Asian American Frozen Foods: Review: Trader Joe’s Pork Shu Mai

I a single guy and not necessarily a great cook. I do enjoy cooking, but cooking for one person can be a challenge at times. Also, I’m acutely aware of wasting food, so oftentimes I wind up buying frozen foods. That isn’t exactly very healthy, but it is convenient. What I’ve noticed the past few years is that places like Trader Joe’s, Costco and even supermarkets like Safeway, will carry a lot of frozen Chinese, Japanese and other Asian ethnic cuisines. So I thought I’d start a new series called Asian American Frozen Foods – to  highlight and possibly review these frozen food dishes.

First up, is Trader Joe’s Pork Shu Mai. First of all, Trader Joe’s tries to be clever by calling itself “Trader Ming’s” on the packaging:

At my local Trader Joe’s in Silicon Valley, this frozen dish goes for $2.99. The instructions were to either microwave the dumplings for 3 minutes or to steam for 12 minutes. I decided to steam:

After 12 minutes, I got this:

To be honest, the shu mai pork dumplings didn’t really taste all that flavorful compared to what you would get at a Chinese restaurant, or even as good as some frozen shu mai pork dumplings that I got at a local Ranch 99. So I can’t really recommend these, unless you’re desperate for some shu mai.