08.18.07
Kabaya Sinsyu Tomato Pretz
The pretz War continues in earnest now because I found a flavor of Kabaya pretz that Glico also produces in their Pretz line-up: Tomato. It seems like the war is starting fairly small scale as Kabaya is also a Japanese company so the pretz confrontation hasn’t yet spilled out into other Asian territories. You JSF purists will be comforted by this but only for a short time. I’ll wager that we’ll be seeing Korean or Chinese pretz before too long as pretz are just too good a thing not to copy. Especially tomato pretz.
Kabaya’s tomato pretz smell very Italian herb spicy with a hint of vinegar zest. They smell like I imagine the best Italian herb pretzel sticks ought to taste which makes them really, really delicious smelling. The one sort of oddness about that is…where’s the tomato? You would think that tomato pretzel sticks might smell a little bit like tomato but the best I can wrangle out of them is a possible hint of ketchup, and that’s only because of the vinegar.
As for taste, the spices do not disappoint. They are herby and delicious and bite-y too and there in the background is that little taste of vinegar that makes Kabaya pretz taste like Gardetto snack mix sticks but better. Much better. Like a perfectly blended salt, spice and bite Gardetto. But where’s the tomato? It kinda gets lost in the spices and bite to the point that if tomato was the Iron Chef JSF secret ingredient, I think Kabaya would lose points for overwhelming it with all the other tasty things they have added to this pretz. Not to say that there isn’t any tomato, but at best it’s a faint sort of ketchupesque tomato. Maybe.
I tried both Kabaya and Glico’s take on Tomato pretz side by side and I have to say, the Kabaya comes up a little short. I think they have a better, tastier, more robust stick than Glico and I like the Italian spiciness (not necessarily better, but it’s a good spicing) but I think Glico edges out the win because you can taste the tomato in their tomato pretz. If Kabaya had labeled these “Italian spices pretz” or maybe “spices with a hint of tomato pretz” then I wouldn’t be so bothered. However they did not, as far as I can tell, so I’m going to have to deduct some “disappointed with the faint tomato taste” peas from Kabaya for failing to bring (much of) the tomato.
Kabaya (on the right) does have a less wiggly stick, which is neither here nor there but worth mentioning. Also, the toaster marks are more numerous. Good? Bad? Different!
I really can’t rally behind the poor presence of tomato in Kabaya’s tomato pretz although I’m totally with them on the spices and the tasty stick. If you are looking for a tomato pretz, sidle on over to Glico. But, if you want something that is Italianish and crunchy bread sticky, these are absolutely the snack for you. Minus 0.5 peas for failing to bring the tomato but plus 0.5 peas for the crunchity, tasty stick and the delicious spices for a nice round total
rating of 4 wasabi peas of out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.
