InnovAsian BBQ Pork Fried Rice

 

My wife was craving Chinese food this past weekend and, since I didn't want to drive across town and pay a fortune for takeout, I ended up in the grocery store freezer section instead. In the end, I spent slightly less than I would have at the restaurant and sacrificed some quality. This was an example of that.

I tried to give this the benefit of the doubt because it was relatively affordable at $6.99 and did provide enough for my wife and me. Unfortunately, there just wasn't anything about this product that didn't scream "frozen dinner" when we ate it.

First, it could have used more meat. I was able to find the pork, but there wasn't much in terms of quantity (at least not at the level shown on the box) and, when I did find a piece, it was usually kind of chewy. The peas (which did have quantity) were kind of hard and the eggs tasted like they were pre-processed and came out of a freezer. In other words, there was no way any body was going to mistake this for rice from a restaurant.

On the plus side, I did like the convenience. I've had similar products that required a surprising amount of prep work but this one just had two steps - remove pouch from the box, microwave the pouch. Normally, convenience is going to score points for a product but, in this case, the overall quality was just too poor to really justify it.

The same sort of goes for the overall quantity. We had enough to have leftovers, but the rice was even less enjoyable warmed up.

Final Opinion: It's not really a bad product. It's just exactly what I would expect from a frozen Asian dish, and since I didn't save a whole lot of money versus doing carryout, I was really hoping for some sort of a pleasant surprise.

My Grade: C