I’m sure you’ve seen little bread-shaped loaves of bread before. The Greeks have peinirli, which are doughy little canoes absolutely stuffed with cheese and toppings. And in Georgia (the country, not the state), there’s khachapuri, aka bread boats filled with several gooey cheeses and a couple of sunny-side-up eggs. Both iterations are cute, incredibly tasty, and, dare I say, more practical than a traditional pizza.
Unfortunately, those delicious cheese-filled marvels may have set up Trader Joe’s Garlic Gondolas for a loss. These new bread boats, which come in two-packs in the frozen aisle, don’t come stuffed with stuff—there’s a “sprinkle” of grated cheese inside, along with a “gloriously garlicky, buttery sauce.” Seriously, “sprinkle” is generous compared to the actual amount of cheese in the gondolas. Even though the instructions tell you to bake them in the oven until the “cheese is melted and bubbly,” there’s no cheese to be found—and that’s just one problem. Here’s what we thought of the Trader Joe’s Garlic Gondolas.
Pros: I think these Garlic Gondolas would make an adequate foundation for a dish with more going on. If you were to add in a bit of pizza sauce, a handful of cubed pepperoni, and a bunch of shredded mozzarella, you might get a satisfying meal out of these bread boats. At the very least, you’d get some cheese out of the deal.
Cons: Well, we’ve already discussed the lack of cheese, but these Garlic Gondolas have other issues, too. The bread, which is sort of like pizza dough, is tough and dry and hard to bite through. The garlic flavor is bitter like raw garlic. If you want to make a pizza boat, buy a loaf of squishy, delicious, well-seasoned garlic bread and use that instead.
Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks.
Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown.
What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction.
Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home.
Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.
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Gwynedd Stuart
Ariana Losch
Sporked Staff
Jordan Myrick
