Chicken Shu Mai

Rating:
Price: $2.69
Features: Not your everyday frozen appetizer
Found in: Freezer Section

We had these as part of dinner a while back. Everyone liked them, and thought they were something pretty different. Quite a few come in the box, and a packet of dipping sauce is also included. They are small, so they steam up quickly. Each little dumpling wrapper is filled with chicken and vegetables (much like a pot sticker). The dipping sauce tastes like soy sauce mixed with rice wine vinegar, nothing exceptional, but perfectly adequate.

They lose a few points in my book because they are absurdly high in salt: 6 pieces with sauce have nearly 40% of the recommended daily intake of sodium. I'm not sure if the sauce is mainly at fault or what, but that struck me as a bit much.

We also tried the TJ's Vegetable Shu Mai, which I would not recommend. They were more like little watery egg souffles with a soy bean stuck in the top dipped in soy sauce. Surprisingly, the flavor was ok, but such a strange texture. The dumpling wrapper was indistinguishable from the filling. Were they even two separate components?