Category: Food

Ramen 16: Great Southern Chicken

  • May 30, 2022

A new hemisphere has revealed new chicken ramen, just waiting for my review. With no further delay…

Fantastic Chicken Noodles (1449 kJ, 18.6 g fat, 1090 mg sodium)

It takes bravery to name a product ‘fantastic’, and is this case it’s absolutely misplaced. The inclusion of desiccated peas and weirdly green spices gave me pause, but the strangely root-like noodles were the biggest deterrent.

I was hungry when I prepared it, and dove right in, but this product tasted of weeds and dank places. The noodles were the worst culprit, with a spongy cellulose texture and the taste of wood pulp. This was a shockingly bad ramen noodle, and I’d fly to the other side of the world to never have to eat one again. I’ll score it -8/10

Maggi Chicken Noodles (1290 kJ, 10.2 g fat, 1515 mg sodium)

I read this is Australia’s best-selling noodle product (not just chicken noodle, but overall) and I’ve reviewed the brick version here over a year ago. The cup contained fewer than the usual amount of noodles, and the veggie pack was only finely diced carrots!

As with the brick version this was… only ok. I’ve eaten forty-something chicken noodle products now and this would be squarely in the middle: enough to keep you alive but nothing to look forward to. I used to love this flavor as a kid, but now obviously my tastes have matured: 5/10.

Choice Chicken Noodle Soup (1350 kJ, 13.7 g fat, 1150 mg sodium)

This is (I believe) the Woolworths store brand and the least expensive ($0.75) of those tested here. It looks like Fantastic spices combined with Maggi noodles and I wasn’t expecting much.

To my surprise this was pretty good! The noodles were better than most, and the spice taste was slightly peppery and more chickeny than the two above. The more I ate the more I liked it, and if I were to eat more ramen here in Oz this – so far – would top my list. A solid 7/10.

So far, I’ve found nothing too special or unusual on the shelves here. But there’s more to come, so maybe the next post will reveal a surprise or two?

  • Posted in Australia
  • Robert

Review: Cowboy Angus

  • May 29, 2022

This time I went to Hungry Jacks (the Australian version of Burger King) and once again ordered something I’d never usually consider: the Cowboy Angus.

As you can see I got the meal, and it may be a little difficult to see in the above shot but the box the burger was served in was massive. You could have easily fit a couple of Big Macs in there. I was terrified since I eat like a bird these days.

Here’s the marketing shot compared to what I got:

At first glance – and indeed at second – the bacon and onion rings seem absent. Perhaps they’re hiding inside:

So they were, albeit hardly as impressively abundant as the marketing suggests. You will also note the absence of any sauce, since I ‘had it my way’ and ordered the burger without mayonnaise, mustard or ‘sweet sauce’. I’m am not one to spoil perfectly dry food with evil sauces!

The first bite was ok and the second better. I had prepared for the worst after the debacle that was the macca’s burger, but about a third of the way in I realized this was fantastic!

This might be an ugly burger – and obviously it’s much too big – but the taste was quite wonderful. Each bite was an explosion of meaty goodness, with a hint of crispy onion and acceptable cheese. As much as I tried (did I say it was way too big) I couldn’t stop eating it and before I knew it had finished it all!

Of course I’ll never eat one again, but I have to say that overall this Grill Masters Cowboy Angus was delicious and worth the money Bernard is paying me to eat it! But I think that’s enough burgers for now… I think it’s time to try some chicken!

Review: BBQ Bacon Angus

  • May 25, 2022

I had a discussion with Sue the other day about art, and she stated that anything is art. Therefore let me create a piece of ‘food review art’ and tell you about my dinner the other night, a BBQ Bacon Angus burger!

This is an Australian McDonald’s menu item. Ordering this was an extremely brave and unusual step for me, since as most of you know I always just order the same thing (which at maccas would be a Big Mac meal). But I’m working as Bernard’s proxy here as a taster of new things, and I reckon this was one item he needed to hear about.

Here’s what the marketing photo looked like, compared to the one I got:

It’s a somewhat close approximation, although the cheese on mine wasn’t fully melted and the bacon was invisible from the outside. Peeping under the lid wasn’t promising:

Where’s the bacon?!? (Hidden in the back at the left if you look closely.) It didn’t look very appetizing but I was very hungry and it was time to see how this guy tasted…

At first things seemed promising: the bbq sauce was sweet and the meat tasted like a steak patty on a 1980s-era steak sandwich. But then I hit the cheese which gave me pause (it was a little rubbery) and then the ham bacon which stopped me dead (it was barely cooked and 50% fat).

I was about halfway through when the true horror of this Trojan burger revealed itself. But first let’s take a detailed second look at the official marketing photo:

Look at that white stuff at the bottom. What is it?!? Mayonnaise? Some evil sauce? I don’t know, but what I do know is it tasted awful.

Since my burger wasn’t symmetric, it wasn’t until I was at least halfway through that I hit a large deposit of this white stuff, and tasting it was like a punch to my face. I was immediately full of revulsion (had I eaten some already?) and regret (why didn’t I get a Big Mac?) and I’m sure I set some sort of speed record stuffing the remaining half of the burger into a bag and hurling it into the nearest trash can.

I’ll never eat one of these again, and truthfully wish I’d never had one in the first place. On a scale of 1 to 10, this gets about a -5.