Teriyaki Stuff [November 19, 2023] Why I want this sauce.
La Choy Teriyaki Terror [December 8, 2023] · I sent a maze to La Choy (Conagra) to literally illustrate my fristration at not being able to find their sauce.
Well, the tweets from before were apparently incorrect. The La Choy teriyaki variety that I liked has been discontinued. I emailed Conagra via webform and found a bunch of names and tried to garner email addresses online, which worked on at least 2 counts. I also got some replies from various grocery stores.
From: Conagra Consumer Care consumer.care@conagra.com Date: Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 1:03 PM Subject: LA CHOY Consumer Care Response: Case # 06631637 [ ref:!00D800cIJR.!500QU02afd0:ref ] To: [me]
Hello Eric,
Thank you so much for taking the time to reach out to us regarding the La Choy Teriyaki Sauce. There was obvious passion in your correspondence, both for the former product you preferred and for the current product that does not meet your expectations. We’d like to offer some background and what we hope is a worthy alternative.
Previously we produced both the La Choy Teriyaki Marinade and Sauce that you enjoyed, and the La Choy Teriyaki Sauce and Marinade. With two similar sauces available, earlier this year we discontinued production of the La Choy Teriyaki Marinade and Sauce. We work with grocery stores and other retail partners to optimize our product assortment. Through these conversations, we often need to make decisions about discontinuing products. These are difficult decisions, as we know a discontinued product can be a disappointment to consumers.
We appreciate your candid feedback on the current La Choy Teriyaki Sauce and Marinade. This feedback was shared with our brand team and will go to our internal culinary team as well. Every piece of consumer input is valuable to us.
Within the Conagra Brands portfolio, we also offer PF Chang’s Home Menu, and we hope their Teriyaki Sauce is one that you’ll enjoy. PF Chang’s Home Menu is inspired by the tastes and high-quality ingredients of PF Chang’s bistros. The Teriyaki Sauce is part of a collection of sauces we introduced a few years ago, and if you’re interested in trying it, we’d be happy to send you a few bottles. If this would be ok, please reply to this email with your complete mailing address, and if applicable, please include the Unit or Apt. #.
Thank you again for your loyalty to the La Choy brand and the time you spent providing us feedback. Both are appreciated.
From: Conagra Consumer Care [consumer.care@conagra.com] Sent: 12/11/2023, 1:43 PM To: [me] Subject: LA CHOY Consumer Care Response: Case # 06631637 [ ref:!00D800cIJR.!500QU02afd0:ref ]
Hello Eric,
Thank you for reaching out to Ms. Schaefer’s office to let us know you were a fan of our LA CHOY TERIYAKI MARINADE AND SAUCE.
From time to time we reformulate our product recipes, this also includes how consumer preferences change over time. Unfortunately, it’s no longer available but we’ll make sure to share your comments regarding your request to bring back the older formulation with appropriate personnel.
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our supervisors at 1-800-722-1344, between the hours of 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. CST, Monday through Thursday, and between the hours of 9:00 A.M. and 1:00 P.M. CST, on Fridays. Please give reference number 06631637 to the supervisor who answers your phone call. If a supervisor isn’t available, please leave a voicemail with your name and reference number. A supervisor should return your call within 48 business hours.
Thanks again for taking the time to share your feedback.
Thank you for replying. We're unable to provide the recipe as it is proprietary but appreciate your interest in our products. Thank you again for taking the time message and enjoy your week.
From: Guest Relations guest.relations@target.com Date: Mon, Dec 11, 2023 at 4:12 PM Subject: Your Inquiry to Target.com Executive Offices To: [me]
Hello Eric,
Thank you for contacting Target about your experience. I received a copy of your email from our executive offices along with a request to reach out.
Thanks for asking about this “La Choy Teriyaki Sauce and Marinade” we understand you are interested to know if we carry or plan on carrying this. I do apologize, but we do not have this item available in our assortment and at this time we do not have any additional information to share regarding future availability. To view the wide variety of other Teriyaki sauces we do carry please click here.
We appreciate you reaching out and sharing interest with this item. I’ll be sure to share your comments with our buyers.
From: Melissa (Fresh Thyme) support@freshthyme.zendesk.com Date: Sat, Dec 9, 2023 at 10:50 AM Subject: [Fresh Thyme] Re: La Choy Teriyaki Sauce & Marinade To: [me]
Your request (26880) has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.
Melissa (Fresh Thyme)
Dec 9, 2023, 9:50 AM CST
Dear Eric,
Thanks for reaching out! The products available at our stores may differ by location. To find out if your local store carries (product name), you may visit our website http://www.freshthyme.com and search for any of your desired products.
I will forward this to the Store Director for the Bridgeville, PA store location for you as well.
Thank you for being a Fresh Thyme customer! Melissa Fresh Thyme Customer Care
Nothing from Giant Eagle, Walmart, or Shop’n Save.
You should try to solve the maze, & then post it & tag me on social media. I’m @AiXeLsyD on pretty much everything.
I write to you today to invite you on a journey with me. The journey is the quest for the most absolute perfect Teriyaki sauce. You may find yourself wondering if it exists. I can assure you, it does… or at least it did. Over the past few years it has been increasingly difficult to find. You’re surely wondering by now, to which magical elixir I am referring? It is confusing, but I will try to explain: The original La Choy Teriyaki Marinade & Sauce is wondrous perfection, yet the La Choy Teriyaki Stir Fry Sauce & Marinade is devastatingly abhorrent.
I know that “teriyaki” may refer to a style, much like “barbecue” can denote many kinds of sauces, but it ought to be a crime to label these two sauces with the same descriptor. “Ketchup” came to describe the sugary tomato-based condiment we all know today, even though at one point it could have referred to many different things including a sauce with fermented fish.
I have seen the words on the label move around in various orders, so I’m not 100% sure exactly what to call the sauce, or how to differentiate it by descriptor… but I can tell you that the darker sauce in the bottle with the same shape as your soy sauce is fantastic, and the other stuff in the salad-dressing style bottle with seeds floating in it is terrible.
Over the years, I have written to my local grocery store, and they said the distributor discontinued it. I had one local store that carried it, and they have replaced its spot on the shelf with a similar yet inferior brand that we would have called generic in my youth. I have reached out to Conagra on social media, and was told to use the product locator. The product locator shows that no one around here sells that sauce, and seems to indicate it is not available online.
The La Choy website that lists all of the sauces does not show the good style sauce, but only the gross style. Is this an indication that you no longer manufacture the good stuff? Google searches lead to one gallon jugs or full cases. I only need a few bottles at a time. Looking closer, it shows as “out of stock” on some sites. Are you having supply chain issues? Is it being phased out? Is it available only regionally outside of my region?
I am writing to implore you to get me some answers other than the stock “Yes, we still make it. Please use our product locator.” I would like some real concrete answers. I also plan to write to all of my local grocery chains.
Please enjoy the attached maze, to help you as you contemplate a suggested resolution to my quest. Are you able to let me know the names of any of the distributors or local/national grocery chains where I can reach out to request your product, or even independent stores? I am in Bridgeville, PA, USA… just south of Pittsburgh.
I would love email addresses, or even snail mail. I am not a fan of these constraining contact forms.
I look forward to your reply, and thank you for the many tasty dinners that I have enjoyed thanks to your delicious sauce. I won’t even ask for an apology for the terribleness of the other sauce, even though you really should apologize for it.
I thank you for your time and attention, may you have a joyous and cheerful holiday season this year!
Your Hangry Fan, -Eric aixelsyd13(at)gmail.com
Help me on my quest!
I sent that to Conagra’s contact form, well, what would fit, but was able to attach the maze. I also sent it through Facebook and Instagram messages, and tried to reach out via Twitter (again).
I used a google search to find their CEO’s name and their supposed email syntax, and sent the message to several variations of his address. None have bounced back yet, but I doubt they will all go through. I did also email their media relations and investor questions email which I found in a press release.
What’s my next move? Snail mail? Other executives? Board Members? I plan to email local food chains & maybe even smaller grocers. How do I find their distributors? Should I snail mail these out?
I feel like I have been getting the run-around on this for years:
So, @ConagraBrands… how can you (in good conscience) call both of these #Teriyaki sacue with the only tiny disction on the label being one is a marinade & one is for stir fry… while one tastes like kissing an angel & the other like licking a demon's butthole? #LaChoypic.twitter.com/NvNohQ750J
I absolutely love the flavors in Asian food, but because of my shellfish allergy, I rarely dine at those types of restaurants because of ingredients like oyster sauce or brine shrimp as seasoning and cross contamination. I even had friends that once ordered “vegetarian” egg rolls that contained crab meat. I think it was a perfect storm of a language issue and a culture issue.
I posted this photo of a dish we make often on social media, and was asked for the recipe. I figured I would share it here too! It’s more of a method maybe than an exact recipe. My wife usually makes it with chicken instead of beef and without the chick peas.
2 or 3 cuts of whatever steak looks good / is on sale.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Maybe sesame oil would make it more “authentic?”
Salt, pepper, spices like onion powder, garlic powder, & season all.
Made 4 cups of instant rice according to the box, instead of salt in the water I used 1 teaspoon of beef bullion, set aside.
Sear the steaks on high on a flat pan that can go into the oven – coat w/ EVOO, salt & pepper… about 2 minutes a side.
Place a pat of butter on each steak, place in oven at 400° for about 10 minutes.
Cook the chick peas in a bit of EVOO, maybe medium-high heat. You need to keep an eye on them as they can “pop.”
Add the Teriyaki sauce to the pan and let it cook, maybe take it down to medium. I keep stirring & scraping the bottom of the pan.
Get the water boiling for under a steamer basket. I usually add onion powder and garlic powder.
Take out the steaks and let them rest on a cutting board.
Steam the vegetables above the boiling water once it starts to go… I usually wait for them to turn a bright color then turn it off as I like them still to be a bit crunchy. Carrots on bottom, broccoli in the middle, peppers on top seems to make the cook the most evenly.
Cut the steaks into strips, I try to go on an angle so they’re nice & tender.
Add the steak to the chick peas & Teriyaki… don’t overcook the steak. It should still be a little pink in the middle when you add it.
Fluff the rice.
I use garlic powder, onion powder, season all, Mrs. Dash, salt, & pepper throughout on everything.
Plate the rice, veggies, beef/chickpeas/sauce and enjoy!
It all sounds much more complicated than it is. You can cook he steaks on a countertop grill or cut them into strips & cook in the pan… but I tend to overcook them that way. You could, of course, also use the marinade as an actual marinade.
You could just boil the veggies too, but I feel like that takes out all the flavor and turns them to mush. Roasting them in the oven may be delicious too, but would take a bit longer… this would be good for the chickpeas too.
I’d be interested to see what other people think if you try it out. I’d like if you shared your meals like this in the comments, so I have more stuff to try.
I am stuck on this type of La Choy Teriyaki sauce & marinade. The flavor is perfect. The “stir fry sauce” has sesame seeds in it, & I’m not a fan of the texture and hate to tempt fate with diverticulitis issues. The other ones are just OK. What’s your favorite type? Have you ever made your own?
According to Wikipedia, it seems like Teriyaki is similar to Barbecue as it seems to refer to a style of cooking as well as the sauce. Maybe I am wildly misusing the term? I just like the sauce. A lot.
It has been increasingly difficult to find. I have tweeted(𝕏eeted?) Conagra and I think they are stalling. I’m going to have to have a maze-fueled letter & email wiring campaign. I was told the sauce was discontinued by a local distributor to Giant Eagle in 2009, but have definitely found it since then. The current La Choy website doesn’t list it as a product, but the Internet Wayback Machine has it.
Onion powder, garlic powder, steak seasoning, seasoned-salt, cumin, paprika, cayenne, black pepper, white pepper
I wanted to try 2 things, the Ninja Foodi pressure-cooker function & steak in the chili. The steak was successful, the pressure-cooking was not so much.
I cut up the steak and sautéed with a tiny bit of EVOO in a pan on the stove on high then medium-high, added about half of each chopped up fresh pepper, the ground beef, and about a tablespoon of minced garlic. This is where I added all of the dry spices at the end. I don’t measure. I also used some Straub to deglaze the pan. This mix was delicious.
I added the rest of the ingredients into the Foodi after draining & rinsing both cans of beans… including the unused peppers, garlic, and beer.
It got up to pressure then insisted I “ADD WTR.” I reluctantly added a cup of water and a beef bullion cube. I like chili thick enough to eat with a fork.
It got up to pressure again and insisted “ADD WTR.”
Googling solutions seemed to lean to the fact that it could be overheating, stuff could be burning on the pan, or a few other suggestions. A real life friend confirmed the burning thing via Facebook. It eventually got to a boiling point after the second pressure-up, but again demanded “ADD WTR.” No, Foodi. I like thick chili! NO ADD WTR! NO ADD WTR! I put it on the saute setting and let it boil down for a bit.
I think the stove top would have been the same amount of time. The flavors were great. Would they had been enhanced with proper pressurized cooking? Will the Foodi learn to say “STR SHT” when that’s what it really means?
Next time I will put the liquid on the bottom maybe? Also, no water/bullion cube… and I may eliminate the small can of tomato paste & sauce. The meat & pepper mix itself before other stuff was delicious. I could add the tomatoes, & soup, & beans right there and have a fine meal to be seved with rice or mashed potatoes.
Maybe I will go back to the slow-cooker. You can’t deny how awesome that is. My recipe is always changing.
One of these days I’m gonna try cocoa powder. I have seen stuff calling for brown sugar (which I love in spaghetti sauce), but no thanks in chili. I have also had cinnamon in chili, an that’s totally not my thing, but I get it if you dig it.
I had mine with some tortilla strips, shredded sharp cheddar cheese, and a dollop of sour cream. We had some pretzel breadsticks on the side too. They serves soft pretzels with chili at my elementary school, so they will always belong together for me. This would have also been great over mashed potatoes or on a baked potato, rice, or even pasta.
How do you do chili (or chili con carne)? Beans? No beans? Over pasta? Over potatoes or rice? Any musts for the side like peanut butter, corn bread, sweet corn cake, rolls, cinnamon rolls, tortilla chips or strips, etc.?
Do you use cheese or sour cream? Do you like it hot? Do you cut the heat with anything?
Do you have a preferred cooking method?
Any tips on pressure-cooker (or Ninja Foodi) chili?
Yinz like chili? I do. I haven’t made any for a long time. I may need to change that. I stole this (& modified it) from my never-used Cookpendium blog. My writing has hopefully improved since then. Maybe not. I like a tamer chili that would appeal to a wide variety of people to add heat as they like. I like it thick enough to make a spoon stand. I can take or leave the beans, and I reject your debatable elitist visions of chili or what it ought to be.
I ought to try and make a new batch using only stuff I buy at Aldi.
How do you make yours?
[Originally from a post at (the now defunct) PittsburghBeat.com, here’s a few consolidated chili recipe/methods…]
Recipe 1:
I’ve never made chili before, and in researching, I came across 50 billion recipes. So, this morning I made my own in the crock pot…
2 cans of condensed tomato soup
1 can of tomato paste
1 packet of chili mix
about ½ cup of water
1 tsp. of beef bullion
1 can light red kidney beans
however much ground meat was leftover from last night
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. black pepper
a dash of cayenne pepper
a dash of paprika
a dash of garlic
…and I slapped it into the crock pot on low for 8 hours.
Hope it tastes good when I get home. I’ve got shredded cheddar cheese for the top of it, & Super-Pretzels to go along with it. They always served pretzels & chili in my elementary school cafeteria so they belong together in my warped mind.
Most of them use tomato paste, soup, sauce, juice, or diced tomatoes as a base… I even saw one that called for Spicy hot V8… and I think my mom always used soup. Tomato paste is usually bitter, so I figured the tomato soup would counteract it. All of the spices should be rockin’. I like my chili thick.
Oh yeah, about 1/2 the ground meat was cooked w/ some seasoning salt & A1.
Recipe 2:
Here’s what basically went into my chili. I’ll probably eventually make a blog about it with a narrative so I can remember what I did this time for next time… to see what I wanna change or what I wanna do again.
I ended up only using the one can of diced tomatoes (the one with jalapeños) and still kind’ve overflowed the pot by a small amount. So, next time I may cut out one can of tomato soup or a can of beans. Also, I want to try garbanzo beans in my next batch… and I’ve heard chocolate powder goes good in chili some times… so I wanna try that one day too.
I also tossed in 2 slices of Velveeta ripped apart, a dash of spicy brown mustard, and a drop or 2 of A1 Cracked Peppercorn Steak Sauce.
I think the meat that I used was too fatty or I didn’t drain enough fat (…even though I got a about ⅔ of a regular sized plastic cup full of fat out of it). I had to skim some excess grease off of the top when I popped it open this morning.
I’ll let you know the general consensus after it’s been consumed.
[Edit: It was good.]
Recipe 3:
I must have pinned this at some point, too. Someone re-pinned it here…
I think it was a joke about Pepto because this chili killed my guts, even served over mashed potatoes.
Share your chili recipes with me in the comment section below. Don’t be a jag and sit on your secret ingredient(s). Is it cocoa powder? Chocolate bars? Corn? Zucchini? Cinnamon? Potatoes? Steak? Instant potato flakes? Cornmeal? Chupacabra?
How do you serve it? In a bowl? Over baked or mashed potatoes, rice,or spaghetti? With soft pretzels or cornbread? With tortilla chips or crackers?
How do you cook it? Crock pot? Dutch oven? Stove top? Over a campfire?
Do you like the Hormel canned stuff or the stuff from Wendy’s? Who makes your favorite?
“Someday” if I ever get the time, energy, & resources… I’d like to record a CD of some of my favorite songs with whatever kind of band I can pull together, or maybe even a varied assortment of musician friends. Some of them are by bigger bands, some by locals, some by bands I’ve been in.
I’m sure there are more I’d want to include. There’s no real reason to this, other than I think they’re all solid songs and it would be all kinds of fun. Well, add any of the songs from my Ramones/Misfits/related bands list, really.
If anyone has better audio links for any of these… or any link at all for ones that aren’t click-able, I’d really appreciate your sharing of such things.
(I’d actually like to re-record most of the AiXeLsyD & Gasoline Dion catalogs, just because I think a little more attention to production could really polish some of that stuff. – Reunion gig or 2 anyone? Ha ha.)
What songs do you dig enough to cover? Any of these? Ever hear of any of these? Ha ha. What would be on your album were you to do the same thing?
This is a re-post from my old MySpace blog. I used to have a ton of this W(aL)D crap. Apparently a few of you find it as amusing as I do. There are some that have been lost to the ages, but there are some good ones left here…
So, I remembered that my e-mails to & from world.and.lunar.domination@gmail.com used to actually be about World (and Lunar) Domination. Sadly, a lot of the original stuff is lost due to a PittsburghBeat.com crash. Maybe Rippa can get me a backup from somewhere if one still exists, and I can sort through all the shit to find the meat of the posts.
World (and Lunar) Domination 