Costco Bibigo Steamed Dumplings and Ajinomoto Vegetable Yakisoba

I'm working at home, and staying at home a lot these days, which means I'm eating at home too.  I needed to do a Costco run and remembered that they had some pretty good Asian food in their frozen food freezers.  The items I've had before were good and I wanted to get wanted to get some microwavable Asian convenience food to satisfy the cravings I get every so often.
 
This time, I picked up Bibigo Steamed Dumplings and Ajinomoto Vegetable Yakisoba noodles.  These come in some fairly large boxes, but you get six servings of each, so they'll last awhile.  Bibigo is a Korean company that makes Korean food, while Ajinomoto is a Japanese company that make Japanese food.  I've had their products before so it wasn't much of a risk to take for me to buy their food.  I hope  Costco carries them for a long time into the future.

Bibigo Pork and Vegetable Steamed Dumplings
These dumplings come in prepacked trays of six dumplings that are inside a plastic bag.  You cut a hole in the corner of the plastic and microwave them for about 2 minutes.  The dumplings do come out steamed as the plastic wrap keeps the steam around the dumplings as they cook.  These dumplings are surprisingly good and remind me of Shanghai soup dumplings as they contain lots of meat juice inside the dumpling so they are tender and juicy.  These dumplings are savoury and NOT SPICY, so I like them.  A tray of dumplings isn't a meal, but it makes a nice accompaniment to some other food like miso soup or buns or other dumplings.  On their own, they are a nice snack or maybe even a light breakfast.  These are not pan fried gyoza - they are steamed and yummy.

Front of box.  You can plate them to be quite attractive in presentation.

The storage and microwave bag with a corner cut to let steam out.  Cooking directions are on the bag.

The cooked dumplings are tender and juicy.  Each tray of dumplings has a packet of soy / light vinegar sauce that accentuates the dumplings really well.  I tend to just take the sauce packet and dribble it over the dumplings in the tray and then eat the dumplings right from the tray,

Ajinomoto Vegetable Yakisoba
Stir fried yakisoba noodles are a staple of Japanese food.  You always find it at festivals and the last meal I had before I left Japan last time was actually yakisoba at the airport.  I quite like the Ajinomoto Vegetable Yakisoba.  The yakisoba sauce they use has a relatively mild flavour that suits most tastes (if you want super strong or spicy - this is not the thing to get).  You get a decent serving of noodles with a nice assortment of frozen vegetable on top.  I like this yakisoba for lunch and they would go nicely with the dumplings above too.  The noodles come out nice and chewy and the vegetables have good flavour with a decent texture, but I do find the snow peas overdone.  A serving of these noodles would be enough for someone with a small appetite, but it would be like half a meal for a hearty appetite.  I've actually bought the yakisoba several times now as it suits my tastes.  

An attractive presentation of noodles on the box.

Back of the box.

The cooking bags are pretty cool.  They come perforated so you can easily remove a corner.  After cooking there is another tear line to easily open the steaming hot bag to pour the noodles out into a bowl.  These noodles cook in about three minutes.

The plated serving of yakisoba.  You have to mix it a little, but it looks pretty tasty.

I reviewed Costco's Ajinomoto Tokyo Style Shoyu Ramen with Chicken previously here.

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