Robot Claw – Page 146 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Ramen 20: Chicken Ramen Fes!

October 4, 2022

Time for some more chicken ramen reviews. Who thought this series would get to 20 entries?!?

Nissin Ramen Noodle Artificial Chicken Flavour (490 Calories, 17 g fat, 2530 mg sodium)

First thing we notice is that this is a mega sodium bomb, with two or three times the sodium of the normal cup ramen. Second thing is the naruto inclusions (the white things with red spiral). Are these real dehydrated fish? Perhaps, but they didn’t taste like it.

Once prepared the ramen smelled strongly of garlic and had a very earthy/cavelike taste that was not to my liking despite the noodle texture being just right. KLS enjoyed it though, and ended up eating most of it. I think this is a quality product, albeit not for me. 5/10

FF IDWIDW Braised Chicken Instant Noodles (300 Calories, 12 g fat, 1680 mg sodium)

Presentation was nice with the big plastic cup, but this became a liability once prepared since it wasn’t insulated and was too hot to pick up. The ramen came with 3 flavor packets and a (somewhat useless) fork and looked appetizing once ready.

However it was spicy. Very spicy: easily the spiciest of any I have tried so far. It didn’t have any sort of chicken taste and for me was just painful (I took two bites) but KLS – once again – thought it was good and ate more than half. She only found it a ‘little bit’ spicy! Not chicken flavor, and not for me: 3/10

Gefen Instant Noodle Imitation Chicken Fat & Sodium Free (187 Calories, 0 g fat, 574 mg sodium)

The label doesn’t lie, and this is probably the ‘healthiest’ ramen I’ve yet covered. With no fat, very little sodium and less calories than a chocolate bar is this even food? And yet, it’s a product from Gefen, aka the gods of ramen, and I eat their normal chicken ramen multiple times a week. I couldn’t wait to try it…

Alas, this product was a major disappointment. As with a few other low-fat cup noodles I have reviewed, the noodles aren’t fried and are therefore different in texture. I don’t know what they’re made of but the change means they don’t actually cook in the cup, and after putting in boiling water and waiting for twice as long as I usually would the noodles were still rigid and connected to each other.

Secondly, it has no taste. In fact you can duplicate my experience at home by ‘eating’ hot water, because that’s basically what it tasted like. Is it worth it to sacrifice taste to save calories? I think not.

Sadly I have nothing good to say about this travesty of a product, and must conclude that Gefen not only makes the very best ramen on Earth, they also make one of the very worst: 0/10.

Look at this cool chicken ramen hand towel! This was another item in the treasure package AW sent me from Japan, and as you can see it was released in 2018 to celebrate 60 years of chicken ramen. Even the chickens love eating chicken-flavoured noodles!

It makes me want to go back to Japan to investigate the plain chicken ramen options available there these days…

The Box Of Treasures

September 25, 2022

This came in the mail the other day:

It’s a box from Adam’s sister (let’s call her AC) in Japan! It’s a large box and had been traveling for almost 3.5 months! It was sent surface mail which could be the topic of a blog post in and of itself (but I shall save for another time).

The box was a big surprise, and I couldn’t wait to open it. But never in my wildest imagination did I expect the contents:

Look at this pristine condition burger box from McDonald’s! Back in April Macca’s Japan had a Shin Ultraman collaboration which featured the return of two chicken burgers which would be sold in Ultraman boxes. AC sent me two of these boxes! Aren’t they beautiful 🙂

But it didn’t stop there! Inside the box was also three of the special Ultraman branded plastic cups, also from McDonald’s. These are even prettier than the burger box and have immediately become the stars of my ‘Ultraman fast food packaging’ sub-collection!

I don’t know any details behind the acquisition of these items – AC included limited commentary in the box – so I assume she went to McDonald’s herself and purchased a Shin Chicken Tatsuya burger with accompanying McFizz Aomori Fuji Apple beverage. And yet the burger boxes are absolutely spotless and look unused… did she have a black market connection? However she obtained these, I appreciate it.

If you’re not aware, these items are in collaboration with the brand new Shin Ultraman film that opened in Japan in May. I want to see this film more than any film that ever existed but it hasn’t yet been released outside of Japan so I continue to wait. I’m guessing Amber saw the movie, since the box also contained this extraordinary item:

I believe this is a cup purchased from a Japanese cinema! The side of the cup features the movie logo, and underneath it says ‘fantasy special effects film’ just in case you’re one of the handful of Japanese movie-goers that hasn’t heard of Ultraman! The cup is large and the Ultraman on top – in his Spacium Beam pose – is large and dynamic. This is an amazing item that will proudly be displayed on my shelf for ever!

And this wasn’t everything in the box. There were a few other Ultraman items, an extraordinary hand towel (that you’ll see in a future post), a clear file (how did AC know I was planning an upcoming clear file post?!?) and two more incredible Gotochi postcards including this one:

I need to go back to Japan so I can send some of these special postcards myself…

Thanks AC; this box was like Christmas coming early 🙂

The Bonkers Picross Book

September 20, 2022

I bought this last time I was in NYC:

KLS and I both enjoy Picross puzzles, and even without opening it I knew I’d be buying it. Here’s what the cover says:

Summer 2022 Anime Feature?!? Fun, beautiful and easy to draw? Dream co-star feature?!? Sheep with presents??!?

This was my sort of book!

Picross is the puzzle where you fill in squares in a grid to make a picture according to the numbers along the edges of the rows and columns. If it says 4 that means 4 connected squares. 4 2 would mean an unconnected blocks of 4 and 2 along that line (or column). It’s fun 🙂

The book is loaded with puzzles – over a hundred – and they get difficult almost immediately. The above photo are all the ‘easy’ ones they have, and after these you dive right into this sort of madness:

The difficulty difference between the eggplant and whatever the above is is tremendous, and it would take a great deal of time to solve.

But this book has incentives for beating the puzzles! When you finish one you can answer the question next to it (which seems to usually be ‘identify this character’) and submit your answer to win a prize, some of which are very nice:

As befits an anime themed puzzle book, many of the prizes are for anime/game fans as well. Alas the submission for entry was September 19 (yesterday!) so it seems I’ll miss out.

If you’re some sort of Picross god and have no trouble with that 45 x 50 shown above, this book has you covered, since it even has several large fold-out puzzles including this lunacy:

That’s 60 x 200, or 120 times larger than the goat I did above. This would be a monumental achievement to complete. I wonder how long it will take me?

And if you’re just masochistic, the book even includes some (harder) colored picrosses, including this fold-out one:

Yes, it is as difficult as it looks.

Oh and if you’re wondering what these look like when finished, the book also includes the full solutions to the previous issue, which it seems was anime-themed as well:

Since I’ve done the easy 10 x 10 puzzles I’m moving on to a bigger challenge: a 45 x 50 one featuring characters from the Bastard!!! anime:

I’ll follow up if I ever manage to complete it 🙂