You know the drill by now: more chicken ramen. Let’s go!
Maruchan Roast Chicken (290 Calories, 12 g fat, 1270 mg sodium)
This is a slight deviation from my rules, since we could debate whether ‘roast chicken’ is ‘chicken’, but I’m allowing it nonetheless. This product is extremely similar to the plain ‘chicken’ flavor of Maruchan cup noodle (reviewed in my second installment), which is to say it’s acceptably fine.
The only difference I could note was the inclusion of weird rubbery pieces of what I assume was reconstituted chicken loaf, which in my opinion added nothing and were actually somewhat unpleasant. Aside from this, nothing particularly outstanding here. I’d give it 6/10.
Mike’s Mighty Good Craft Ramen (210 Calories, 6 g fat, 780 mg sodium)
This is another hipster product from Whole Foods, only this time its not vegan. Even before opening it had similarities to the awfulness of McDougalls and as soon as I did open the top and saw the weird bundle of not-ramen and identical flavor packets I knew it was the same product in different packaging.
Or was it??? I followed the instructions exactly as I had done before but the noodles actually cooked correctly this time! So I added the flavor, stirred it up and shoved a loaded forkful into my mouth to find it was absolutely disgusting! The noodle consistency was of uncooked bread dough and the taste was like rotten flesh.
I hastily spat it out, cursing like a sailor, and vowed that if I ever ran into ‘Mike’ he would wish he was Dr McDougall after the punishment I would deliver to him. It’s hard to believe a chicken ramen could be worse than this: -100/10
Chef Woo’s Chicken Ramen Express (280 Calories, 12 g fat, 1160 mg sodium)
This just turned up in our local stores and I bought it eagerly since of course I had to review it. It seems to be a premium product due to its fabulously expensive (compared to most of the others I have reviewed) price of $2.28 a cup! So what’s it like?
In a word: it’s nothing. The noodles are fine, they cook perfectly well if you follow the instructions and the included veggies hydrate acceptably. But there is no taste at all! It’s like eating noodles and (a few) veggies in hot water. It (probably) gives sustenance, but no satisfaction.
I was actually wondering if there had been a manufacturing error, but KLS was eating a spicy version by the same manufacturer and said it was equally flavorless. It’s a nothing ramen therefore, with no reason to eat it. Only because it actually cooks as it should will I give it 2/10.
Believe it or not this won’t be the final error! I’ve still got at least a few more in the cupboards waiting to be tried and as always you’ll read about my thoughts when I get around to it 🙂