If you love Goldfish crackers but wish they were sweet instead of savory, graham-y instead of cheesy, an even 50/50 split of cat-shaped and fish-shaped, and lightly strawberry flavored, then you are in luck (and also a person with a super specific wish), because Sanrio and Goldfish just teamed up to make all your dream (singular) come true.
In celebration of Hello Kitty’s 50th Anniversary, new Strawberry Shortcake Hello Kitty Goldfish hit stores nationwide last week for a super limited-time run and the internet is ecstatic that Goldfish is once again letting the proverbial strawberry shortcake-flavored graham cat out of the proverbial, very cute, limited edition red bag. Yes, I did say “once again,” although the last time these were released, it was a smaller online drop that, according to Goldfish (via Food & Wine) sold out in 90 minutes and was “the fastest-selling limited-time offering in [Goldfish] brand history.”
Of course, we had to see what the hype was about, it is our job after all, so we picked some of these up and gave them a whirl. Upon opening them up, I must admit I was surprised to still find fish in there given the amount of cats around, but I guess if you’ve been around the internet lately we’ve all learned that Hello Kitty is in fact a girl and not a cat (and is 5 apples tall and canonically from London of all places?!?) so do with that information what you will. Either way, we tried her Strawberry Shortcake Goldfish—read on to see how that went!
Pros: First of all the bag says “Be your berry best!” on the back – I immediately took that to heart and have had a truly productive week. Thanks, Hello Kitty! Secondly, upon opening this bag up – these smell exactly like the Neapolitan Oreos did a couple years ago – that is to say, like strawberry ice cream and cookies. And they kind of taste like that too! They are salty, sweet, and have a nice artificial strawberry flavor that reminds me of those strawberries and creme swirl candies or the Special K strawberry protein bars. Basically, they taste a bit like freeze-dried strawberry and vanilla and I am not mad at it. They don’t taste like real strawberries per se, but they taste like good, tasty strawberry flavor. The Hello Kitty-shaped grahams were very cute (and so were the standard fish ones). They are coated in a sugary coating that has all the strawberry flavor – the grahams themselves are just crumbly, buttery salty sweet grahams very reminiscent of Teddy Grahams. These are solid!
Cons: If you are looking for a super sweet, dessert-y, blast of strawberry flavor, these may be a bit subtle for you, but I think the level of flavor, sweetness, and salt in these makes for a very addicting perfect storm of flavor. I would definitely be interested to see what happens if they put some strawberry flavor in the cookie as well but hey, if it ain’t broke, let sleeping kitties lie I guess (that’s the saying right?).
8/10 Sporks
Hmmm, I think something a little wonky happened here with a double posting. But 2 different ratings, very interesting!