Asian American Frozen Foods: Review: Trader Joe’s Bi Bim Bap Bowl

I’m a big fan Korean food, especially Korean BBQ. But I also like bibimbap:

“The word literally means “mixed rice”. Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables) and gochujang (chili pepper paste), soy sauce, or doenjang (a fermented soybean paste). A raw or fried egg and sliced meat (usually beef) are common additions. The hot dish is stirred together thoroughly just before eating.”

At my local Trader Joe’s in Silicon Valley, this frozen meal goes for $3.49. I brought this in the other day for lunch at work and microwaved it. Here’s what the dish looks like frozen, taken out of the packaging along with the flavor pack that it comes with (the instructions for the flavor pack is to thaw it in warm water for a few minutes and mix in after microwaving the dish):

And after a few minutes in the microwave:

This is what the dish looks like after being microwaved and with the flavor pack mixed in. Overall, I really like the dish – the combination of meat, vegetables, and sauce tastes great. My only complaint is that I wish the dish was a little larger. I definitely would pay more to get more. But overall, this tastes pretty good – of course not nearly as good as something freshly made, but still tasty to me.

 

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About John

I'm a Taiwanese-American and was born & raised in Western Massachusetts, went to college in upstate New York, worked in Connecticut, went to grad school in North Carolina and then moved out to the Bay Area in 1999 and have been living here ever since - love the weather and almost everything about the area (except the high cost of housing...)
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