Food – Robot Claw

Happy Easter!

April 5, 2026

It’s Easter time again, and for the first time in a few years we (Kristin, Jessica and myself) coloured eggs:

I got two kits: the normal one and a ‘tie dye’ variant. We tried the tie-dye set first.

These are the six colours included. They come in small pellets which are dissolved in vinegar, and in real life look a bit less vibrant than in this photo.

The system to tie dye the egg involved a special frame in which to hold the cloth-wrapped egg while dye was added drop at a time via a dropper. It was fiddly and not easy (for kids?) and difficult to cover the entire egg. We quickly modified the technique to use paper towels without the frame. This was somewhat successful, and our tie-dyed eggs looked like this:

I think they look good. The interesting pattern on a few of them is from the paper towel.

Next we did the normal dyeing kit, which just involves placing the egg into the dye (a pellet dissolved in water and vinegar). In previous years we’d used crayons to put patterns on the eggs but the kit didn’t come with one this time so we had to be creative.

I tried to make one holiday specific! Can you guess who the character in the bottom right is supposed to be?

As usual it was fun and the eggs looked good The bottom right is what one looked like with the shell removed. You can see some of the dye went through the shell, and the brown colour is because she had roasted the eggs.

Here’s my little Easter snack which I am enjoying as I write this. I hope you have a good Easter 🙂

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!?

Korean Fairy Floss

December 5, 2025

Jessica brought this back for me from Korea:

It’s a bag of ~~cotton candy~~ fairy floss that comes with ‘stickers’ so you can make a face.

Thats what was inside, and you can see that the stickers – printed on a thin piece of what feels like cake icing – broke a bit in transit.

I did my best, and the above shows the face I created. Does it look like anyone you know?

Bagged fairy floss is common in Japan, and now I assume Korea as well. It sounds strange but it’s quite delicious, although it’s more solid than the freshly made variety.

I’ve had fairy floss by this same manufacturer before. In fact I once ate so much I almost wrote a script for a Chinese snake movie. So without ceremony I didn’t hesitate to try it…

And it was awful. It had a terrible taste, like burned coffee (which I’ve never tasted) or rotten caramel (also never tasted) or even unripe persimmon (never will taste). And it wasn’t just me who thought this: not only did KLS also hate it, but when I texted the packaging to Jessica to ask what the flavour was she checked online and said the reviews for it were awful.

We never did find out what it was supposed to taste like 🙂