Ramen 30: What Hath Man Wrought

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 🙂

Elongates: Final Thoughts

It’s time to put this too-long series to rest, but not before a few last words on this pressed penny collection.

I sorted the 271 coins by where they were obtained, and this was easy for about 90% of them, challenging for another 9% and – so far – impossible for these three:

The top left features an unidentifiable design with no words, and was pressed onto a 5 euro cent coin, which means Scotland or the UK. Perhaps it was somewhere in Cardiff? I’ll probably never know. The top right is a misaligned penny and from a snippet of writing on the back was made in Santa Cruz. As for what it was supposed to show, who knows? The bottom is a real mystery. The Pamir was boat that sunk near The Azores during a hurricane in 1957. The origination of the ship suggests a German coin, but it’s pressed on a US penny so I have no idea where I got it.

The location of where I pressed this one is also unknown:

Isn’t it remarkable? The entire Lord’s Prayer pressed onto a tiny penny! It’s very detailed and easy to read and I imagine many of these have lived a happy life in purses and wallets over the years.

Let’s move on to ‘bad’ examples. The truth is most of the collection is forgettable – even arguably trash – and since I was always pressing for Bernard I tended to prioritize outrageous or ludicrous designs. Of the 271, these are the ones that raise my eyebrows the most:

On the left we have a penny showing the comic character Storm, which was pressed at Universal Studios. The detail is good but unfortunately the character is almost unrecognizable and you need to gaze very closely to even understand what you’re looking at. The next is a Pez character and I don’t think I need to go into details as to why it should never have been made. The third is a ‘likeness’ of Bruce Springsteen so bad I very much doubt anyone could identify him without the name at the bottom, and the M&M’s NYC fireman penny makes the Pez example look desirable 🙂

As for my favourites, after some consideration I decided on these four:

The top was obtained at Hirose Game Center in Akihabara and shows the player ship from the classic arcade game Darius (I assume you don’t need explanation as to why I love this penny). Then we have a Tardis obtained at the now-closed Dr Who Experience in Cardiff, Wales. The Ned Kelly one – pressed somewhere in Melbourne – I love for its ludicrousness (a penny featuring a criminal?), and of course I’m going to treasure a Nessie penny obtained at Loch Ness.

Now sorted and catalogued here, the pennies all live happily in a special dedicated book I bought for them, and this will now sit on a shelf or in a box forever. I’m not planning on adding to the collection – so no, you don’t have to press pennies for me if you find any! – unless I find a truly special or unusual design. But there’s enough nostalgia in this collection that I’m happy I own the ones I have 🙂

Elongates: Familiar Shores

You knew it was coming… here are the ‘pennies’ from Japan:

A quick look at one of the collectors websites shows many machines scattered across Japan. As usual most of these are at tourist sights, and the coins shown above were no doubt pressed at such machines.

The Japanese machines dispense blanks into the die and are all electronically made (so no turning of cranks). They’re a little more expensive as well, at ¥100 per coin. Unlike US machines they usually only offer a single image. They coins are notably higher quality, with lots of crisp detail, such as the above from the ‘Odaiba Takoyaki Museum’.

Looking ahead to our next trip (in a month) I see a few machines at some of the locations we will attend. Maybe I’ll be adding to this collection sooner than I expected!

And finally we end this showcase with the coins pressed in Australia. Once again these use blanks instead of real coins, and the quantity I have suggest the machines are reasonably common.

As usual these are mostly found at tourist locations, but I don’t recall if they resemble the US machines (with multiple designs) or the Japanese ones. I find it amusing the relatively small gift store at The Big Banana had a coin machine: I suppose they’re inexpensive to manufacture and presumably pay for themselves since these coins are cheap souvenirs.

I’ve got a little more to say about this collection, but I’ll save those thoughts for a final post tomorrow.