We’re huge fans of fried rice here at Freezer Meal Frenzy. It’s such a simple dish that we’re always in the mood for, and there are so many varieties to try (and to hopefully love). Lately we’ve been exploring the Tai Pei line, starting with the Tai Pei Chicken Fried Rice. While it’s not as good as, say, the Trader Joe’s Chicken Fried Rice, it’s still a halfway decent rice dish that’s easy to make in a flash.
Today we’re digging deeper into this line with the Tai Pei Shrimp Fried Rice. This comes in a variety of sizes, but the one we’re trying today is the 11 oz. container.
Cooking this is a simple task — simply pop it in the microwave and let ‘er rip. The contents of the carton do end up settling down, so the container is only about half full when all is said and done. We think it’s best to just dump it into a serving dish rather than eat it straight out of the carton, but forking it out of the carton is an option as well. (If you want to see the full cooking instructions, check out our package scans at the bottom of this review.)
Just like the chicken in the Chicken Fried Rice, the shrimp and baby corn that you see at the top of this dish are all you get here. That’s right, we only had five little shrimpies in our carton. Once you give this a bit of a stir, they sort of disappear into the rice.
The rice itself is actually really tasty. It has a little bit of sweetness to it, which we weren’t expecting at all, but it’s actually a lovely flavor that contrasts with the shrimp quite well. Throw in a couple peas and you’ve really got a great flavor combo going.
Unfortunately, the shrimp on its own isn’t that great. It’s serviceable, we suppose, but it’s kind of dry and rubbery. It also tastes way more seafoody than shrimp normally tastes.
The baby corn is actually much better than the shrimp. It’s juicy, and it has a strong, fresh corn flavor. Because it’s the thickest food in the dish, we found that it didn’t quite cook all the way through with the three-minute cook time. We’d recommend giving this an extra 30 seconds or so to really get that baby corn steaming.
This carton of rice contains 400 calories and 850 mg of sodium. Both of those numbers are just a tad high, so dieters are going to want to proceed with caution. If you’re trying to watch your sodium level, frozen food in general might be something to avoid, but 850 mg is higher than average even for a frozen food.
The Tai Pei Shrimp Fried Rice is actually quite good, though we found the shrimp to be the worst part of the meal. In fact, we’d probably prefer this meal sans shrimp. Still, everything else in this dish is pretty tasty. While this certainly won’t replace our beloved Trader Joe’s Japanese Style Fried Rice, it is better than we expected, and we wouldn’t mind having it again. We’re actually hoping to try the larger size versions of this so we can pan fry it and see if it comes out any better that way.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this frozen fried rice, check out our package scans below.
