2010-05-24

WuMu "Steamed Noodle: Garlic and Sesame Oil Flavor"

Brand: Wu-Mu
Flavour: Steamed Noodle: Garlic and Sesame Oil Flavor
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, veggie bits, garlicky oil, dark sauce
Sodium: 1.00 grams

All things expire, and this holds true for instant noodles. A quick glance at the pictures will reveal that I should have eaten these a month and a half ago. I figure that the longer a product's shelf life is, however the more fudge factor one has in meeting that deadline of edibility. Milk may have only a week... give or take a couple days. Ramen can sit for a half-year; a few more weeks won't cause it to spontaneously putrefy. It turns out that even a Ramenbox doesn't last forever, but in this case it's because this is the last of the packets that were in it.

The packet itself is a handsome affair with modern styling and rich orange and brown colours. It proudly proclaims that the noodles inside are "none fried", though this doesn't necessarily imply that anything is healthy about the ramen. Aside from a brick of thinner-than-usual noodles are three packets. The one labelled "Seasoning" has, strangely, dried veggie bits. "Sauce Packing" has dark, sweetened soy sauce within it. "Oil Packing" has an oil with such strong garlic flavour that the scent of it hits like a wallop once opened. Strange translations aside, all of these are well-pinked and easy to open.

Preparation isn't too bad, either. I'm a fan of noodles that cook in the bowl rather than having to get out a pot. Though a specific amount of boiling water is mentioned, a reasonable measurement would be "enough to cover the noodles and veggies by a bit" since it all gets drained off in four minutes anyhow. (Just be careful trying to drain a hot bowl. Ow.) After that, it's as easy as stirring in the sauce and oil. It's still not quite as easy as the average "cup noodle" but it's not too bad.

The flavour is actually not quite what I expected. There's definitely the sesame oil and garlic mentioned in the name of the packet, but I thought it would be slightly sweeter with the addition of the soy sauce. It turns out to be almost entirely savoury, and amazingly heavy on the garlic. I'm still tasting the garlic several minutes after the bowl is done, so this is definitely not just a hint of everyone's favourite allium. The veggies reconstitute well, but due to the nature of the noodles they tend to clump up at the sides of the bowl instead of mixing in. Still, it's a tasty ramen, if nto as well-balanced as some of the others I've reviewed.

So, that concludes this Ramenbox. I'm really not sure what to say about that. They've been good to me and I was glad to help them get started, but now they have write-ups in Wired and such. My little blog isn't exactly going to help out much on that anymore. Still, I certainly wish them luck and prosperity – and I encourage fellow ramenauts to visit, put together boxes of their favourites for ten percent off (use coupon code CHEAPERTHANFOOD), and enjoy a really interesting service that couldn't have existed before the advent of the modern Internet!

Postscript: Come on, Blogger. I liked you guys, and I was willing to put up with your image upload function being slightly broken as far as the ordering of images. And then I was willing to put up with it becoming completely broken. Now the file upload preview is completely blank. Get it together.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 3, heat 0, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: virt - Serious Monkey Business - Dance of the Zinger

6 comments:

Fega Barramundi said...

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Electric Keet said...

Fega:
Two things I don't much care for: mercury poisoning and unsolicited advertisements.

Vulpis said...

Wonder how interested they'd be in an All-Fugu diet... ;-)

Vulpis said...

That said...interesting-sounding ramen there. I wish the local stores had more varieties (I'm not particularly trusting of mail-order food myself, due to some of the local delivery people...). The closest to this I know of around here is Simply Asian's garlic sesame noodles.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE this stuff. I'm tempted to order an entire Ramen Box full of nothing but it.

I always season my noodles a bit after the fact- adding a bit of Oyster sauce to this makes it amazingly good.

I like to make this sort of thing from scratch, but you can't beat a 5 minute prep time! One of the things I'll do is dump the noodles and veggies into the water boiler and cook them that way, then drain through the spout and dump them into the bowl. Saves the fingers. ;)

Sunny Golds said...

I LOVE this stuff. I'm tempted to order an entire Ramen Box full of nothing but it.

I always season my noodles a bit after the fact- adding a bit of Oyster sauce to this makes it amazingly good.

I like to make this sort of thing from scratch, but you can't beat a 5 minute prep time! One of the things I'll do is dump the noodles and veggies into the water boiler and cook them that way, then drain through the spout and dump them into the bowl. Saves the fingers. ;)