Robot Claw

Ramen 24: It’s Ramen Men, Hallelujah!

February 25th, 2024

We’re entering the fourth year of chicken ramen reviews, and I think it’s been about 60 unique products now. And yet I keep finding more. With no further ado then…

Kung Fu Artificial Chicken (350 Calories, 16 g fat, 1510 mg sodium)

I believe his is the first actual racist product I’ve reviewed, what with not only the ‘king fu’ name but also the claim it’s an ‘oriental’ product. But I believe this isn’t made for a western market, so it may be entirely innocent.

The ramen itself was abhorrent. The noodles were slimy and gelatinous, and while the taste was probably going for ‘roasted chicken’ it instead tasted sickly sweet and absolutely not what you want in a ramen. This was a terrible noodle product, and an easy -1/10.

Paldo Bowl Noodle Artificial Chicken (370 Calories, 13 g fat, 1547 mg sodium)

This may be the first Korean example seen on these pages. While they are big ramen-eaters, every other Korean chicken ramen I’ve seen is spicy, and I’m only reviewing the plain ones. This looked good until I opened the spice packet, which instantly made me suspect they had simply omitted the word ‘spicy’ on the packaging.

And yes, that was indeed the case! This was – for me – far too spicy and I found even a tiny sip unbearable. It also tasted nothing like chicken and more like (hot!) nacho cheese Doritos! KLS liked it, and said she’d have eaten it all were she hungry. I’ll say it’s probably a good spicy chicken ramen product, but I won’t score it since it’s not plain chicken 🙂

Ramen Express Chicken Ramen (190 Calories, 7 g fat, 670 mg sodium)

I tested the cup version of this back in the fourth installment and gave it a very low grade due to an extreme lack of taste. Surprise, surprise: this brick version is identical! While it has a generous flavour packet, once prepared there’s almost no flavour at all, and it’s just like eating boiled noodles. I’m puzzled as to why this product is sold this way, or who would choose it over virtually any other chicken ramen. Suffice to say it’s dreadful, and like it’s cup brother only worth 2/10.

I’ve learned to never say never again with regards to this series, but it’s been several months since the last installment. How many months until the next?

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Sweat & Tears

February 20th, 2024

It’s been three months since the last post about salt and vinegar chips, and we’ve managed to scrounge up several more examples for review. Some of these deviate a bit from the definition of ‘chip’, but we made an exception since they’re in the same snack category 🙂

As a reminder the review systems is based on gatcha game rarity: Z is execrable, C is mundane, R acceptable, SR exceptional and SSR once-in-lifetime good! Although you won’t see some of these ratings today…

The optimistically-named Good Crisp chips are from Australia (and made in Malaysia to be sold in the USA) and are without a doubt the worst salt and vinegar ‘chip’ so far. They have a texture like cork or wood pulp, virtually no taste at all, and leave a chalky residue in the mouth after eating. They’re unforgivably bad and even the lowest possible grade of Z feels generous.

Like the previous, the Pop Chips are also ‘potato based snacks’ as opposed to traditional chips, but to eat then you’d hardly be able to tell. They taste like burned popcorn to me, and are weirdly rubbery when eaten. My notes when I ate them said ‘hateful and borderline inedible‘ and even KLS hated them, although it’s worth mentioning she thought they may have been miscooked! A shameful Z.

The Himalayan Chips are the store brand of grocery store Wegmans and we were expecting more than we got. They had a good sweet flavor, but the chips themselves tasted a bit stale and greasy and the aftertaste was unpleasant. I’ve had good Wegmans chips in the past, but these were disappointing. Only a C.

Pringles are the ubiquitous ‘shaped chip’ product, and I was expecting this to be great since I recall buying them in the past. But they had a dusty texture and the salt and vinegar tasted of chemicals and after only a few I didn’t want to eat any more. At best an acceptable substitute if you had a craving, but on the low end of a C.

Stax is the Lays version of Pringles, and as you may imagine from a market leader they’re fairly good especially where taste is concerned. The vinegar isn’t too strong and delightfully sweet and they’re easy to eat quickly. But they’re still ‘fake’ chips, and not even as good as an average normal chip, and far below a decent kettle chip. Once again debatably acceptable, but not better than a C.

The Sweet Potato Poppers were purchased for an exorbitant cost as a ‘health store’ and I was leery since they’re sweet potato! To my surprise they’re quite good, and to my taste buds indistinguishable from ‘real’ potatoes. Of course they’re not chips at all, and instead are an unusual type of weird spherical snack made of fried potato, but they were tasty and moorish and better than most. A solid R.

The Poppables are similar to the above and although a newish product, are likely what the above are based on. And to put it simply, they’re fantastic. They have the usual delightful Lays taste, are dangerously easy to consume in large quantities, and are probably the best example of a chip variant in this flavour. But they’re still not a ‘real’ chip, so I’ll only give them an R.

The Better Made chips were bought in an airport on the way to Japan, and at the time I was starving since I hadn’t eaten for many hours. As a result I probably remember them as better than they were, but as I sat in a plane eating them I wrote in my notes that they were ‘a very acceptable non-kettle‘ with a ‘wake me up taste‘ and a ‘hint of yesterday‘. I’m not sure entirely what that means, but I’ll assume I was in my right mind when I gave them an R!

With 8 more examples we’ve now tasted 35 different types of salt and vinegar chips (although I wish I had a time machine and could dedicate this series to Star Wars only examples). While these past few months didn’t provide us with anything truly great, we’re not giving up yet. But there’s nothing new remaining in nearby shops and maybe I need to venture farther afield if I want to ever make another entry in this series…

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Postcards From Japan

February 18th, 2024

So far we have received 37 postcards from our recent Japan trip, all of which I sent myself. Here they all are:

The panda one was purchased at Ueno zoo the day we went and saw the pandas. The Godzilla one is metallic and plastic. I have a few more like this waiting to be sent one day 🙂

The top right one is a lenticular postcard of an underwater scene. It’s the only lenticular we’ve received so far, and arrived about 6 weeks after it was sent. There’s at least one other lenticular card I sent us that hasn’t yet arrived, but it’s been about two months now and I’ve somewhat given up hope.

The left one was purchased in the gift shop of Hiroshima castle (which it depicts). The horse one was purchased less than two hours after we had arrived in Japan, and may be my favourite card of the trip (even though it has nothing to do with Japan). It effectively shows how I usually feel at the end of every day on a vacation!

The postcard showing ‘Alice’ is a mystery: I found it amongst some unsent postcards a few months ago and had no recollection or ever buying (or even seeing) it before. Naturally I took it with me so it could fulfill its destiny to be mailed! The Diavolo postcard depicts an Ultraman villian, and is an impressively metallic and textured card.

The cat one was mailed on Christmas Day!

The card at left was found amongst some old items when I was doing some spring cleaning a year or so ago. It’s about 30 years old and (I think) came in a magazine. I wonder if any Japanese postal employees looked and it and wondered where it came from?

The Buddha card was purchased in Kamakura in 2013 (when we visited with Bernard), and had been ‘gathering power’ – unsent – in my collection for over a decade. Now that power has been released into the world!

The Hermione (from Harry Potter) card is a beautiful high-quality all-plastic postcard and I doubted it would actually arrive. I may have purchased a few others at the same time…

I sent 12 New Years cards in different designs. Did you get the same one I sent myself? The Rilakkuma card was purchased at the Miyajima Island Rilakkuma shop which was insanely well-stocked considering how remotely it was located. I bought two in this series and sent the other to someone I knew would appreciate it 🙂

Nothing says Japan like a photo of a quokka! I bought three copies of that cute card but forget who I sent the others to. The card in top left was part of a set purchased at the cinema when we saw the Kamen Rider film, but the set was for another movie (that we didn’t see).

Four of the cards show here – including the middle one above – I had made myself and taken with me ‘just in case’. I do this every trip, but I’m a fool for every supposing I wouldn’t be swimming with options when it came to buying cards in Japan!

And lastly this gotochi (shaped) card of a Buddha. It’s fairly large, and Japan Post is emphatic that these cannot be sent through the mail internationally. And yet I put a stamp on it and tossed it in the postbox with a wish… and it arrived safe and sound. I also bought an oyster gotochi (in Hiroshima, which is famous for oyster), and sent it to AW’s sister who lives in Japan.

“What do you write on all these cards?” is a question I’ve been asked more than once. As an example, here’s one I wrote the evening of the Earthquake (we were in Osaka):

Most of the cards have silly anecdotes or in-jokes on them that we have invariably forgotten about by the time we receive and read them. They’re mini-diaries, and I’ve got decades worth of them now. They’re my most prized possessions!

In case you were interested, here’s (most of) the different stamps on the above cards:

I’ve become an expert at buying stamps in Japan, and always do my best to make sure I get a good variety for the cards. Take another look at the stamps on your cards!

37 (or more?) postcards in 16 days is a lot, but I never plan on sending myself so many. Truth is I always buy too many stamps, and then end up sending a lot of ‘extra’ cards in the last few days. Of course this post is just the ones I sent myself, and dozens more were sent to other people. I hope you enjoyed the ones you received 🙂

Posted in Blog, Japan, Memories, Postcards, Trip | 1 Comment »

Dragons!

February 10th, 2024

Today is Lunar New Year, and 2024 is the Year of the Dragon. This is traditionally an auspicious year, and those born under the sign of the dragon are said to be as charismatic and influential as the very dragons themselves!

As a fan of fantasy, obviously I’m a fan of dragons as well, and I like both western and eastern wyrms – as well as the fantasy archetype that is mostly an invention of the last half century. Today I thought I’d showcase some esteemed dragons from myth and fiction to honor these great beasts. How many of these do you know?

Shenlong is a dragon god from Chinese myth that has been described in stories and depicted in art for almost 1000 years. His domain is the sky, his gift is rain and his wrath is thunder and lightning. In ancient days people in many Asian nations would try to avoid angering him since his gifts were essential to agriculture, and an angry storm dragon god could wreak havoc on crops!

As one of the divine Chinese dragons of myth Shenlong had five claws instead of four, and as with almost all eastern dragons could fly, speak and change his shape to a human at will.

Ryujin (which literally translates to dragon god) is the Japanese deity of the ocean and all the creatures therein. An important Shinto deity, there are shrines across Japan to him to this day, especially in coastal areas.

Ryujin has a rich mythology and is said to be a direct ascendant of the Japanese imperial family. He has many fabulous powers, and as with many Japanese deities utilizes wondrous magical items such as a jewel he can use to control tides. He is believed to live at the bottom of a large lake near Kyoto.

Incidentally while Chinese and Japanese dragons resemble each other, you can tell them apart by their horns (Chinese look like deer, Japanese are straighter) and their claws (Chinese have four or five, Japanese have three).

The Beowulf Dragon is not the best-known character in the 1000+ year-old Germanic poem, but in some ways it became the most influential. After Beowulf defeated Grendel and Grendel’s mother, he settled into kingly life for decades until a dragon emerged and threatened his kingdom. Taking up his sword once again, he slew the dragon but was fatally wounded in the struggle.

Germanic dragons are the origin of what most of us think of when we hear the word ‘dragon’ today, and there are notable ones older than the one in this poem (such as Fafnir). But the un-named beast slain by Beowulf was the first example of the western dragon template that continues to this day: a large scaly winged reptile that breathes fire and covets gold and jewels. One author liked Beowulf’s dragon so much, he more or less used it himself when he wrote a book called…

The Hobbit was published 87 years ago and for many readers in the decades that followed Smaug was likely their first exposure to a dragon. He is the archetype of the modern dragon: the Beowulf beast turned into a true character with the intellect, vanity, power and fire-breathing his kind would eventually become known for.

Just as Tolkien was influenced to create Smaug, his creation would influence the fictional dragons of those that grew up reading The Hobbit. Not the least was Gary Gygax, who appropriated the Tolkienesque dragon as the model for the many dragons inhabiting the world of Dungeons and Dragons, the styles of which have essentially become the modern ‘dragon’.

Of course there are some other famous dragons I didn’t detail today – no doubt many of you wonder about the beast slain by St George – but I think this presents a brief snapshot of both eastern and western dragons and their origins.

You probably got a 2024 Japanese postcard from me with a dragon sticker on it: did you notice you could peel the dragon off the sticker to re-use, and there’s a second dragon underneath? Why not wish someone else a Happy New Year by sending them a little dragon sticker 🙂

May 2024 grant you the wisdom, health and fortune of the dragons!

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McDonald’s Memories

January 28th, 2024

That’s the first Australian McDonald’s, which opened in Sydney the year before I was born. From what I can determine, the first McDonald’s in Newcastle opened when I was 7, and since it wasn’t far from where my Nan lived it was a frequent treat after we’d visit her house.

Since then I’ve eaten at Maccas hundreds of times, and over those 40+ years many memories have been made. Here’s a selection:

As a child the McDonald’s calendar was an essential purchase! Not only did we hang it on our walls, we also coloured it in and – most importantly – we used the coupons every month to get free food!
Happy Meals were my default order as a child, and the toys (in my memory) were much higher quality than today. I fondly remember some Star Wars stencils that could be used to draw characters, that I wish I’d kept to this day.
Ice creams in those days were self-serve!

Graduating to Big Macs was one moment in my life when I felt like an adult. I don’t remember who it was, but I was at Maccas with a friend once and he got a Big Mac and I ordered a ‘Junior Burger’ and he asked me why I didn’t eat Big Macs! This prompted me to try one and I never looked back 🙂
Back when we had our paper run one time the newspaper came with Maccas coupons for free fries. We ended up with loads of them and I recall I had a lot of fries during the weeks that followed!
During the 1984 Olympics I remember my group of friends used to go to Charlestown Maccas after school and watch the athletic events. A girl in my year was working there at the time and she used to surreptitiously give us free food.

I used to love the cookies! Australia didn’t have a strong traditional of ‘animal crackers’ so we didn’t know that Maccas cookies were basically the same. Even well into my teens I used to get a box of these with my order and eat them on the bus home.
I also used to enjoy their strawberry milkshakes, although I haven’t had one since I left Australia.
In my last year of High School we organized a treasure hunt and one item on the list was ‘one point for every McDonald’s cheeseburger you bring us’ and we had loads delivered (as well as a phone call of complaint from a McDonald’s!). This was when microwaves were uncommon so we (me and the judges) ate a bunch for dinner and – to my shame – had to throw the rest away.

The frozen cokes I’ve ordered at Australian McDonald’s. During my summer trips it wasn’t unusual for me to have two or three a day, but these past years – since I’ve traveled in winter – it’s usually been just one. It’s the best item on their menu 🙂
When I first returned to Oz in 2000 I wrote a series of postcards on alternate days in the George street Maccas. Entitled ‘The McDonalds Series’, these are some of the oldest and most nostalgic postcards in my collection.

During our trip to Germany we visited many McDonald’s, often not eating at all. The reason: I was hunting McDonald’s glasses with ‘coca cola’ written in various different languages!
At a Maccas in Paris – on the Champs-Elysees to be specific – I ate breakfast very early and was the only diner in the restaurant. A man came and sat down right next to me and bowed his head until it hit the table. I quickly finished and left, and later that day my hotel concierge told me he was probably a homeless man looking to scavenge any food I may have left on the tray.

I could do a blog post on Japanese Maccas memories alone, but two that stick out were the Superfries (read about them here) and not once but twice being seated at a very busy Maccas and finding myself sharing a table with a young ‘office lady’ working on her laptop!
The memory I’m most proud of would be my 2022 achievement of seven identical orders in seven days at seven different Maccas (read about it here). Will I ever surpass this? No man yet knows…

So many years of McDonald’s! The irony is I almost never eat it in the USA since it’s usually awful here, but you can bet that any foreign trip I ever go on will include at least one stop at a Maccas. Let’s hope there’s many more memories to be made 🙂

Posted in Food, Memories, Miscellaneous, Time | 1 Comment »