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Ramen 28: Froggy Style

Wednesday, August 14th, 2024

There’s a lot to be said about our current hotel but it can wait until tomorrow since now is surely the best time for five new chicken ramen reviews. This time I’ll feature Canadian products, purchased this very day in a supermarket we encountered en route.

Chicken Flavour Kimchi Ramen (380 Calories, 16g fat, 1030 mg sodium)

Because the packaging of this large bowl ramen didn’t specifically state it, I foolishly didn’t realize this would be spicy when I purchased it. The brilliant red powder smelled stronger than it looked, and is it any surprised that the taste – like burned tomato – was so repellent to my refined palate that it almost made me gag. A loathsome product, and deserving of a 0/10 grade.

Mr Noodles Chicken Ramen Bowl (510 Calories, 22g fat, 2160 mg sodium)

This is one of the largest instant noodle products I’ve ever seen, and the nutritional value is equally ‘impressive’ (98% of your daily sodium in this one product). It seemed average before cooked, and the dehydrated veggies actually looked good. But then I prepared and tasted it, and was disappointed to learn it’s another in a long line of so-called chicken flavoured products that tastes more like cut grass. The noodles looked almost beautiful as they flushed down the loo, but it still earned a score of 0/10.

Mr Noodles Chicken Ramen (310 Calories, 13g fat, 1250 mg sodium)

This is the small cup version of the above, and while common sense may suggest it would be identical there have been cases in the past when small and large bowls by the same company have been different. Not this time: it’s another ‘cut grass’ ramen and it took much longer to prepare it than it took to flush it. An easy 0/10.

Mr Noodles Chicken Ramen (190 Calories, 7g fat, 600 mg sodium)

Next came the brick version of the same product. As someone who has now sampled 75 (!) chicken ramen products I will say that bricks are often better than cups, but my absolute favourites are still cups. This brick…? Down the loo it went, and more for absolute lack of any taste than because I found it objectionable. Don’t bother with this 0/10 product.

Selection Chicken Flavoured Instant Noodles (310 Calories, 14g fat, 810 mg sodium)

And thus we arrive at the last, and to answer your question yes, all five of these were tasted just now in our hotel room. The previous four were so awful I rested all my hopes on this one, if only because I was hungry. The veggies looked good and the noodles were denser and more promising than the weedy ones I’d already tasted. As I raised the fork to my mouth my mind reflected on the fact that the toilet had eaten more ramen than me this day. Seconds later, as I flushed this store brand product to God knows where, I sighed and recorded in the mysterious ledger of ramen scores the fifth 0/10 of this fated evening.

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Ramen 27: March Of The Black Chicken

Tuesday, August 6th, 2024

When I was a tiny lad, I once asked my father why I had been placed on this Earth. I remember his response as if he just spoken it: “Son, each man must forge their own path in life, but I believe that your destiny will include reviewing at least 70 chicken ramen products on your blog.”

Dad, this post is for you.

Dosirac Artificial Chicken Instant Noodle (370 Calories, 15g fat, 1550 mg sodium)

Rectangular bowls for these products are rare, so this caught my eye when I saw it for sale in NYC the other week. Before preparation it was unremarkable, but when I opened the seasoning bag and saw bright orange powder inside my ‘spicy’ alarms went off.

It prepared easily and the noodles cooked well, although I was a bit dubious of the weird chunks that floated up from underneath the noodle brick. The smell was ok so I steeled myself and tasted what I assumed would burn my mouth like fire. I was wrong: it wasn’t spicy at all. Instead it just tasted absolutely awful, like alien vegetables broiled in salt water. In fact, it was one of the worst instant ramen products I’ve ever tried, and was so bad I almost gagged. It triggered me!

An instant and unequivocal 0/10, or even -100/10 if I returned to my outlandish grading schemes of four years hence.

Maruchan Wonton Ramen Chicken (480 Calories, 24g fat, 2040 mg sodium)

I bought this curiosity some time ago and it seems to have disappeared from the shelves so I wonder if it already failed? It’s from Maruchan – no stranger to grocery aisles or indeed this blog series – and comes in a massive coconut-sized bowl. It’s a chicken ramen with wontons!

Firstly let’s address the madness that this product claims to contain three servings. Do they assume this will actually be shared? Is this a family dinner? Foolishness! But for one person it contains a stupendous amount of fat and sodium. Why isn’t it half the size with fewer wontons?

It prepared identically to any other ramen (aside from needing about twice the water) and tastes more or less like any other Maruchan chicken ramen, which isn’t a bad thing at all. But the wontons are a failure: they’re flaccid and tasteless and in my opinion offered very little. Just for taste I’ll give it 7/10, but it’s far too big and a normal Maruchan chicken ramen is a better buy.

Nissin ‘Zero-Second’ Chicken Ramen (362 Calories, 7.1g fat, 362 mg sodium)

And this we arrive at the 70th chicken ramen product reviewed (there have been other ramens in the companion series), and intriguingly this is a slight departure in that it requires no water!

The origin of this product is apparently an internet meme from several years ago where people in Japan started eating instant ramen without cooking it. Nissin – creators of ramen and still market leaders – took inspiration and released this version of their popular chicken ramen that is supposed to be eaten as a dry snack. It even says on the packaging that you should not add water. Apparently this is a salty snack that goes well with beer.

To me… this was a dud. It tastes as you’d expect: uncooked ramen noodles with a slight salty taste, and both the texture and taste I found disagreeable. I nibbled a few chunks to see if it got better and it didn’t. Into the trash then, for this 2/10 product.

Seventy reviews of chicken ramen?!? Could there possibly be more out there I have yet to try? In the world of instant chicken ramen, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected 🙂

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Ramen 26: Finally, From Japan!

Saturday, June 8th, 2024

Despite ardent searching, I had never previously found a plain chicken instant ramen during a Japan trip. This time, I did! Let’s add it to the review series:

This is not just any chicken ramen, this is the chicken ramen; the very first ever ramen made by Nissin. It also has some sort of omelet inclusion, but we can ignore that for the purposes of blog review eligibility 🙂

As with most ramen made for the Japanese market, the flavour is already infused into the noodles. Similar products I’ve tried in the past have been a bit too intense for me, but I kept an open mind if only because I didn’t have anything else for breakfast this morning.

Incidentally this product contains Calories, 9.6 g of fat and an incredible surely-the-translator-has-made-a-mistake 5300 mg of salt!

After a struggle with a slightly mysterious kettle, hot water was secured and the product was prepared. The omelette (?) brick melted instantly when water was poured on it, released the egg and veggies into the soup. The noodles cooked well. It was time to eat!

It was good! In fact it was quite good! It didn’t taste much like what I think chicken ramen should, but the taste wasn’t at all disagreeable (unlike the ‘grass’ taste many bad chicken ramens have) and I didn’t even mind the weird egg bits floating around. Using my undisputed chopstick mastery, I ate it all.

I liked this enough that if I lived here I would happily eat it again. It’s definitely not up to the hallowed heights of Gefen, but it’s easily a solid 8 out of 10.

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Pineapple Fritting

Friday, May 31st, 2024

Pineapple fritters are battered and fried pineapple rings. I’ve had a few this trip, and here’s a comparison.

The first came from Red Rooster, a chicken chain that competes with KFC. I hadn’t eaten a pineapple fritter in decades and had a mental image of what they would be like: juicy sweet pineapple in a light batter. So when this one was breaded that was a surprise. It was $3.

The taste was an even bigger surprise: it didn’t taste like pineapple! The pineapple ring itself was weirdly tasteless, and the batter had a strange donut/sweet taste to it. It wasn’t entirely terrible, but it also wasn’t particularly good, and I’d say had I eaten it blindfolded I wouldn’t have even known it was pineapple. I’d never eat one like this again 🙂

The second came from a kebab shop on Maitland Road (Charcoal Chicken) and when we ordered and she asked if we wanted sugar I remembered these are supposed to be a dessert item. As you can see it doesn’t look much like a pineapple ring as much as a large potato scallop, and the sugar was fine like baking sugar. This one was also $3.

This one was absolutely heavenly. A juicy, sweet and delicious pair of thinly sliced pineapple rings covered by a light batter. Every bite was wonderful and the sugar only heightened the sweetness. I would have happily eaten more than one 🙂

The third and last one I ate this trip was from a fish and chip shop in Cooranbong. It resembles the previous but the sugar this time was cinnamon sugar. It was the cheapest at $2.50.

This one wasn’t quite as good as the previous, but still many times better than the first. The batter was nice and light and the cinnamon sugar sweet, but the pineapple itself – the very soul of the fritter – was lacking in taste. It was a thin slice compared to two in the previous and perhaps this was the problem? I’d eat this one again, but wish I was eating the precious example.

So the question arises. At about $3 a pop, with the taste on average being only ok, should a pineapple fritter be your first choice for a hot fruit dessert snack?

Do I even need to answer? 🙂

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Ramen 25: It’s Always Cold Inside The Chicken House

Tuesday, May 28th, 2024

You didn’t even dare to believe it possible, but I found some more Antipodean chicken ramen! It’s time to review them:

Mama Ramen Chicken Flavor (1278 kJ, 11.3 g fat, 1350 mg sodium)

I reviewed the brick version of this product many installments ago and my hopes about this cup version weren’t high. Therefore I wasn’t even slightly surprised with the rotting stench that rose as soon as I poured the water in, or the cardboard texture of the noodles in my first bite, or the sickly aftertaste redolent of waste. This was a repulsive product, hardly even worth pouring into a storm drain. Without hesitation it gets a strong 0 out of 10.

Lian Pho Ga Chicken (870 kJ, 2.2 g fat, 410 mg sodium)

I call this ‘fo’ but Sue says it’s called ‘fe’, but there’s probably a few other one-syllable words it could be called. I struggle to see the appeal of these type of soup since I find the noodle texture unappealing and every single chicken version I have tried tasted of cut grass. This one was no exception, and was in fact so extraordinarily awful I took pleasure in disposing of it. Another indisputable 0 out of 10.

Only two today, but given how many different ones I have now tasted every new version is special! That said, you’ll want to skip both of these 🙂

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