11.15.03
Pucca (chocolate)
Pucca are bite sized pretzel fish with filling. They are about half again to twice as big as Pepperage Farm Goldfish and by far much tastier. They seem to come in two shapes, those with two…fins and those with three. If you tilt the three fin fish ninety degrees they start to look more like Pac Man ghosts, which I found amusing. They all seem to have a toastier side and a not so toasty side and yes, they all have a little hole about mid…head. That’s where the filling goes.
The shell is pretzel. I can, with clear conscience, confidently say “The shell of these fish is a thin pretzel” and not have to worry about finding a comparison. Pretzel? Yes. Moving on. I was just slightly disappointed at the taste, however. I would have preferred just a hint more salt on the shell as I was munching on them. Not a huge swath of bumpy salt crystals but a touch more saltiness would have taken care of the slightly bland flavor they had. If you have ever had a no salt soft pretzel that’s exactly what the outer shell tasted like. I usually get the lightest salted soft pretzel and scrape off all the remaining salt and am perfectly happy with that taste. If they could have found a way to duplicate salt scraped lightly salted soft pretzels then Pucca would have been the total bomb.
As it was, they really weren’t bad at all. After crunching through the pretzely outside you get to the chocolaty filling. It’s not quite as good as Yan Yan chocolate but if I had to quantify it I’d go with the Pucca chocolate being about a quarter pea not as tasty. Who wants to quibble over a quarter pea rating? It’s good chocolate and unless you are still in Yan Yan bliss you aren’t going to notice much of a difference. The filling is a firm hot cocoa melt in your mouth experience. It’s sweet and just hinting of bitter and if only the outer shell were a tad saltier we would have our first 5 pea snack food.
TheMan actually argued for a 5 pea rating but I had to knock it down for the bland outer pretzel coating. He was also all about their bite sized snackability which made them much more of a hit in his mind than the Yan Yan. True, Yan Yan is more of an undertaking and Pucca are better geared for instant satisfaction, but alas! The saltless pretzel coat really detracted from the perfect snack food experience! I mourned my lack of salt every time I crunched into a fish.
Pucca is good and tasty (but light on the needed salt) so I’ll go ahead and give it a
Rating of 4 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
Julie said,
October 22, 2010 at 10:25 pm
I completely agree about the salt(less)ness factor. Not nearly enough yang for the Yin. I would have preferred they not be so fat, too. The inside isn’t completely filled with chocolate in my recent tasting recollection.
Happy February! « Time for Dinner said,
February 2, 2012 at 12:42 am
[…] Pre-Workout Meal (4:30 p.m. Not pictured): I was so hungry when I got home from work that I had a bowl of rice, shredded cabbage, and five slices of shabu shabu pork, with goma sauce. I felt like I ate a little too much but this got me through a tough Kangoo workout with Saori. Oh, and I ate a handful of Pucca. […]