Review: Papa John's - Bruschetta Cheesesticks

Papa John's Bruschetta Cheesesticks feature diced Roma tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil pesto sauce baked on Papa John's hand-tossed dough.

An order cost me $6 and came with two cups of pizza sauce for dipping.

As you can tell from the picture, rather than sticks, my cheesesticks came cut like a pizza. It's like the employee who was cutting it had a brain fart because it looked like a pizza (I can't blame him/her; it even had an end crust) and so cut it as such.

I forgot the quarter for scale but the cheesesticks are about the same size as a 10-inch pizza.

Rather than cheesesticks, it basically felt like a sauceless, cheese pizza (which I guess some would argue is more true to an Italian pizza). The pesto added a slight hit of olive oil and a nice note of basil but the baked tang of the tomatoes brought to mind pizza sauce. Their mozzarella is rather tasteless.

Like Papa John's hand-tossed pizza, the crust was soft rather than crisp and there was too much of it for the cheese given. For cheeseticks, the crust only needs to be a vehicle for the gobs of melted cheese and that wasn't the case here.

Overall, Papa John's Bruschetta Cheesesticks were a miss for me but you might like it if you're looking for a sauceless pizza (although you could also just order a sauceless pizza). If they were going for more of a bruschetta effect, it might have been better to just included a cup of a fresh tomato salad of some sort so you could just top the cheesesticks yourself. Eating it just made me want to order some cheesesticks...

Nutritional Info - Papa John's Bruschetta Cheesesticks
Serving Size - 1 stick (46g)
Calories - 100 (from Fat - 45)
Fat - 5g (Saturated Fat - 2g)
Sodium - 260mg
Carbs - 11g (Sugar - 1g)
Protein - 4g