A slight departure from chicken ramen this time, to venture in a nightmare world of food science gone wrong. Three new and limited flavours of ramen were released this past year, and it’s finally time to try them all…
Cup Noodles Everything Bagel
This is ramen noodles in a cream-cheese flavoured sauce with ‘everything bagel’ flavouring and poppy seeds for that extra bit of realism.
As soon as the hot water was added the stench of cream cheese filled the room. It was repellant to one such as myself, but my fellow ramen tasters seemed intrigued. I went first, and the taste was so off-putting I couldn’t even swallow my meagre portion. It tasted (to me) exactly like cream cheese, which is a taste I despise. This was no normal poor ramen: this was a new level of terror.
Four of us tasted this evil thing, and here are our comments:
RS: Absolutely inedible.
KLS: Smells better than it tastes.
JK: Really tastes like bagel and cream cheese!
DH: Not bad but I wouldn’t buy it.
Our collective review: 3 thumbs up (out of 8)
Cup Noodles Breakfast
This one had everything: sausage, eggs, pancakes and maple syrup. A full unhealthy breakfast then, in instant ramen form. It also contained real sausage, so vegetarian KLS sat this one out.
Much like the previous as soon as the water was added a strong smell filled the room – this time maple syrup. After letting it steep the requisite time the eggs and sausage pieces seem to have rehydrated well, but the taste of maple was so sweet and overwhelming it was difficult to interpret this as anything more that noodles in sweet hot water. I couldn’t taste eggs, sausage or pancakes at all. That said, I was able to swallow my bite 🙂
Our verdicts:
RS: Simply tastes overwhelmingly of maple.
KLS: (Sat this one out and silently judged)
JK: I wish it wasn’t so sweet.
DH: This one is good! (He ate several forkfuls)
Our collective review: 2.5 thumbs up (out of 6)
Cup Noodle S’mores
For the Antipodean readers, S’mores are a mysterious campfire snack made by melting marshmallows and chocolate onto a cracker. Naturally they’re a terrible idea for a ramen product, and after the sweet bomb of breakfast what could this be like?
Uncooked. the noodles were covered in brown powder we took to be chocolate, and as you can see tiny marshmallows were included. Unlike the others, this one didn’t smell of anything as it cooked, and even once it was ready it had almost no scent at all. But it definitely tasted, and it was bad. My best description would be a serving of ramen noodles served in hot Milo. But even that hardly conveys the dreadful experience of tasting this one.
The reviews:
RS: Should never have been made.
KLS: Just because it can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.
JK: As soon as it touched my tongue it made me angry but the moment of swallowing was even worse!
DH: Just like Swiss Miss. (Swiss Miss is a brand of hot chocolate drink.)
Our collective review: 1 thumb up (out of 8)
And there you have it! If you see any of these at your local store, it’s probably best to turn and walk away 🙂