SRP: $5.00
Serving: 1 cup, 5.1oz.
Servings Per Container: 4.5
Calories: 240 per serving
Fat: 4%, 2.5g
Cholesterol: 5%, 15mg
Sodium: 23%, 550mg
Protein: 15g
Carbs: 13%, 40g
Fiber: 4%, 1g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Hibachi House says: Tender pieces of chicken breast meat with sticky rice and spicy teriyaki sauce

Abi says: At first glance I had distinct concerns about putting a bag of frozen rice and chicken chunks in my microwave. What if they steam vents are blocked at the bag explodes? What if the chicken gets overly hot and catches fire in the bag, making my home stink of burnt plastic and charred chicken? What if the steaming technology doesn’t work and I end up with a rice and chicken soup?

All of these worries were for naught. The Hibachi House steam bag technology is essentially foolproof. Take the bag out of the box, poke a few holes in one side, set it holey-side-up in the microwave, and nuke for several minutes. Sure, there’s the possibility for extreme danger and steam burns when one removes the bag of chicken and rice from the microwave, but I’ve made a few of these Hibachi meals without sustaining injury.

The steam burn possibility is the first downside of this meal. The second thumbs-down is that Hibachi House Spicy Teriyaki Chicken lacks vegetables, which means that you’re losing out on a major source of fiber and color. I’m sure that the Hibachi people intended that we add our own vegetables rather than have them include mediocre vegetables that would possibly taint the awesomeness of the chicken. The third and final issue is the weirdly defined serving size. I would not attempt to feed a family of 4.5 with just one package from Hibachi House. No, I’d head up two packages.

So you’re probably wondering how a meal with three strikes against it gets four stars rather than a life sentence. Consistent near-perfection. The people at Hibachi House marinate and grill great cuts of chicken. Then they use their food genius to create a technology (aka plastic bag you have to poke your own holes in) that perfectly steams the sticky rice and chicken. Then they pair that wonderful rice and chicken combo with a slightly spiced teriyaki sauce that will tingle your palate. It tastes like the standard sweet teriyaki sauce that comes from your local teriyaki joint (or Whole Foods) with a bit if Sriracha thrown in.

I’m not sure I can emphasize enough just how easy and fast (less than ten minutes freezer to table) it was to make this meal for two. If you live alone or with just one other person or your children are babies or prone to fixing their own dinners, give Hibachi House meals a try. And good luck with that. This meal was free from Hibachi House and since then I’ve been looking for them in stores and haven’t seen them in DC, Seattle, or Palo Alto. I’m going to Portland, OR next week, so I’ll look for them there, but if you’ve seen these meals anywhere in your metro area, please let me know. I’ve got a Hibachi craving today.

SRP: $5.00
Serving: 1 Cup, 4.9oz.
Servings Per Package: 4.5
Calories: 220
Fat: 3%, 2g
Cholesterol: 4%, 15mg
Sodium: 35%, 800mg
Protein: 16g
Carbs: 12%, 33g
Fiber: 6%, 1g
Weight Watchers Points: 4*

Hibachi House says: Tender pieces of chicken breast meat are fire grilled to juicy perfection and paired with our traditional gourmet fried rice blend and garlic sesame sauce.

Abi says: When the Hibachi House Chicken Fried Rice emerged from the microwave (still in its plastic pouch) it was perhaps the most perfect chicken fried rice I ever could have imagined. Truly, it looked (and smelled) more fantastic than any chicken fried rice I’ve ever made from scratch at home. The eggs were fluffy (I guess that’s what happens when you steam them) and the chicken chunks were enormous and gloriously moist (another yay for steaming) and the rice emerged from the steam bag in individual grains without an iota of stickiness.

Have I mentioned how much I adore this steaming technology? And technology might be to strong of a word for it. Really, we finally figured out that if you put rice in a plastic bag and toss it in the microwave you can make some pretty darn good rice.

The aroma of the pre-sauced Hibachi House chicken fried rice was truly captivating, enamoring me and a male coworker standing in the kitchen, waiting to use the microwave. Sadly, every moment of perfection seems to have a downside. Mine occured during sauce application.

My lunch went from fried rice perfection to overly garlicky nightmare. Okay, not nightmare (I happily at this for lunch for two days straight, and I am not a leftovers girl*), but general disappointment. Sure, the chicken was still deliciously moist and smoky (is it really grilled? I do not know), but the meal suddenly felt like a mistake. Like I’d ordered one thing for Chinese takeout, but the driver brought something else and I was just too darn hungry to say ‘No, this isn’t what I ordered.’

I should have refrained from the garlic sesame sauce and used a light-handed seasoning of soy sauce to enhance the almost-perfect fried rice. Please, heed this warning and taste a bit of the sauce before you decide to add the packet to your meal.

[This meal was free from Hibachi House, which is good because it is more expensive than most of the things that we review on HeatEatReview.com. Then again, it is easily two hearty servings of muy delicioso chicken and rice.]

*The entire package contains food worth approximately 18 Weight Watchers Points. It is also easily two enormous, filling lunches. If you added some vegetables or ate an apple with lunch, this meal would fill you up every afternoon for three days straight.

SRP: $5.00
Serving: 1 cup, 5.3oz.
Calories: 250
Fat: 6%, 4g
Cholesterol: 10%, 30mg
Sodium: 23%, 550mg
Protein: 20g
Carbs: 10%, 32g
Fiber: 6%, 1g

Hibachi House says: Tender pieces of chicken breast meat are fire grilled to juicy perfection and paired with broccoli florets, steamed rice and our Hibachi Grill Sauce.

Jess says: I am now well into my second (and final) lunch from the box of Hibachi’s “multiserve” Chicken and Broccoli. As with the (non) Hibachi House Mandarin Orange Chicken, which I have also tried) their recommended 4.5 servings translated to two filling lunches for me. Perhaps I’m just a healthy eater?

After eating this two days in a row, I have to say the meal is good. Broccoli is really a damn fine specimen of a vegetable if you ask me. Both crisp and chewy! A healthy shade of green! Little leaves that snatch on to sauces and rice. Yee-ha! Also these chicken chunks are mighty! In fact they require a knife to eat them any place outside of a Renaissance festival. The need of an extra utensil annoyed me, but I cannot deny that the quality is beyond what you normally find in microwavable entrees. You can see the chicken meat flake and pull apart. Lean Cuisine’s chicken looks condensed and manhandled processed. I did find a good bit of fatty chunks which grossed me out but maybe I’m just a big wimp. I watched some Planet Earth this weekend and did get all squirmy when the fox ate the baby geese. The sauce is really just soy and corn syrup but not to a fault. It is salty, sweet and satisfactory. I only used half of the packet and it was more than sufficient.

But in a Nancy Drew like fashion, I’ve got the sneaking suspicion that something is amiss with this meal. I just can’t get passionate about it. The problem may be that this meal is a complete pain in the ass to prepare at the office. Allow me to detail the steps:

Step 1: Heat water to defrost sauce packet. This isn’t so bad if you’ve got the hot water function on your water cooler. Otherwise this sucks.

Step 2: Throw bag o’ food into microwave. Don’t forget to slit the top. But not too much! Broccoli floret droppings suck to clean up. Heat it for 5 minutes and wait 2 minutes to touch it like the box told you to.

Step 3: “Borrow” a coworker’s bowl to dump the contents in. Try to hide the bowl from coworkers. You don’t want someone to get upset that you have their bowl. But hey, angry coworker, if you love it so much why did you abandon it? The bowl is too small. You stuff the food in there to make do (no use dirtying two bowls). After bowl quest the meal is now cold. Damn it. You dump some sauce on. That is still cold too. Damn it squared.

Step 4: You reheat again for 1 minute. Not enough. 45 seconds more. Yay. It’s hot!

Step 5: Eat. Talk to everyone about how broccoli is so kick ass. Start listing all the things that are made better with broccoli. Their eyes roll. Whatever. They are sooo jealous.

Step 6: Use a binder clip to seal up the rest of the sauce. You may want that later (tomorrow). Try to find something to seal up the bowl. Damn it. Where is the packing tape roll? Why would someone possibly steal it? And will that ruin the bowl? Is it worth it? Oh, look tin foil. I hope your office has tin foil like mine does.

Step 7: You have to eat this again tomorrow too. Man, a panini would be awesome. No, suck it up. Eat the Chicken and Broccoli. It will be gross to wait another day. Who knows how long reheated chicken lasts? Oh sweet relief from hunger, it still tastes good!

Step 8: Conclude that this meal is a good distraction from the norm once in a while, but too salty and calorieriffic to eat often. Perhaps its easier and better to make at home? And where do they sell this stuff anyway?

Price: Free from Hibachi House
SRP: $5.00
Serving: 1 cup, 5.11 oz.
Servings Per Box: About 4.5
Calories: 250
Fat: 3%, 2g
Sodium: 20%, 460mg
Protein: 15g
Carbs: 15%, 42g
Fiber: 6%, 1g
Sugar: 7g

Hibachi House says: Hibachi House chicken breast meat with sticky rice and mandarin orange sauce

Jess says: The serving size according to this “multi-serve meal” (Hibachi House’s term) is 4.5. If I decided to eat what was in this package for in 4.5 discrete meals, I think I would be eating 6 individual rice grains with a chopstick at around meal three.

Upon consultation with Abi and Kate it was decided that this is actually 2 full servings (as in you will be pretty full). I guess it could be three meals if you’re not a big eater or on a self-hating sort of diet or something. Please do not buy this meal and expect this to feed you, your significant other, your parents and your small child. It is not a good idea.

“But Jess,” you whine, “what about taste?” Ah, yes my eager microwavable food blog reader. That is the question, isn’t it? First of all the chicken is quality. There are large chunks, looking like they were freshly carved from the bird. No reformed chicken surplus parts here, just lots of real meat. And the sauce makes this thing great. I have used this term before but the sauce was highly mesquitey in a down South barbecue molasses sort of way. I liked it a lot. And it came in a pouch allowing me to condimentize as I saw fit! Normally I’m a dipper but the rice was aching for that saucy something and I went to town with my packet.

Oh and here’s a fun fact, nothing about this tasted anything like mandarin oranges. In fact, the distinct lack of any sort of fruit or vegetable was disappointing. Some edamame would have kicked ass. Ohh and a red pepper? Hell yes. Hibachi House actually has a few pretty delicious ideas on how to accessorize your Hibachi on their site, which got me pretty excited about future meals and kitchen experiments. But then I remembered that I’m incredibly lazy and how the whole point of a microwave entrée is that I don’t have to think about what to make or even go to the grocery store. Plus, I can make it at work. I did, however, end up eating my Hibachi with Indian naan which was freaking killer. Why oh why can’t more things (such as wraps) be made with naan?

If you are not lazy and are willing to include veggies in this meal and put the whole thing in a naan wrap, I think you will be very pleased. Unfortunately, in almost all of the food permutations involving this meal, the awesome Hibachi chef is not included.

[This meal was free from Hibachi House. I didn’t tell Jess this until after she reviewed and rated the meal. Interested in featuring your products on HeatEatReview.com? Check out our review policy. - Ed.]