Robot Claw

Over the last several years I have reviewed an amazing 51 different chicken ramen products. But it’s now been almost a year since I found a new one to try, and not for lack of searching! I even kept my eyes open in Japan, but despite plain chicken ramen being one of the first flavours ever marketed, I couldn’t find a single example.

Since I enjoy the occasional ramen blog, and because of this chicken dearth, it’s time for a companion series! Today is the first entry in a probably very sporadic licensed ramen series. And we’ll start with this one:

This was a Japan pickup: a Batman themed ‘garlic shrimp’ flavoured instant ramen. It’s a big, beefy man-sized cup with beautiful graphics on the side and lid:

But the real treat comes when you open the lid, since it also contains bat-symbol narutomaki, a traditional ramen inclusion in Japan made from tiny dried fish cakes:

As you can see there’s no flavor sachets: it is impregnated into the noodles which seems common for Japanese instant ramen. There was a strong garlic smell as soon as I peeled back the lid, and this became much stronger when the water was added,:

The dried shrimp, veggies and narutomaki puffed up as they reconstituted and the soup looked quite tasty once it was prepared! Even though I was sure I’d hate this, it was time to give it a try:

The product contains 372 kCal of energy, 6.6g of salt and 12.7 grams of fat, all somewhat normal for a ramen. Despite the strong smell, I was surprised that the taste was quite mild, and I could barely taste garlic at all. It tasted unpleasantly seafoody, and the aftertaste was disagreeable. The noodles were extremely tough – almost plastic – and it’s likely I didn’t let it sit enough before eating. KLS tried it as well, and was as unimpressed as I.

Because of the lovely packaging this one is more ‘for the collection’ than for eating, and would look lovely on the shelf of a Batman collector. Even though the little Batman fish cakes were superb, my verdict is that as a meal this ramen was a dud.

Time for some more chicken ramen reviews. Who thought this series would get to 20 entries?!?

Nissin Ramen Noodle Artificial Chicken Flavour (490 Calories, 17 g fat, 2530 mg sodium)

First thing we notice is that this is a mega sodium bomb, with two or three times the sodium of the normal cup ramen. Second thing is the naruto inclusions (the white things with red spiral). Are these real dehydrated fish? Perhaps, but they didn’t taste like it.

Once prepared the ramen smelled strongly of garlic and had a very earthy/cavelike taste that was not to my liking despite the noodle texture being just right. KLS enjoyed it though, and ended up eating most of it. I think this is a quality product, albeit not for me. 5/10

FF IDWIDW Braised Chicken Instant Noodles (300 Calories, 12 g fat, 1680 mg sodium)

Presentation was nice with the big plastic cup, but this became a liability once prepared since it wasn’t insulated and was too hot to pick up. The ramen came with 3 flavor packets and a (somewhat useless) fork and looked appetizing once ready.

However it was spicy. Very spicy: easily the spiciest of any I have tried so far. It didn’t have any sort of chicken taste and for me was just painful (I took two bites) but KLS – once again – thought it was good and ate more than half. She only found it a ‘little bit’ spicy! Not chicken flavor, and not for me: 3/10

Gefen Instant Noodle Imitation Chicken Fat & Sodium Free (187 Calories, 0 g fat, 574 mg sodium)

The label doesn’t lie, and this is probably the ‘healthiest’ ramen I’ve yet covered. With no fat, very little sodium and less calories than a chocolate bar is this even food? And yet, it’s a product from Gefen, aka the gods of ramen, and I eat their normal chicken ramen multiple times a week. I couldn’t wait to try it…

Alas, this product was a major disappointment. As with a few other low-fat cup noodles I have reviewed, the noodles aren’t fried and are therefore different in texture. I don’t know what they’re made of but the change means they don’t actually cook in the cup, and after putting in boiling water and waiting for twice as long as I usually would the noodles were still rigid and connected to each other.

Secondly, it has no taste. In fact you can duplicate my experience at home by ‘eating’ hot water, because that’s basically what it tasted like. Is it worth it to sacrifice taste to save calories? I think not.

Sadly I have nothing good to say about this travesty of a product, and must conclude that Gefen not only makes the very best ramen on Earth, they also make one of the very worst: 0/10.

Look at this cool chicken ramen hand towel! This was another item in the treasure package AW sent me from Japan, and as you can see it was released in 2018 to celebrate 60 years of chicken ramen. Even the chickens love eating chicken-flavoured noodles!

It makes me want to go back to Japan to investigate the plain chicken ramen options available there these days…