Product information
About
A thick, hard-fried potato crisp under spring onion, garlic and salt: the sauce a Japanese grill house spoons over beef tongue. Buy it if you like a savoury, garlicky crisp with a hard bite; if you want something light to get through a whole bag, this is too rich.
堅あげポテト ねぎ塩だれ味 (kata-age poteto, negi-shio-dare aji). Those are the characters to match against the bag when it arrives.
What you're getting
- Calbee's fan club asked its members for a flavour that would go with beer, picked this one out of 675 suggestions, and printed the story of how it happened on the back of the bag. It is the only thing on our shelf that came from Japanese customers' own suggestions.
- The potato is sliced thick and fried slowly in a single kettle, so a crisp breaks with a hard crack instead of a light snap. "Kataage" means hard-fried, and that slow kettle fry is how they get there.
- The garlic arrives first and stays. Behind it there is black pepper and a savoury note from beef extract, all over a heavy salt.
- It is rich enough that some people stop at half a bag.
- Buyers split almost evenly on how much spring onion they actually find.
- The pack pictures beef tongue, but the beef comes as an extract in the seasoning, not as pieces of meat, and some buyers taste it clearly while others barely find it.
- Contains: wheat, sesame, soy. The Japanese panel also lists beef; Australia does not treat beef as an allergen, so it sits in the ingredients rather than in our allergen list. Read the pack's own label before you rely on ours.
- Also worth knowing: the seasoning carries beef extract, so there is meat in it.
These are hard enough that Calbee prints its own warning to chew carefully so you do not hurt the inside of your mouth. Two other things before you buy: this is a limited Japanese run, so it will not be reorderable for long, and the flavour name on the front of the bag is written only in Japanese. Japanese buyers who have tried it treat it as a drinking snack: beer, but just as often a highball or a shochu, the distilled spirit drunk long with soda.
Ingredients
Potatoes (Japan or USA), vegetable oil (palm oil, rice oil, sesame oil), glucose, salt, onion powder, starch, garlic powder (contains soy), spring onion extract powder, black pepper, dried spring onion, beef extract powder
seasoning (amino acids etc.), flavouring (wheat-derived), spice extract, antioxidant (vitamin C)
For your safety, please check both the information on this page and the printed label on the pack. If anything is unclear or the information differs, please contact us before consuming the product.
Allergens
- Contains
-
- Wheat
- Sesame
- Soy
- Dietary notes
-
The seasoning carries beef extract powder, so it is not vegetarian, halal or kosher. It comes as an extract in the seasoning, not as pieces of meat.
For your safety, please check both the information on this page and the printed label on the pack. If anything is unclear or the information differs, please contact us before consuming the product.
Details
- Maker
- Calbee · Tokyo
- Made in
- Japan
- Net contents
- One 60 g bag
Our guide
How to eat it
Good to know
- Keep the opened bag out of the fridge — condensation turns them chewy, which is the one storage mistake that is not obvious.
- The garlic is assertive, so brush your teeth afterwards.
- Chew them properly. Calbee prints the warning itself — these are hard enough to catch the inside of your mouth.
In their own words
What Japanese buyers say
- What they like
The one-of-a-kind gari-gari (hard, cracking) crunch and the potato flavour are the good part. Good with a drink. Careful if you've cut your mouth.
「他にないガリガリ食感とポテトの味が楽しめるのが良い おつまみに良いです✨ 口の中ケガしてる時は要注意」
from monolog, a Japanese review site
- What they grumble about
Pretty tasty. But salty enough that you start worrying about your sodium.
「なかなかおいしい😋 でも塩分気にしちゃうくらい塩くどい。」
from monolog
- What they like
The negi-shio-dare is an addictive flavour.
「ネギ塩だれくせになる味です。」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Was I just misreading it? It's literally just negi-shio-dare flavour. The photo has thick-cut beef tongue with negi-shio sauce on it, right? It's 95% negi-shio-dare, maybe 3% distant smell of beef. There's almost no umami element (beef extract or whatever), so the salt comes across harsh. Disappointing.
「私が勘違いをしていただけ？まんまねぎ塩だれ味でした。写真には厚切り牛タンにねぎ塩たれがのっているけど？ねぎ塩だれ味95%、遠くに牛肉の匂い3%程度。旨味要素（ビーフエキスとか）がほぼないので塩気がきつく感じられます。残念。」
from mognavi, a Japanese food and drink review site
- What they like
Garlic's on the strong side but it was delicious! Brush your teeth afterwards!
「ニンニク強めですが美味しかった！食べ終わったら歯磨き！」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Tasty! But it's too rich to finish the bag — half is about right, lol.
「美味しい！けど全部はくどくて食べれないから半分でちょうどいいぐらい笑」
from monolog
- What they like
The salt is strong. Well, if you think of it as a drinking snack… There's a bit of meaty aroma too, which is nice. Beer of course, but highball and shochu go well with it too. That savouriness when you bite down is good.
「塩気が強いですな(´ｰωｰ｀) まぁツマミと思えば･･･ ちょっと肉の香りもしていいですぞ。 ビールは勿論、ハイボールも焼酎も良く合うぞ。噛み締めた時の旨みがいいよねー」
from mognavi
- What they grumble about
It's tasty, but if you ask whether it's negi-shio-dare — it's a "I guess so…? maybe…?" level of flavour.
「美味しいですがねぎ塩だれかと言われるとそうかな…そうかも…？程度のフレーバーです」
from monolog
- What they like
First time trying the negi-shio-dare. The heavy saltiness and the hard texture are addictive — it was delicious.
「初めてねぎ塩だれ味を食べましたが濃いしょっぱさと固い食感がクセになり、美味しかったです。」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Not as good as I'd hoped. The black pepper flavour goes better with a drink.
「期待したほどではない。ブラックペッパー味の方が酒に合う」
from monolog
- What they like
"It says it was made from customer suggestions — does that mean it'll become a regular?!" — my husband was getting excited.
「お客様の声でできましたってことは定番化するのか⁉️ って旦那がワクワクしてました🤫」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Got bored of it halfway through.
「途中で飽きた。」
from monolog
- What they like
First time seeing it, so I tried it without much expectation — and it was exactly as the pack says, "the more you chew the better it gets". I'm definitely repurchasing, so it's a shame it's limited-run.
「初めて見たのであまり期待せず試しに購入してみましたが、パッケージに噛むほどうまい！と書かれている通りでした。リピ決定なのに期間限定なのがもったいないです。」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
It was trending on social so I bought it even though I'm dieting. I thought this combination had to be a winner, but the flavour blends into the oil too much and feels blurred. Still, Kataage never misses.
「SNSで話題になっていたのでダイエット中だったけど購入。この組み合わせは大当たりなはずと思っていたけど、味が油とまとまりすぎててぼやけている気がする。堅あげポテトにハズレはない。」
from mognavi
- What they like
This aroma really whets the appetite.
「この香り、食欲をそそります」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Kataage Potato is delicious! I wish they gave you a bit more — 10%, no, 20% more!
「堅揚げポテトおいしい！もうちょっと、増やしてほしいなあ、1割いや2割増で！」
from monolog
- What they like
It's made properly hard, so small children should chew it well.
「コレは堅く仕上げてあるから、小さいお子さんなど良く噛んで食べた方がいい。」
from mognavi
- What they grumble about
Maybe it's the sesame oil — there's something a bit peculiar about it. Fine as a drinking snack, I suppose.
「胡麻油のあじなのか、独特な感じもする。おつまみにいいかな」
from monolog
- What they like
I bought it before and it was very good, so I repurchased.
「以前購入してとても美味しかったので、リピート購入しました。」
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Feels like the potato flavour beats the negi-shio-dare.
「ネギ塩だれの味よりも、ポテトの味の方が勝ってる感。」
from monolog
Real quotes from the review sites named on the cards. We show no star rating from those sites.
The maker
Where it comes from
- Calbee
- Tokyo
Calbee has made Kataage Potato since 1993. The potato is cut thick and cooked one kettle at a time at a low temperature, which leaves a crisp hard enough to crack rather than snap.
This flavour came from the fan club. Calbee runs one for Kataage Potato — tens of thousands of members — and asked them what it should make for drinking with a beer. Six hundred and seventy-five ideas came back, negi-shio-dare won, and Calbee put it into production in June 2026 and told the whole story on the bag's reverse.
Negi-shio-dare is a real sauce, not an invention for a crisp: spring onion, garlic and salt, spooned over grilled beef tongue at an izakaya, the Japanese pub that serves food. That is what the photograph on the front of the pack is showing you.
Product facts here are checked against the maker's own page: calbee.co.jp (opens in a new tab)
Often bought together
-
Calbee Kataage Potato Chips Negi Shio Spring Onion 60g
$4.39 AUD
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