Sunday, February 8, 2009

Costco Product: Dim Sum

Mommy loves Costco and loves trying new products that Costco offers. On my latest trip there to pick up milk and bananas (stuff I always get) and some lunch appetizers (samples), I was checking out the Costco kitchen prepared food. This is the refrigerated section next to the rotisserie chickens where they have sandwich platters, soup, pasta salad, etc. Anyway, I saw Dim Sum. I'm not Chinese, but I do love going to Chinatown for dim sum. The stuff looked pretty fresh and authentic. It contained 21 pieces of shrimp dim sum. Looked like 7 shrimp siu mai, 7 shrimp pot stickers, and 7 shrimp har gow. There was a soy based dipping sauce container in the middle and microwave instructions on the label. It was only $9.99, which would be cheaper than schlepping to Chinatown, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Fast forward 90 minutes later to me in my kitchen. I don't want to heat up all 21 pieces, because I was eating alone. I put one of each kind of dim sum on a plate and nuke it for one minute. I open the soy-based dipping sauce and try it. Ewww. Okay, maybe not so fresh. And this sauce is nasty. I grab a jar of hoisin sauce from my fridge and resort to dipping the dim sum in a little bit of that instead. Well, props to Costco for making an all shrimp product. As Emeril would say, though, "pork fat rules". But there was no pork or beloved pork fat in any of these dim sum and, that, is what gives lots of yummy dim sum from Chinatown that lovely flavorful, fatty, indulgent, taste. These were good for what they were, but I'm not really rushing to heat up more right away. Even at dinner time, my husband and oldest son, who do love pot stickers, were not really enthused by these. They thought the Ling Ling, or whatever that brand that Costco carries, of frozen chicken and vegetable pot stickers was better than these. I agree. Better yet, my son's all time favorite is the Trader Joe's chicken pot stickers. Hmmm, I think I'll go to Trader Joe's tomorrow -- we're out of those!

Bottom line, these are a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. It's nice that they are fully cooked and you just have to warm them instead of fully steaming/cooking them like the frozen ones. Flavors are okay, sauce is horrible.

Have any of you ever had the Costco sushi? These are comparable in terms of quality and authenticity. (BTW, I hate the Costco sushi. dried out rice, dried out fish, yuck.)

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