Ramen 33: I Can Feel A Chicken Sliding Up To Me

  • March 17, 2026

Six months ago I wrote these words to end the last installment of this series: “I hope it’s not another six months until the next installment” 🙂

As it turns out I miscalculated, and in a mysterious turn of events this entry will be the biggest yet!

Myojo (460 Calories, 10g fat, 2100 mg sodium)

See those tiny pieces of dehydrated seaweed? Once reconstituted they unfolded into large sheets. This gave this entire product an unpleasant taste of seaweed, and it was chicken in name only.

Furthermore despite following the instructions to the letter, the noodles don’t seem to cook completely. It was like eating rubber bands (that tasted of the ocean) and of course this meant it was terrible. An easy 0 out of 10.

Lucky Me (250 Calories, 10 g fat, 1400 mg sodium)

I’ll keep this short: bland noodles in tasteless cloudy broth so inoffensively underflavoured you may as well not be eating anything. Lucky? Hardly! (0/10)

Cup Noodles Rich & Savory Chicken (320 Calories, 12 g fat, 1480 mg sodium)

The kings of chicken ramen return with a new product that rode the earliest waves of ‘protein’ being cool. Nissin created instant ramen, and I’ve always found their chicken to be a product I’d enjoy if I couldn’t find others (like Gefen).

But this protein variant – which contains bone broth – changes the flavour too much. It’s strong and earthy in a way I’m not a fan of, and doesn’t taste at all like chicken ramen. And I should know: I’ve tried more than 85 of them.

But I’ll concede this isn’t a bad product, and for some (like my dad who preferred beef soup) this is probably good. Not for me.

Hello Pho Wok Chicken (300 Calories, 7 g fat, 1070 mg sodium)

This is pho, which means glassy noodles, and it came with two packets of spice and one of greasy fat. I was a bit hesitant about the latter, but felt better when it quickly melted once I poured the hot water in.

As for the taste… it’s the best of today’s batch. But the noodles were slimy, and dragged the overall experience down. Had I mixed these flavour packs with a different noodle this could even have been good. I’d say it averages to 5/10.

‘Artificial Chicken Soup’ (470 Calories, 14 g fat, 2300 mg sodium)

I don’t know the brand, and it’s not written anywhere in English, but on the side is proclaims ‘A yummy soup’.

If the ‘sauce packet’ in the previous was big, this one was titanic! And it was very thick: both looking and smelling like vegemite. And it didn’t melt easily; I had to stir the noodles a lot to be sure it mixed throughout.

As it turns out I should hardly have bothered, since this had a strong taste of geosmin. This was one of the very worst ‘chicken’ ramen I’ve ever tasted, and I had to go on a quick sugar bender to reset my polluted tastebuds. Without a doubt, this one scores -10/10!

As you see I found (and tried) five new examples these past six months. Just when I think I’ve plumbed the depths of this topic it keeps delivering! How long until the next update? Who knows!?

In The City

  • March 15, 2026

We spent a couple of nights in New York City, doing the usual.

The weather has been cold although we had a pleasant (almost 10 C) afternoon yesterday. Luckily it didn’t rain.

On Friday the city seemed dead but yesterday it was crazy busy, with lines everywhere. Who travels to NY at this time of year?

What did we buy the most of? Surely candy/lollies. Some for my students, but most for me!

I also bought a lot (50+ comics), none of which are under 30 years old. I’ll read them all then pass them on to my students. What do they think of comics published before they were born?

As always we had fun but we’re exhausted now waiting for the train home. It was a very active 3 days!

Video Game Scratchies

  • March 8, 2026

I’ve got a lot of strange collections, and here’s one I don’t think I’ve shared before: video game themed scratch off tickets!

Both of the above are from 2017. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never been to Michigan so I imagine I purchased that in an airport. I think both are nicely designed and represent the game well.

This one (from 2018) surprised me when I found it in my collection, since I would have said NY has never had one of these ‘maze’ scratch off games. I like these sorts of cards and I think they themed this one well.

Isn’t it disappointing how today scratch-off tickets have become so mindless? The reason is that the various issuers found players had difficulty with more complex games and as a result everything is simplified now.

From 2014, the above is probably the highlight of my collection! This one is Australian and has two games on it oriented so it can be simultaneously played by two people! I wonder if I played this one with Bernard or Adam back in the day?

There’s been a lot of Pac-Man tickets over the years, and the above are from NY (2018), Australia (Unknown date, and two from 2025). Bernard sent me the two on the right for my birthday and I don’t think he believed me when I said I had a collection of others. Now he knows 🙂

Incidentally you’ll note how the NY and first Australian tickets are very similar in design. I speculate this is because there’s a few large lottery companies worldwide that make tickets for different countries and they may have been designed by the same firm.

And lastly, this Ms. Pac Man from Washington (State) that was also released in 2018. This one is a mystery since I’ve never been to Washington and don’t even remember flying through the airport! As you see it’s a clone of the first Australian Pac Man ticket which supports my theory they were all designed by the same group.

A quick search online reveals many more Pac Man and Frogger tickets, as well as a Galaga (!) one released by Texas some years ago. Tetris and Ms Pac Man seem much rarer though, and I had no success looking for any game-themed tickets outside of the USA or Australia.

Have you seen any others?