Description
Ingredients: Sardines (Sardina pilchardus) (70%), Extra Virgin Olive Oil (24.5%), Spices (Piri-piri, Carrot, Cucumber, Clove, Laurel, White Pepper)(4.5%), and salt.
The terms “spiced” and “spicy” are used pretty much interchangeably in the tinned fish world, to mean two different things: with a hot pepper (or hot pepper flavor), and with cloves/bay/carrot/hot pepper. There are many examples of both terms being used to mean both things.
We are so frustrated by how widespread this confusing inconsistent usage is that we’ve gone through our entire product line to correct the incorrect ones such that our description of “spiced” or “spicy” will always indicate which it really is, regardless of the packaging. “Spicy” = with hot pepper flavor. “Spiced” = with the cloves/bay/carrot/hot pepper flavors.
Anne Martin (verified owner) –
I was looking forward to trying these. Inside the tin were 3 regular sized sardines and 2 smaller ones. These were not what I would consider small with the regular ones in there.
There was also a pickle slice, carrot slice, hot pepper and a piece of bay leaf in the tin. This had a little more heat than some others listing piri-piri. However, these were fairly salty to me and not in a pleasant way. The fish were in good shape and firm. There was a little heat to the sauce. However, the salt level led me to go grab a plain unsalted cracker to eat these as it was definitely too much with a salted cracker.
I preferred the Flower brand spicy sardines more than these by a large margin. I would not seek these out again due to the size and salt issues.
Lily (verified owner) –
I agree with another reviewer that I don’t consider these small sardines. Aside from them being larger than expected, they were pretty good. They seemed like good quality fish, the oil was tasty, and the pickle and carrot slice were a nice touch. I don’t know if I’d get these again for the price, but they were worth trying.