Price: $1.99
Serving: 1/2 package, 5.8 oz.
Calories: 300
Fat: 23%, 15g
Sodium: 21%, 500mg
Protein: 7g
Carbs: 12%, 35sg
Fiber: 4%, 1g

for taste
for horrible nutritional value

Trader Joe says: Trader Ming’s noodle boxes were inspired by the noodle carts on the streets of Bangkok, Thailand. In Bangkok, people enjoy all kind of wonderful fods from street vendors. In a way, the streets are really just one big open air cafe. We have imported three great flavors from Thailand and now you have an easy way to eat these noodle dishes.

Abi says: While all you vegans out there may be hip-hip-hooraying for Trader Joe’s three new ’soba in sauce’ offerings, the rest of the noodle-eating public should do without these dishes. Sure, the sauce is edible, they cook up in two minutes, and no refrigerator or freezer is required. Unfortunately, you’re spending $1.99 on some pretty mediocre noodles in sauce. I’d eat this meal in desperation, but knowing that instead of consuming a box, I could eat a Lean Cuisine and a Dove Dark Chocolate Bar, I’d go with the chocolate-including option. If that doesn’t convince you, then think about the pool of oil that I encountered at the bottom of my noodle box. Ew.

Stay tuned for reviews of the Kung Po noodles and Pad Thai, coming Thursday and Friday. As of writing this review I haven’t tried those meals. Who knows, they may be insanely delicious.

Price: $2.29
Serving: 1 Pretzel Dog (142 g)
Calories: 350
Fat: 12%, 8g
Sodium: 30%, 730mg
Protein: 20g
Carbs: 17%, 50g
Fiber: 16%, 17g

Light Life says:Veggie dog wrapped in pretzel dough.

Heather says: Let me first admit that my contributions to this site have made me perhaps a little bit more of a spendthrift in my grocery shopping forays than I once was. In the name of each assignment, I somehow feel emboldened in my choices of food product. This isn’t confined to my participation here. I normally like to try new things, and that extends to my food choices. I’m an anthropologist, after all, so I suppose it’s only natural.

So it was that I found myself at Whole Foods last night pondering this product. Someone would actually make this and eat it? And, I imagine, if it is here on this market shelf, somebody must be buying it. So then, why not me?

My first thought about reading this product’s rather lackluster description was that it needed more adjectives, and perhaps more creative marketing. After having tasted it, however, I found that the description is spot-on, and that there simply aren’t any complimentary adjectives that could be used to more accurately describe it. As you can see, this product looks just like a hot dog. It tastes like not much of anything at all. If I were forced to describe it, however, I would say that it most definitely does taste like a veggie hotdog wrapped in a pretzel.

So, yes, the next time I’m craving a hot dog wrapped in a pretzel, I imagine this would suffice. However, the only circumstances under which I can imagine that happening ever again would be if I was starving to death and every single other edible thing had suddenly vanished from the face of the earth (bugs and dirt included).

In short, thumbs way down.

Once again falling victim to my inexplicable desire to purchase all items with ‘Fiesta’ in the name, I picked up this little treat at Safeway last week.

Price: $2.00 (sale at Safeway)
Serving: 1 package, 20 oz.
Calories: 870
Fat: 58%, 38g
Sodium: 93%, 2230mg
Protein: 24g
Carbs: 38%, 113g
Fiber: 53%, 13g

Hungry-Man says: Beef enchiladas in chili sauce with Mexican style rice, refried beans and a brownie.

Abi says: Nicole and I split this meal. We also split a grilled caesar salad from Roberto Donna’s Galileo. I am actually taking pauses between each sentence to take bites of my fantastic cannoli dessert, perhaps also made by the hands of Mr. Donna, though probably not.

Actually, I just decided after writing that to stop messing around and eat the entire cannoli. Yum. It was half chocolate and half plain. The plain side was covered in chopped pistachios and the chocolate side has chocolate sprinkles. Those things are the best ever! Especially when I know that there are people sitting in Galileo right now paying a whole heck of a lot for the same thing I just at for $2.50!

(note to Roberto: I don’t enjoy the candied fruit bits. They are disgusting and take away from the delightful purity of the creamy ricotta)

Unfortunately, this is not a review of a meal from Galileo, one of the most expensive restaurants in DC. This is actually a review of my Hungry-Man meal. We at HeatEatReview HQ get tons of email urging us to eat Hungry-Man meals. Why is that? Could it be that other people are scared to eat Hungry-Man meals? Are the readers completely enchanted by meals that provide 93% of your daily sodium needs in one sitting? Do they want to see if a bunch of girls can handle being
‘Hungry-Men’?

You may have noticed that most of the reviews on this site are written by women. In fact, most of the people I work with are women. Even our IT department (which I am a part of) is mostly women. Does that mean that HeatEatReview.com is only for women? Most certainly not. We review for everyone, including guys. Should guys eat this meal? No. Nobody should eat this meal. I don’t care how much hate-mail you Hungry-Man-Loving readers send me, I cannot in good conscience recommend that any other human being ever consume this meal.

Let’s start with the things my coworkers said before I even heated up the meal…

“That looks good if you want to eat non-denominational meat.”

and

“Can’t help myself, I love Duncan Hines like nobody else…”

Evidently Kate was disgusted by the enchiladas while Josh started singing a commercial to the tune of “Sugar Pie (I can’t help myself)” by the Four Tops. There’s nothing like hearing a grown man sing about his love of Duncan Hines. Unfortunately, the brownie in this meal isn’t worth singing about. First, because it requires that you remove (and essentially destroy) the brownie from the tray halfway through the cooking process. Secondly, the brownie is almost entirely tasteless. My new coworker, Kelly, was quite curious about the brownie and inquired immediately about its tastiness. I was utterly sorry to say that while it was piping hot, it didn’t exactly taste like anything. A Betty Crocker Warm Delights Brownie would have this thing begging for mercy. The only nice thing about this brownie is that you can easily parlay the removal into an eating your dessert first session. If only the brownie was worth eating.

And the rest of the meal? Aside from my coworkers complaining about the extreme odor of the meal (multiple people likened it to body odor. Yes, they claimed this meal smelled like an unwashed contstruction worker), the food was plain old bland. Tomato paste based sauce, dried out corn tortillas, tasteless shredded beef. At least, I hope that was shredded beef. The refried beans, generally a delight when served in my home, gave off a frightening odor that further terrified my cube-mates. I can’t explain the popularity of Hungry-Man meals. Are Americans too lazy to heat up two separate - but more delicious - meals?

Stay tuned for Nicole’s take on the meal, to be posted on Thursday, and stay away from the Hungry-Man Mexican Style Fiesta.

Price: $3.00
Serving: 1 pizza, 6.3 oz.
Calories: 340
Fat: 17%, 11g
Sodium: 27%, 650mg
Protein: 42%, 31g
Carbs: 12%, 36g
Fiber: 40%, 10g

South Beach says: Harvest Wheat Crust Pizza. Reduced Fat Mozzarella Cheese with Parmesan, Romano, and Asiago Cheeses. New Crispier Crust from the Microwave! Changing the way America eats.

The statement above was cobbled together from multiple statements on the box.

Amy says: So I am doing this review mid-meal, something I have never done before. The reason for this was that I thought up what I think is a brilliant analogy for this pizza, but now that I think about it more, it seems less ingenious. Here it goes: this pizza resembles a fried egg to me. In the center is some cheese that looks the way melted cheese is supposed to look like when it is freshly melted and all of the cheese around it looks like cheese that was melted approximately 57 hours ago. The box says that I will get a crispier crust, it says nothing of crispier cheese. I just tried rapping my knuckles against the edge of the pizza and not only did it not stick to my fingers, but it made an audible knocking sound and has made my knuckles turn pink, I hope it doesn’t bruise.

The center of the pizza isn’t terrible. The crust tastes of cardboard, but the sauce has a little kick to it and the 2 inch circle (I am talking diameter here) of properly melted cheese is pleasant. The crust is soggy in the middle and the “crisp” perimeter is more like the crispiness you get when bread is stale, not the oven fired kind.

The nutrition value of this item isn’t awful. There is a lot of protein, fiber and calcium. There is still a lot of sodium, but I am learning that is something I will have to accept if I am to continue eating frozen entrees.

I am now noticing that there is nowhere on the box where it rambles on about the merits of the taste of this product, perhaps because there aren’t many. Arthur Agatston (author of The South Beach Diet) has a quote on here about how he is proud to be working with Kraft on South Beach products. I can’t say that I share your enthusiasm, Art. I advise that you stick with being a doctor, and leave the creation of frozen food items to the experts.