I've been a pretty dedicated Udi-eater these past few months. Safeway recently started selling their bread for a good price, so I was going there to get my bread rather than the few other shops that have it on hand most of the time (Vim & Vigor, Kokua, and Whole Foods generally have it in stock). Paying $5.50 was way way WAY better than the $7+ the other shops charged. It made me feel like a human being again. Almost.
Then they printed off a coupon for me to use. The coupons I got were, oddly, not for anything I'd actually bought but for KINDS of the things I had bought. So there I was with Sargento cheese and Udi's gf bread, and I had coupons for Kraft cheese and Rudi's gf bread. Since the coupon was for $2 off, I thought it might be worth it to try out Rudi and see if he (or she, I guess) was any better than Udi.
First I had to actually find a loaf of Rudi's at a Safeway store. There are several Safeway stores. My closest one is up in Manoa, and I hated going there because the selection of gluten free foods was always so crap. I noticed that the one near Waikiki had lots of gluten free stuff, and although it was a hell of a trip to get there, I would go there just for the good price on Udi's bread. I was shocked when I went to my local Safeway and found Udi's, but they did NOT have Rudi's at all.
The only places I can recall seeing the Rudi's bread are that one Safeway near Waikiki (the one with Cold Stone and Burgers on the Edge nearby) and Whole Foods. I think Whole Foods charges $8 or something. Safeway had the bread for an introductory price of $5.50, after which it would be $7. With my coupon, that brought my total to $3.50, but knowing that I would have to pay $7 thereafter was kind of crappy.
Availability Winner: Udi's. I can find it in more stores and it's always cheaper than Rudi's
I took the bread home and didn't try it until the next day. Rudi's claims to be good on the shelf for four days before getting stale or dry or whatever happens (it becomes a space alien?) after four days. I kind of expected this to be true. Udi's is usually pretty good for about 3 days after thawing, after which it gets dry.
I opened up my Rudi's bread and was struck by how DRY it was. Like munching on a block of styrofoam. That's how dry it was. I had peanut butter on it, which meant there was moisture THERE, but the bread was ... so dry. Udi's is never that dry right after thawing.
Raw Texture Winner: Udi's. It's like real bread for a while.
So, okay. What else can we say about the bread? Well, lots of gluten free bread is small. Udi's is no exception. I have a sandwich maker that I bought in Japan and took back with me, and it's so hard to put my Udi's bread in there because it's difficult to center the tiny slices. On the other hand, Rudi's bread fills up the whole machine! It's crazy! I haven't had normal-sized bread in so long that I forgot what it's like!
Size Winner: Rudi's. It's normal!!
What about the taste? Udi's regular white bread tastes to me like the cheap baguettes I used to buy at the grocery stores and convenience stores in Japan. Not bad, and the slightly french bready flavor was pretty pleasant and not overpowering. Rudi's is weirdly sweet, like honey wheat bread. When I make a sandwich with it, sometimes the sweetness overpowers the other flavors. I kept tasting bread instead of peanut butter and when I used the sandwich maker I couldn't taste hardly anything but the bread. No cheese, no meat, just bread. And sweet. It might be good in the sandwich maker with fruit filling or something, but for a savory sandwich it was ... weird.
Later I merely toasted it and could taste the other flavors a little better. But I'm going to have to give this one to:
Flavor Winner: Udi's, because I want to taste everything IN my sandwich too.
My last category is the cooking category. I've tried to make Udi's into toast before, and I guess the bread is so small that this makes it really dry and unpleasant. It's actually better to leave it uncooked if I'm going to bring a sandwich with me to school. When I make the sandwich pockets in the machine, it cooks up very very nicely even if it's hard to make it fit everything.
Rudi's bread actually became more soft and edible with toasting, more like a traditional gf bread. It also cooked up okay in the sandwich pockets, even if (as I said) it didn't taste the greatest.
I'm going to give this one to ...
Cooked Texture Winner: Rudi's, because I think it would hold up better in my lunchbox.
Overall winner: Udi's
This isn't to say I won't give Rudi another chance. I might do that, just because there's always the possibility that I got an old loaf (only two were left when I bought mine) and it had dried out some in the freezer. If it still isn't very moist I might not be too into it anymore. I can always toast bread before I make a sandwich even if I'm going to put it in my lunchbox, but I just prefer not to. It wastes time and I have to wait for the bread to cool before I can put anything on it.
So far I think these are two of the best ones I've had, although admittedly I haven't had a lot of the breads. Ener-G was edible but not the best. I haven't tried the one I always see EVERYWHERE (whatever brand has all the nut flavors). I'm trying to avoid anything that needs to remain frozen, just because I don't have 24 hour access to the freezer here and also because cutting off my damn finger put me off of frozen bread ...
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