Thursday, April 5, 2012

Tara’s Thinly Sliced 9% Edam Cheese + Coupons


טרה גבינה צהובה אדם דק דק
Tara Dairy took a page out of the cold cut meat company’s book (over the past year or so all three local, major cold cut companies came out with a very thinly sliced cold cuts/deli meats line) Tara translated that to their yellow cheeses and now have a “Dak Dak” = very thinly sliced line of cheeses.

The Tara Dak Dak cheeses are available in 28% fat, 22% fat and 9% fat Edam cheese. I decided to try the low 9% fat one.

For starters I thought the packaging was wonderful. Not only does it tell you on the label how may slices you are getting, 14 in this case, but the packaging is actually re-closable in a very neat and convenient way. Yes other yellow cheeses have a re-closeable lid but something about the way this lid fits in the base, kind of like 2 puzzle pieces being clicked into each other, seemed neat and clean to me. I liked that.

(Update: the next day when I wanted to get another slice to see how well this cheese melted *, when I reopened the packing I realized it was not closed as well as I thought it was. The hard plastic packages other yellow cheese come in close back up much better than this did. Those other containers most likely keep the cheese fresher for a longer time. So although I though this packaging was neat I do not think it’s as good as I first thought it was.)

Just looking at the sliced cheese, before I even tasted it, I thought it looked too shiny and plastic-like. That’s always the issue I have with low fat yellow cheeses, they taste more like plastic than cheese. Somehow I was hoping that would not be the case in this situation but no such luck. I should say it wasn’t as rubbery as other low fat hard yellow cheese I’ve tasted; there were some that were not edible in my opinion, this one wasn’t that bad. I did pick up on the Edam flavor in the cheese but it was still too plastic tasting for my liking.

*I wanted to see how well it melted so I put a quarter of a slice on a small bit of challah bread ,I added some tomato as well, and popped it in the microwave for a few seconds. Yes it melted quite quickly but it became even more rubbery and much more difficult to eat. This is not a good cheese for melting; I liked it even less after it was melted.  
I did like the thinner slices and thought that was a nice touch. I do think it helped cut down on how rubbery the 9% cheese was (not melted). My assumption is that the 22% and 28% fat cheeses cut this thinly would make the cheese much more enjoyable than their thicker sliced counterparts.

For the sake of giving you more than one opinion I will add that I read a Hebrew review online for these cheeses, that blogger did not agree with me about the plastic-like taste. She was given both the 28% and the 9% cheeses to try, and although she thought the 28% cheese was tastier, more flavorful and richer she really liked the 9% one as well. She did not think it was too rubbery or plastic-like. So it’s possible it will not bother some of you as much as it will bother others.

Bottom Line: I really liked that the cheese was sliced so thinly. I thought it helped the low fat cheese from being way too overly rubbery but although I smelled and tasted the Edam flavor in the cheese at the end of the day it was still too plastic-like for me, melting it on some bread was a fail too. I didn’t enjoy this Tara Thinly Sliced 9% Edam Cheese enough to buy it again in the future.
 
14 slices 200 grams -12.90NIS

 Kosher Badatz Mehadrin and Kosher for Passover

Update: I found a coupon for this cheese. I will add it to the post here but I don't really think this cheese is worth buying, even at a discounted price. I was not the only one who did not like this cheese you can read in the comments this cheese was also a major fail for Nesya (who reads this blog) and tried the cheese as well. But in case you want to try it for yourself here is the coupon.
source
  
I also found a coupon for the 28% thin cheese . 

source

I didn't try this one but I would think it should be a more successful product than the 9% cheese. 

Both coupons are usable at 
Shufersal Sheli, Shufersal Deal, Yesh, Tiv Ta'am
and other major stores that may accept them

 The coupons expire 30-6-12

 Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

4 comments:

  1. Well you just keep reviewing the products I want to try for myself! I think I'll buy a package of the 9% to see if the "rubberiness" is of a level I can tolerate because I really do like the idea of thin slices. Low fat cheese rarely melts well-Tal Haemek is the most successful in my opinion, but I don't like eating it raw. If you're in Jlm, try the light Swedish (yes, Swedish, not Swiss!) cheese they sell at Bashir in the shuk, that one gets both the taste and the melt factor right.

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  2. :) Thanks for your comment and for the heads up about the Tal Haemek - good to know it's a fairly good low fat cheese for melting.
    Gonna keep in mind your suggestion of the Swedish cheese next time I am at the Jlm shuk I'll check it out. Thanks for all that info!
    Let me know what you think of this Dak Dak cheese when you try it.
    Chag Sameach

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  3. So I tried this and it was even worse than I anticipated... I tried it both on its own and in a cheese toast and in both instances it was rubbery and completely tasteless. Since I had the heads up from you about the package, I actually put the whole thing in a ziplock, only to find, after about 3 days, the whole batch had turned green and become inedible! I will not be going near it again.

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    Replies
    1. Sorry it was such a fail for you too. I guess you should just stick to the cheese you buy at the Jerusalem Shuk.

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