Category: Food

Ramen 21: Let’s March Onwards Together

April 2, 2023

Just when you thought this series had ended, I found three more instant chicken meals! Let’s now review the 52nd, 53rd and 54th chicken ramen in this series…

Saigon Pho Artificial Chicken (290 Calories, 9 g fat, 1570 mg sodium)

I’m stretching the definition again here, to once again include a pho soup. I’ve not liked these in the past and was apprehensive, and once I added the water and the kitchen began to smell strongly of cut grass I knew my fears had come true.

As with similar products I have tried in the past, the noodles were slimy and the broth was bitter and very oily. Absolutely not my kind of instant soup, and I suspect not yours either: 2/10

Cup Noodles Artificial Chicken (310 Calories, 11 g fat, 1360 mg sodium)

This seems to be a Japanese product although it’s labeled as being made in Hong Kong. Cup Noodles is of course the inventor of instant ramen and we visited their museum back in January, but strangely I was unable to find a chicken flavour in Japan (this one came from a local Asian grocer). I’ve reviewed the USA version already and liked it a lot, so how does this one compare?

Firstly, this was a seriously strong seal on the lid! Having opened 50+ different products this was easily the strongest seal and I almost debated cutting it open. Once I had opened it the presentation was lovely, with a lot of veggies and meat chunks on top of the noodles. Adding the water released a delightful smell and I couldn’t wait to tuck in. I ended up eating the entire thing, and my verdict is similar to the USA version: this is amongst the very best chicken ramens I have tried, and were it not for my beloved Gefen brand I daresay I’d make this my go-to product: 8/10

Sapporo Ichiban ‘Tokyo Classic’ Momosan Ramen (370 Calories, 9 g fat, 1960 mg sodium)

Amazingly I even found a new type of brick ramen, and this was an unusual kind that even came with a liquid flavour packet! I followed the instructions to the letter (which included adding water separately to the flavour and the the noodles afterwards) and once prepared it was an attractive soup with a thick broth.

Tastewise… to me this isn’t chicken. It had a strong earthy taste, like dissolved beef stock, which I imagine is supposed to be roast chicken but that I just found a bit repellant. The noodles were good though. Kristin liked it more than me and ate about half. I’ll give the average of our scores then: 5.5/10.

And there we have it. I’ve actually got a few more ‘ramen adjacent’ items I intend to show off, as well as (maybe) the next installment in my ‘universes beyond’ ramen series. But they can wait for another day 🙂

Ramen Universes Beyond: Batman

February 19, 2023

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.

Chocolate House

December 4, 2022

Kristin made this yesterday:

It’s not a gingerbread house, it’s a holiday chocolate cookie! But is this really a ‘cookie’?

Here’s what was in the box:

Immediately it was clear the quality of this product was leagues beyond the usual ‘make-your-own-gingerbread-house’, which was to be expected considering it cost several times as much!

The first step was to cement the pieces together using the icing. As you can see they all fit more or less seamlessly and it’s well supported by the base.

The icing is the longest step. It took her maybe 30 minutes to complete it. Since the icing is meant to be snow, it hardly matters – in fact looks better – if you go outside the lines a bit!

Then it’s time to decorate. In addition to the pieces enclosed she put a few gumballs on top of the chimney. Don’t the little golden pearls look good?

And here is the completed cookie! Doesn’t it look great?

We’re going to try to keep it around Christmas. Will it still be edible then? Will it even last that long? I guess we’ll find out! 🙂

Robot Claw