The long-awaited day has arrived: I found more chicken ramen! A lot more in fact, so the series will now resume. Let’s go…
Tradition Noodles Soup Chicken Flavor (290 Calories, 6 g fat, 960 mg sodium)
This is a kosher product which has artificial taste. My hopes were high since the king of all chicken ramen (Gefen) is similar, but when I opened the cup I was surprised to see no flavor packet. It was just noodles, with perhaps the slightest trace of flavoring dried onto them.
I followed the instructions and it cooked well, but there was just no taste. It was just hot water with flavorless noodles in it. The definition of empty calories. Was mine a defect? Who knows, but I didn’t eat it and based on what I did try this is an easy 0/10.
Tradition Ramen Noodle Soup Chicken Flavor (360 Calories, 16 g fat, 1540 mg sodium)
Let’s try the brick version of the same product. Compared to other bricks this seemed to have a lot of calories/fat/sodium so the taste potential was high. Given the seeming absence of flavor in the cup I was surprised by the size of the flavor pack in this, which was about twice as big as in other bricks.
They noodles cooked well and everything seemed good until I opened and added the flavor. It smelled absolutely awful. Our entire kitchen was filled with a vile smell like rotting vegetables and it took quite a bit of fortitude for me to actually try the finished product.
Surprise surprise, it was dire. It tasted as bad as it smelled: more like dirt than chicken. It’s hard to understand how this is even marketed as a chicken product, or who would enjoy this. One bite was more than enough for me! Since it was worse than the cup I have to give -5/10
Gefen Noodle Soup Hearty Chicken Flavor (300 Calories, 13 g fat, 1200 mg sodium)
I have more products by Tradition, but after the two above they will have to wait. It was time to try the alternate flavor of Gefen that recently appeared in stores.
‘Hearty chicken’ it says, but the nutritional info is identical to their plain chicken flavor, and aside from the nifty purple packaging everything about it looks the same, including the contents.
I eagerly cooked it, waiting to see how hearty it was compared to the other. I even used the included fork for the full experience! One taste was all I needed: this is exactly the same as the ‘normal’ chicken Gefen cup!
But that’s hardly a critique, since a Gefen chicken cup is the King of Ramen. This therefore is the king in another gown, just as regal, and just as delicious. Without a doubt, this is another 10/10!
Next installment you can look forward to some more unusual (but still plain chicken) products, as this taster ventures into culinary areas he may have never visited before. Stay tuned…
