Archive for the ‘Ramen’ Category

Ramen 30: What Hath Man Wrought

Thursday, November 21st, 2024

A slight departure from chicken ramen this time, to venture in a nightmare world of food science gone wrong. Three new and limited flavours of ramen were released this past year, and it’s finally time to try them all…

Cup Noodles Everything Bagel

This is ramen noodles in a cream-cheese flavoured sauce with ‘everything bagel’ flavouring and poppy seeds for that extra bit of realism.

As soon as the hot water was added the stench of cream cheese filled the room. It was repellant to one such as myself, but my fellow ramen tasters seemed intrigued. I went first, and the taste was so off-putting I couldn’t even swallow my meagre portion. It tasted (to me) exactly like cream cheese, which is a taste I despise. This was no normal poor ramen: this was a new level of terror.

Four of us tasted this evil thing, and here are our comments:

RS: Absolutely inedible.
KLS: Smells better than it tastes.
JK: Really tastes like bagel and cream cheese!
DH: Not bad but I wouldn’t buy it.

Our collective review: 3 thumbs up (out of 8)

Cup Noodles Breakfast

This one had everything: sausage, eggs, pancakes and maple syrup. A full unhealthy breakfast then, in instant ramen form. It also contained real sausage, so vegetarian KLS sat this one out.

Much like the previous as soon as the water was added a strong smell filled the room – this time maple syrup. After letting it steep the requisite time the eggs and sausage pieces seem to have rehydrated well, but the taste of maple was so sweet and overwhelming it was difficult to interpret this as anything more that noodles in sweet hot water. I couldn’t taste eggs, sausage or pancakes at all. That said, I was able to swallow my bite 🙂

Our verdicts:

RS: Simply tastes overwhelmingly of maple.
KLS: (Sat this one out and silently judged)
JK: I wish it wasn’t so sweet.
DH: This one is good! (He ate several forkfuls)

Our collective review: 2.5 thumbs up (out of 6)

Cup Noodle S’mores

For the Antipodean readers, S’mores are a mysterious campfire snack made by melting marshmallows and chocolate onto a cracker. Naturally they’re a terrible idea for a ramen product, and after the sweet bomb of breakfast what could this be like?

Uncooked. the noodles were covered in brown powder we took to be chocolate, and as you can see tiny marshmallows were included. Unlike the others, this one didn’t smell of anything as it cooked, and even once it was ready it had almost no scent at all. But it definitely tasted, and it was bad. My best description would be a serving of ramen noodles served in hot Milo. But even that hardly conveys the dreadful experience of tasting this one.

The reviews:

RS: Should never have been made.
KLS: Just because it can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.
JK: As soon as it touched my tongue it made me angry but the moment of swallowing was even worse!
DH: Just like Swiss Miss. (Swiss Miss is a brand of hot chocolate drink.)

Our collective review: 1 thumb up (out of 8)

And there you have it! If you see any of these at your local store, it’s probably best to turn and walk away 🙂

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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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