude photo, but this product angered me a bit.  :) 

Price – $2.99

Rating - 0

Day 251 - Coconut Water

We hit up yet ANTOHER Trader Joe’s!!  This one was in Columbus, Ohio in an area called Easton Town Center.   And man sakes ALIVE is it in a fancy outdoor mall!  There was just about every store there you could imagine – J. Crew, West Elm, PF Chang’s, heck, there was even a VITAMIN WORLD and a WORLD OF BEER!  Talk about a good combination of stores, eh?  J 

Look - our 18th Trader Joe't to visit in the last 251 days!  This time in Columbus, Ohio

The Trader Joe’s was nice.  There was a wine tasting (wheeee!) and little bits of cheese.  One of the wines being sampled was the Grand Reserve Meritage that I reviewed on day 13 of this blog.  It has the distinction of being one of the few (perhaps the only??) product to get only half of a star! 

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/01/day-13-grand-reserve-meritage-2011-red.html

But I won’t hold the fact that they were sampling what I consider to be a really crappy wine.  The store was nice.  The employees were friendly.  The shelves were stocked.  (Well, they were out of the infamous Emma Pearl Pinot Noir that I reviewed a couple of days ago that we have fallen in love with…  They are the second store we visited that was o-u-t of Emma Pearl…)

Anyway, we were not there for wine.  We were there to find products we had never tried before!  And that we did. 

For a few months I have been curious to try COCONUT WATER.  I have seen it in stores (including Trader Joe’s I think) in strangely shaped cardboard-ish containers…  But the containers have always been LARGE or sold in packs of 4 or 6.  And, being a commitment phobic, I did not want to COMMIT to that much coconut water.  I just wanted to taste it.  So when I noticed a bottle of it in the refrigerated section of the Columbus Trader Joe’s I decided that was my chance.  I would risk it!

Here you have it - 355 mL of 100% pure COCONUT WATER

Though I am a fan of coconut, for some reason I was not a true believer that this product would be delicious.  I like coconut, as you will see if you do a search on the word “coconut” on this blog.  But I was LEERY of coconut water.

See - even before cracking the lid open I was leery...

And now that I have tasted it, I can say without a doubt that I was right to be cautious.

Bleck.

Basically, to me, this is the poopiest part of the coconut squeezed into a bottle and slapped with an expensive price tag.  I know by reading the label that there are one and a half coconuts in this one bottle, so I understand the high cost.  But the water is not “thirst quenching” even though I thought that was one of the claims to fame for coconut water. 

I don't begrudge them the price.  The TASTE, however, is another matter.

I drank it really COLD – right out of the refrigerated section at the store.  I think it would be even worse if it were room temperature.  In fact, I think it would be gaggy if it were room temperature… 

Ok - I am willing to try this...

Taking a sip

Oh yuck...

Ummm, no thank you.

Even though it was David’s birthday, I basically forced him to try the coconut water.  Poor fella.  Here is what he thought:

The birthday boy, willing to give the coconut water a go...

NOT enjoying it.

Ewwww gross.

David wishing I had not forced him to try this one.  Especially on his BIRTHDAY.

David:  “TERRIBLE.  Umm, uhhhh…  Really remarkably UNPLEASANT.  It is like drinking coconut milk but with none of the niceness of that.  I think I can unquestionably give this a ZERO rating.  I would give this a zero rating.  Because I would not take another drink of that even if I were thirsty.”

I disagreed with him on that regard.  If I were super thirsty and say, like on the trashy reality tv show “Naked and Afraid” and someone brought me a bottle of this coconut water from Trader Joe’s, I would drink it.  I give the product a 1.25.

The reason I give it what seems like a “high score” for a product I really disliked is because even though I personally did not like it, I do not really think it is any worse than any OTHER brand of coconut water.   I think it is just coconut water itself that we probably do not like. 

I dumped over half a bottle of this crap, errr, I mean water out when we pulled over on our drive. 

Here is David MUCH happier with a big ice cream sundae for his birthday from a cool place we found in
Zanesville, OH called Tom's Ice Cream Bowl http://www.tomsicecreambowl.com/

Price – $2.99

Rating (average of David’s 0 and my 1.25 rounded up) - .75