Review: Weight Watchers Smart Ones Teriyaki Chicken & Vegetables

I've gotten complaints via e-mail that all I seem to review on this blog is ice cream and protein bars and while that definitely is not the case, I do end up reviewing a lot of those products.  So, in an effort to diversify, I've tried to start reviewing more "real" food products and that leads me to this Teriyaki Chicken & Vegetables entree from the Weight Watchers Smart Ones Bistro Selections product line.  It's not my first Weight Watchers review that I have completed and I'm guessing it won't be the last either.  I picked this one up on sale for $1.99 at Marsh and it weighs in a good-sized 9.0 ounces.  It contains 230 calories and for you points watchers, this one is six points on the Weight Watchers Points Plus scale.

Cooking instructions say microwave only (who'd want to cook one of these in the oven anyway?), so that was my cooking weapon of choice and the above picture is the end result.  As you can see, this entree consists of a bed of white rice, chicken breast chunks, teriyaki sauce and an assortment of vegetables.  These vegetables include bamboo shoots, broccoli, carrots and corn, so it's a nice medley of different flavors.  There's not a whole lot much else so to say, so let's get on to the taste.

As I took my first bite of this, I was quite surprised by the fact that the vegetables retained a solid crunchiness, almost as if they were fresh, which of course they clearly were not.  You don't often get that in frozen meals and being that this one had that, I was impressed.  The chicken was also a nice surprise as it retained its tenderness through the microwaving process.  I was AGAIN surprised by the rice as well as it retained a semi-fluffy texture.  I've had a lot of microwave meals that include rice in my life and one of the drawbacks of microwaved rice is that it dries out quickly and ends up being a bunch of hard bullets as you chew it.  This one did not have that problem and the rice was soft and flavorful when mixed with the teriyaki sauce.  The teriyaki sauce was thick and more sweet than spicy and I certainly appreciated that mixed with all the chicken, rice and vegetables.  The spice that it did have was at the very end of the flavor, but it wasn't overpowering at all and in fact, was barely noticeable.

Buy It or Fly By It?  All in all, I was very impressed by this one in both its flavor and texture, so I've definitely got to give it a BUY IT rating.  This one is definitely deserving of the "Bistro" label as it does have a high class flavor.  In a related topic, one strange thing that I've found in these frozen meals over the course of my life is that the meals that have an Asian slant to them seem to come out better than the Italian flavors, etc.  I don't know why that is, but it's just an observation that I've had as the years have gone by.  I know I'm crazy (thus the blog), but that's just something that has stuck with me.

BUY IT!!