Cheaper Than Food: the Ramen Break

An indefinite hiatus.

2010-12-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

People have been asking about the fate of their favourite ramen blogger. Did she disappear? Swear off the Internet forever? Go in search of the perfect noodle? Get consumed by a vengeful noodle monster?

I'd like to put these questions to rest. I'm still alive and well, and being productive with other things – writing short stories, reading longer stories, doing professional book design work, converting oxygen to carbon dioxide. The catch is that I also moved to a house closer to Seattle proper, rejuvenated my social life, and started enjoying home-cooked food and leftovers more often. This all tends to make blogging about ramen less of a priority, you see. Plus, I broke my camera, and I really don't want to stick my smartphone over a steaming bowl of noodle soup, thank you very much.

The final nail in the coffin – at least for the moment – is that I'm trying my hand at a low glycemic diet, mostly to make it easier to coordinate meals and shopping with my lovely wife who has been on such a restricted diet for some time. This means that instant ramen is, in general, right out. No ramen noodles... no ramen noodle reviews.

What's in the future of Cheaper Than Food: the Ramen Break? I couldn't say. I might come right back to it in a few weeks, or I might let it languish for months upon years. However, I can say with total certainty that in no way did the blog stop being fun, and it won't be my last slightly surreal project to pop up out of nowhere. I'll be sure to let folks know of future endeavours, so stay tuned. (With your RSS readers. Or whatever.)

Thanks for reading, you wacky lot. You made this two-year project incredibly wonderful.

Nissin "Cup Noodles: Manchurian"

2010-06-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nissin
Flavour: Cup Noodles: Manchurian
Format: plastic cup
Packets: zero
Identifiables: seasoned noodle frustum, veggie bits
Sodium: 0.49 grams

Sometimes, we could all use a little more simplicity. In my case, I'm busy with planning for a home relocation (within the area, but still quite the undertaking) and there are many projects on my plate, so it's a good bit of stressful juggling. This means that frequently, I just can't be bothered fixing a lunch, and even facing the prospect of tasty but complicated noodles (such as those with five packets!) can be daunting. For these times, I want ramen that requires only two things: boiling water and an eating utensil. Nissin always comes through with their Cup Noodles line, and this is no exception.

I found this cup on sale at a nearby Indian market. In fact, they were on two-for-one sale, which so elated me that I forgot what I paid for the first one anyhow. It's a handsome white plastic cup with a foil lid and a yellow and milk-chocolate-brown colour scheme. The funny part is that the label proclaims that one may "Enjoy Noodles with Hot Soup" but once all is said and done – boiling water to inside line, wait three minutes, stir – there's no broth, just a thick orange-coloured sauce. I haven't any complaints about that, really, but I could imagine somebody being indignant about wanting proper broth, and if so, then simply add more water! Some people. Sheesh.

Salty! Upon tasting, the first thing that hits is just how salty this noodle seems, despite the relatively low amount of sodium on the label. The sharpness of it is added to by the spice. It tastes rather good – the sort of rich blend of flavours that one expects from an Chinese yellow curry – but a little startling because of the apparent saltiness. The noodles are a little softer than might usually be preferred, but they soak up the sauce well. The vegetable pieces are numerous, and they add a little to the overall texture.

In summary: These Cup Noodles are exactly what I wanted and needed, a simple and tasty lunch. Just have something to drink handy.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 4, heat 3, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Ziwtra - Humans + Gears - Crash / Restore (Emotions)

WuMu "Steamed Noodle: Garlic and Sesame Oil Flavor"

2010-05-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

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

Mì Ăn Liền "Thịt Xào Pork Flavor"

2010-05-18T12:43:00.001-07:00

Brand: Mì Ăn Liền
Flavour: Thịt Xào Pork Flavor
Format: styrofoam bowl
Packets: four
Identifiables: noodle dome, flavour powder, oniony oil, dried veggies
Sodium: 1.03 grams

First, I had a stretch of being busy enough that ramen reviews weren't on the agenda. Then... well, you'd think that it would be easy enough to remember to buy replacement batteries for my camera. Amazingly, I forgot for several days in a row, then went out of town for a few days to help friends move, and now here I am, nearly a month after the previous review. I can only apologise and get on with it. Here, we have another treat from Ramenbox, a Vietnamese noodle soup with a name that has all sorts of unusual accents in it.

A note on the name of this bowl: Understand that I occasionally do professional document layout and design. I've created my own custom keyboard map to allow me to type nearly every accented Latin character, every (monotonic) Greek letter, and nearly every bit of punctuation I could conceivably want. Still, I find myself digging back into the old character map to pull out the multi-accented letters of Vietnamese, all so you can read the most accurate review possible. Why don't I do this for Chinese, Japanese, Thai, or Korean language script? Because that's just too geeky for even me. (Though I've been tempted to try. Oh, I do love Unicode.)

Because of the smooth finish, I initially thought the bowl to be plastic. It turns out to be rather sturdy styrofoam, with a foil top that's glued on almost too well. Inside are four packets, but only if we count the clear one containing an approximately bowl-shaped brick of dry noodles. A foil packet labelled "soup base" holds sandy powder. Another clear packet labelled "flavour oil" containt precisely that, pale oil with a few dark-brown bits of fried onion in it. The last packet holds dried vegetable bits and is labelled... "flavour oil". One wonders....

The instructions are simple enough, though slightly odd in that there's no mention of the fill line inside the bowl, just an encouragement to "pour boiling water nearly full". Three minutes and a good stir later, the bowl is full of swirling noodles and lightly-coloured broth with veggies and... something. That something is flavoured soy protein yearning to simulate pork. Oh, don't give me that look; you eat more of the stuff than you even realise. It's good for you. The appearance, however, is that of unappealing tan flakes of fish-food.

Fortunately, this bowl is surprisingly good. I say "surprisingly" because I've traditionally had a rather mediocre time of instant Vietnamese-style noodles. These noodles are typically thin vermicelli-style, meaning they tend to hold more of the broth between them. (The scalding hot broth. Be careful, ramen lovers.) That broth is simultaneously light of texture and full of flavour, so much pork and onion and a bit of black pepper. The ill-looking porkish floaty bits turn out to be tasty enough that they're not a negative. Thus, I'm glad to say that this is a tasty bowl and delightfully free of sugar. The verdict? Decent stuff, even if not brilliant.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 3, heat 1, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Setsuo, Tomozou, Sato, Yuko, Kirry - Megaman X - Storm Eagle

Paldo "Hwa Cup"

2010-04-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

Brand: Paldo
Flavour: Hwa Cup
Format: paper cup
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle frustum, veggie bits, flavour powder
Sodium: (amount of sodium in grams, not milligrams)

Yes, it's good to see you again also, but let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?

Instant noodles are one of those little underrated joys of life. Instant noodles that come in a convenient cup are doubly so. It's no wonder that when somebody comes up with a popular taste, the next logical step is to put it in a cup. For Nong Shim, this meant converting Shin Ramyun into Shin Cup. For Paldo, it meant creating a whole new flavour and putting it in a cup that looks like Shin Cup. They call it Hwa Cup.

The Hwa Cup stands tall and proud like the Shin Cup, and the art on the cup looks highly similar from first glance. It has a strong red-and-black theme and large, imposing-looking brushed kanji ("spicy" for the Shin, "fire for the Hwa). The font choices are similar. Honestly, it looks like it's meant to draw in people who really wanted Shin Cup and found this to be twenty cents cheaper on sale. That's clever, but slightly disingenuous, I'd think. Regardless, it's worth a try, and since I got one with my Ramenbox....

The catch with the paper cup is that the foil lid is securely glued to it such that the cup deforms on trying to remove it. A little finesse and patience see it liberated cleanly, but there's such a thing as too secure. Once inside, a cluttered-looking foil packet sits on top of fewer noodles and more veggies than expected. Once the packet is dumped into the cup, it takes only a cup of boiling water and three minutes to get fully cooked ramen.

The broth is surprisingly dark red-brown and moderately oily. It carries a spicy vegetable taste which isn't bad but comes off as slightly hollow because of all the added glutamates; without any particular meat or mushroom flavour to back them up, they seem a little artificial, but not bad. The noodles are a little more rubbery than I'd expect, and their flavour is also slightly unusual in a not-quite-normal way that I can't describe very well. Maybe it's from all that soy peptide.

The final verdict? If you're looking for a vegetarian equivalent to the much-beloved but beef-based Shin noodles, Paldo's Hwa noodles are a bit less spicy but well worth looking into.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 3, heat 3, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Gershon Kingsley - Music To Moog By - Pop Corn

Sapporo Ichiban "Chowmein"

2010-04-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

Brand: Sapporo Ichiban
Flavour: Chowmein
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder, dried seaweed
Sodium: 0.94 grams

Let's be reasonable, dear friends. None of us is about to read a label that insists on splitting three-and-a-quarter ounces of noodles between three servings, and especially not if the noodles are as tasty as these. Get a packet and make certain that it's all yours. After the disappointment of the first Sapporo Ichiban noodles I tried I was ready for something cheap, but these blew me away.

The packaging is somewhat more handsome than those other noodles, for a start. It's still somewhat garish and blocky, but in a friendly way. The directions are unusual, though; instead of a number of minutes, the noodles are to be stirred in merely one cup of boiling water until they absorb it all. This turns out to work rather well in practice. Then one mixes in the seasoning packet (the foil one misleadingly labelled "soup base") and top with dried seaweed (the translucent white packet which reads "Green Laver".) The end result is a bowl of noodles coated in a dark brown sauce and little green specks on top.

The flavour is fairly close to perfect. There's the same sweet-umami-salty combo familiar to all the "Mi goreng" noodles I've reviewed, and the seaweed complements it perfectly. There's even just a hint of spice, but not enough to scare off anyone with a low tolerance for such. It actually tastes somewhat of Worcestershire sauce, which isn't a bad thing... and looking at the lengthy ingredients list, that's actually in there. The noodles are firm and well-textured, and they carry the sauce well.

If you haven't yet put together a Ramenbox, there's still time to fill one at the grand opening prices (and with the discount code of CHEAPERTHANFOOD) so I highly recommend this as one of your choices. (In fact, my first Ramenbox is running out quickly....)

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: Wave Master - Sonic Advance 3 (GBA) - Sunset Hill Act 2

Wu-Mu "Spicy Flavor Tomato Ramen"

2010-04-07T14:20:00.001-07:00

Brand: Wu-Mu
Flavour: Spicy Flavor Tomato Ramen
Format: brick-in-packet (times four)
Packets: two (times four)
Identifiables: noodle brick, dried veggies, flavouring sand, chili oil
Sodium: 1.78 grams

My wife elected to come home for lunch and join me in a ramen review. Naturally, I thought back to the previous Wu-Mu offering and decided to try the other four-pack of theirs. That way we could each have our own bowl. This one takes up three slots in a Ramenbox, which is fair given how much ramen is in it. It's a friendly package, though typographically insane; there are six different typefaces in use for the English text and four for the Chinese!

The directions for cooking are similar, also, including having to dig around in the Chinese text for the amount of water. Amazingly, this one recommends 600cc of water, which means quite a bit of broth. The packets – which really do have to be cut apart to be used – are in a similar configuration, with the foil one holding dehydrated veggies and some flavouring powder and the clear one holding a bright red-orange oil. The noodles themselves are slightly orange also on account of having tomato paste as one of the ingredients. This is where the lycopene comes in, as proclaimed on the front of the package.

Then again, let's talk about the package. It's full of slightly askew English and odd claims. One corner of the front of the package states, "Approved by BSI ISO 9001 and excellent food GMP in Taiwan." We generally don't think about everyday food being approved by any particular organisation unless it's meat, and even then, we tend to just assume. It's a bit eye-opening to see it out in the open like that. On the side, a line reads, "Credited as model company for sanitition." Well then. I feel safer already.

The noodles are fairly average in texture and taste. The broth absorbs well into them, lending a rather spicy blend of tomato, sesame, and coriander flavours. Coriander being the same thing as cilantro, the sensitive folks may want to steer clear; my wife turned out to not care for that aspect of the flavour. I enjoyed it, though there's a rather odd slightly skunky aftertaste I just can't seem to place. The vegetables consist mostly of pepper rings, though there are bits of carrot in there and a mushroom labelled in the ingredients list as "Jew's Ear", oddly enough.

I'll enjoy the rest of these noodles, but next time I'll likely use less water.

Added note: Make sure you wat it when it's hot. Don't let it stand and cool down at all, because the flavours seems to mutate into being... kind of barfy, really. I don't know if I should dock it a point for that....

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Sigur Rós - Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust - Góðan Daginn

Annie Chun's "Udon Soup Bowl"

2010-04-06T13:10:00.001-07:00

Brand: Annie Chun's
Flavour: Udon Soup Bowl
Format: plastic bowl
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle mat, flavouring liquid, brick-o-stuff
Sodium: 0.92 grams

I've been eating instant noodles for a long time. I wasn't quite raised on them, any more than I was raised on Lucky Charms or hot dogs or any of the other lifespan-shortening foods I ate when young. I do recall my father preparing the ramen and throwing extras in. He'd add a little dried seaweed here and there, or minced onion, or perhaps chopped up bits of mystery lunchmeat, or whatever seemed like it might go in nicely. He'd been to Korea, and apparently he'd learned the wise ways of turning several bits of cheap food into something a little more interesting than any single component would have been. Now I'm older than he was when he started getting really creative with ramen, and I appreciate the technique more than ever.

This, friends, is why it seems absurd to read the label of a higher-priced fancy instant noodle like Annie Chun's Udon Soup Bowl – the one that proudly proclaims that it includes all-natural vegan bok choy and shiitake mushrooms in an earth-friendly biodegradable bowl – and see that it suggests adding more shiitake or some sliced tofu or cooked shrimp or chicken for "an even more flavorful soup". Who keeps spare cooked shrimp just sitting around? And at this price, shouldn't there already be plenty of mushrooms?

Nonetheless, I took a break from my Ramenbox and, at the encouragement of one of my loyal readers, reviewed one of the bowls I'd received from Pat McK. so long ago. This one has outer packaging meant to invoke the rich colours of an expensive Japanese restaurant. Once the cardboard sheath is off and the cellophane is removed, an ivory-coloured bowl opens to reveal a sealed packet of thick pre-cooked noodles, a fuchsia-coloured packet with liquid soup base which turns out to be mostly soy sauce, and a white packet with a brick of dehydrated stuff. What stuff? Authentic Japanese stuff, most assuredly.

The instructions are confounding. They're readable enough, being in plain and error-free English, but I will reproduce them here with commentary in parentheses:

Microwave Cooking Directions: (I usually worry when these are listed first.)
1. Place noodles in bowl and pour a cup of hot water over the noodles to soften. (They didn't soften. How long was I supposed to steep them?)
2. Using lid, drain water from noodles. (Does this mean the cooking is done?)
3. Add soup base and toppings to moistened noodles. (The toppings are more like one single topping brick.)
4. Add 1 to 1¼ cups of water and loosely cover with lid. (Not the same water I poured out, then? And why isn't there a measuring line inside the bowl?)
5. Microwave on high for 1–2 minutes, until noodles are hot. (I gave them a minute and a half and they were still sort of tepid. One minute? Not likely.)
6. Stir well and enjoy! (The stirring is necessary, as the topping hadn't completely separated into bits.)
No microwave? Add 1 to 1¼ cups boiling water to soup base, toppings, and noodles. Cover with lid and let stand 2 minutes. (Wait... isn't this easier? Wouldn't this make more sense? How do the microwave directions help at all?)

The result is a bowl of softer noodles in medium-dark brown broth, a splendid array of vegetables, and some things that might be intended to stand in for fried tofu but come across more like drowned pork rinds. The flavour is... confusing. On one hand, there certainly is plenty of the much-heralded umami component, that essential fifth axis along which all tastes are measured. On the other, the noodles taste and smell more like soggy Play-Doh than anything one would eat past the age of four. I don't recall udon tasting quite like this before. I'll have to refresh my memory at one of those expensive Japanese restaurants I mentioned. Unfortunately, the flavour is further sunk by stale-tasting vegetables and the mystery strips. It's just not meant to be.

Overall, I can't really recommend this, but I'm open to comments from anyone else who's tried the same stuff and found it pleasant. Perhaps it must be consumed immediately after manufacture, before the Play-Doh sets. That's not the way this bowl should remind me of my childhood.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 2/3, heat 0, flavour 1, overall 2
Music: ott - skylon - rogue bagel

Mama "Shrimp (Tom Yum) Flavour"

2010-03-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

Brand: Mama
Flavour: Shrimp (Tom Yum) Flavour
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour sludge, soup powder, chili powder
Sodium: 2.42 grams

I really must find a more suitable host body.

This weak, inferior, human shell is vulnerable to all manner of hazards; radiation exposure, temperature extremes, rapid pressure changes, and so forth. That defeats me this time? A viral infection called the "common cold". Bah! Such difficulties will not impede my master plan, however!

It so happens that my master plan includes eating spicy noodle soup. For this reason, I love the well-known Thai dish called tom yum goong. It's got spicy heat and onion, tangy kaffir lime and lemon grass, and tasty seafood. What more can one ask from a soup? Having it ready in the comfort of one's own home in three minutes and with minimal effort, perhaps.

The Mama brand interpretation of this classic dish is not quite the same as the original, but the truth is that it'll do in a pinch. For one thing, it's fairly easy to prepare. The directions – printed, like everything else on the package, against a very shiny packground with pink stripes, making the small text difficult to read – guide one to put everything within the package into a bowl, pour 400ml boiling water over it, and let it sit covered for three minutes. Even taking account this host body's compromised state, I can do this!

The noodle brick seems fairly standard, though with slightly thinner noodles than most ramen. There are three packets, however, and that brings the preparation score dangerously close to being docked back down to a two. One packet has the brand name on it... in Thai. This contains a gritty flavouring paste the colour of tamarind. The other two packets are in a classic pair of shiny side-by-side pouches. one is labelled with the brand name in both Thai and English; this contains what looks like sand with bits of herb in it. The other is also bilingual, but this time it's actually descriptive, warning the unwary eater that it holds chilli powder within.

After three minutes' cooking in hot water, the result is a thin broth with orange dots of oil at the surface, and an abundance of noodles, The flavour is as described above; the sweet lime takes front and centre, with the lemon grass and seafood trailing behind, and a good level of heat throughout. I actually enjoy this particular arrangement, but others may disagree simply because it's not exactly balanced. Thus, I have to say that my verdict is: don't be afraid to include it in your next Ramenbox and give it a try (remembder the CTF discount code!) but don't fill the whole box with this flavour unless you already know that you'll really, really like it.

Now, I'm going to go curl up with a box of tissues and my various handheld game consoles.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 3, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Dean Evans - Waterworld (SNES) - Diving

Sapporo Ichiban "Original"

2010-03-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Brand: Sapporo Ichiban
Flavour: Original
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder
Sodium: 2.06 grams

I've heard it said that the Japanese are fond of salty foods when drinking. Of course, so are we Americans (don't be fooled by my Commonwealth spellings!) but while we choose peanuts and pretzels, they choose edamame and ramen. Either way, we're talking about legumes and wheat. Thus, it shouldn't surprise that while we think of the name Sapporo primarily as a brand of beer, it is also a brand of ramen. (The two brands, however, are not of the same company.)

As one might expect, this ramen is optimised for easy recognition and preparation. Like many others, the package is simple and colour-coded to match the flavour within. The noodles take only three minutes to cook. There's only one flavour packet and it is added after the noodles are done. This is truly a ramen with impairment in mind – it could only improve if it were to appear in a cup instead. Thus, there's rather little to tell about the packaging or the contents. It's refreshingly unchallenging.

Once cooked, the nicely firm noodles are strongly wheaty, but of a dry sort that tastes almost dusty. The flavourings are impossible to pinpoint, save for soy. It's lightly sweet, rather salty, and completely nondescript. In other words, it's precisely the sort of accompinament to a Sapporo lager because it makes you want to drink more. On its own, however, it's not terribly notable.

To sum up: If you're looking for interesting flavours to put in your Ramenbox, you can safely pass this one by.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 0, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: Hybrid - I Choose Noise - Choke (feat. John Graham)

Komforte Chockolates "Ramen Noodle"

2010-03-01T13:51:00.001-08:00

Brand: Komforte Chockolates
Flavour: Ramen Noodle
Format: bar
Packets: zero
Identifiables: chocolate bar
Sodium: 0.11 grams

A week ago, devoted reader Pat McK. (yes, the one who sent me my very first arrived-in-mail ramen) e-mailed me to ask if I'd seen the Komforte Ramen Noodle chocolate bar. I had not! I made vague plans to swing by the nearest Uwajimaya at some point to pick up one of these curiosities for review. Before I had the chance, however, my good friends Jason and Sylvia gave me a bar as a gift! After today's ramen, it would make the perfect dessert, yes?

The packaging is amazingly straightforward. It's a bold red and white package without gradients, pictures, or logos, but plenty of text set in Futura. I'm more than okay with that. This is the sort of design I absolutely adore, and it's not too much exaggeration to say that it really heightens the experience for me. Within that outer sheath is dark brown foil wrapping, similarly understated while still clearly designed. I love this sort of thing!

The chocolate itself is a well-tempered solid bar with break lines to make it four parts. Each is somewhat shiny with a wave pattern on it reminiscent of ramen noodles (though this may simply be the pattern they use for all their bars; I don't know yet.) The bar is 53% cocoa content dark chocolate with, as expected, crisp uncooked ramen noodles woven into it. The first piece I ate seemed a bit uneven and had rather few noodle bits, but the second had rather more. They provide a strange sort of crunch, not as noticeable as crisp rice but enough to give a curious texture to the bar and add a little bit of the wheaty lightly-fried goodness that only a brick of instant noodles can provide. Overall, the ramen plays only the tiniest role, so those looking for a chocolate-coated noodle brick won't find it here. It's also not terribly sweet, and that's a good thing even though it might be a little dark for the tastes of many.

Still, it's chocolate with ramen in it. I'm having to really work to not devour the rest of the bar before my wife can try some. Thanks again for pointing me at this, Pat, Sylvia, and Jason!

Numbers: packaging 5, preparation 5, heat 0, flavour 4, overall 5
Music: Jean-Jacques Perrey - Moog Indigo - Passport To The Future

Paldo "Green Tea Chlorella"

2010-03-01T13:19:00.001-08:00

Brand: Paldo
Flavour: Green Tea Chlorella
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, veggie bits, flavour powder
Sodium: 1.66 grams

Take a look at that thing. It's like a weakling packet of Maruchan was exposed to gamma radiation and mutated into a giant green shorts-wearing monster, except without the shorts or the sad music whenever it leaves town for another. This, truly, is a massive brick of green ramen. But this is no mere dye job like crappy beer at some pub that's desperately pretending to be Irish around St. Patrick's Day. This is honest green, green by lineage and by right. This is true green.

It's not the first time I've reviewed green ramen, so that part didn't surprise me. In this case it's not spinach that's responsible for the colour, but green tea powder, also known as matcha, which has become terrifyingly trendy. I must admit that I don't normally enjoy green tea all that much, but it is with the heart of a scientist that I pursue knowledge of this type of instant noodle. (Don't ask me which scientist; I assure you, he was rather surprised when I took it.) I have to admit that I thought a Chlorella was a type of compact car that could almost be the size of the noodle brick, but it turns out to be a nutritive, photosynthesising algae, which is nearly as useful.

Preparation is as simple as packet ramen gets. Everything is well-pinked for easy opening, including the outer package itself. Boil 550ml water, dump the contents of every packet involved in to simmer for four minutes. The outcome is a colourful mass of light green noodles, dark green seaweed, bright red pepper rings, and light brown broth. It barely fit into my bowl.

The taste is... blended. What I mean by that is that no particular flavour stands out much. There's a bit of green tea, but it doesn't overpower, meaking it pleasant even to my palate. The seafood base is slightly stronger, but it doesn't stand out in front either. There's a little spice, a level of saltiness that one expects from most ramen, and warm vegetable notes. This ramen may come across as nothing special, but despite its freakish mutant appearance, it's a well-rounded and mild-mannered noodle, worthy of our admiration. Perhaps there's a moral to this story, but I'm choosing to ignore it in favour of pointing and laughing at funny-looking ramen packages. I'm one of the mean kids.

Wait, the moral of the story is... if you're going to order something from Ramenbox, you can't really go wrong with this.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 2, flavour 4, overall 3
Music: Jean-Jacques Perrey - The In Sound From Way Out! - Cosmic Ballad

Nong Shim "Neoguri"

2010-02-26T13:45:00.000-08:00

Brand: Nong Shim
Flavour: Neoguri
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, veggie bits, flavour powder
Sodium: 2.08 grams

Ever since I received it from Ramenbox (did you remember the CHEAPERTHANFOOD ten percent discount code?) I've had instant noodle fans knocking on my door, begging me to review Nong Shim's Neoguri. They want to know if it's as spicy as Shin Ramyun. They want to know if it's got more seafood flavour than Shin Ramyun. They want to know if it fills the bowl and the soul like Shin Ramyun. The answer to all these questions and more is an emphatic yes!

Similar to its fiery cousin, Neoguri starts with a brick of noodles. These are rather pudgy-seeming noodles, agreeing somewhat with the attractive package's claim of "Udon Type Noodles". Perhaps they're a bit thicker than those in Shin Ramyun, but I can't see opening a packet of that just to find out, because there's plenty to eat here! This is one of those rare times that a packet says "two servings" and just might actually mean it. Given that these are to be boiled in nineteen-and-a-half ounces of water (twenty would be right out, you see) it's a fairly sizable meal.

The simplicity of preparation is a joy, really. Toss the noodle brick in along with everything else – all at once! – and count off five minutes. The product is a rather opaque orange broth in which fat noodles swim happily along with bits of seaweed, carrot, and "sea tangle" (which turns out to be kombu). The flavour really is basically Shin Ramyun, just as spicy but with more seafood and seaweed flavour, and I approve of this heartily. If you're like me and have made Shin Ramyun your stable instant noodle, consider supplementing it with Neoguri. If you dislike the former for the spiciness, however, you'll find no relief in the latter.

Say... why did I rank Shin Ramyun so low the first time around? Perhaps I didn't realise how good I had it....

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 4, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka - Super Mario Land (GBC) - World Music 3

Ibumie HarMee "Mi perisa udang: Prawn Flavour"

2010-02-23T13:54:00.000-08:00

Brand: Ibumie HarMee
Flavour: Mi perisa udang: Prawn Flavour
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: five
Identifiables: noodle brick, vegetable oil, seasoning powder, soya sauce, chilli powder, onion bits
Sodium: unknown

Here, we have the fourth and final ramen gited me by your friend and mine, "Hana from MIT". This time, it's a warm, friendly, bright red package witha picture of noodles in broth with prawns stacked on top. I must admit a weakness of mine; I think I'd eat nearly anything with seafood stacked on top of it. Sadly, there's no seafood in the package, and I didn't have any prawns handy....

A pattern has evolved in these Malaysian instant noodles. The instructions for preparation are strangely specific about the amount of water involved – 270ml in this case! – and at least there's a mention of how long to cook the noodles this time, but from there it's not even obvious how many packets we're dealing with because all the directions say is "add seasonings and stir gently". I expected one packet, perhaps two. There are five.

Two foil packets containing chili powder and soup base are in a classic paired configuration, each with pinking that forces a tear along the long edge. A similar pair of conjoined clear packets holds palm oil (orange, with lots of flavonoids!) and kecap, a thick and sweetened soy sauce. Finally, there's a small packet with bits of fried onion, which is delightful but flawed in that there is no notch, no pinking, no tear-strip to open the little thing, and it's been imperviously sealed in a way that would put radioactive waste barrels to shame. I had to take a scissors to it. (Actually, I used a hole punch because it was at hand. Don't ask how that happened.)

I mixed the seasonings with the cooked noodles and stirred; the result is a mass of rather sturdy noodles in red-brown broth. (I really have to find some way to remind myself to get a photo of the cooked noodles.) When I say sturdy, I mean that these are very solid, satisfying noodles that could give Cintan a hard run for their money. The flavour of the broth is reminiscent of too many other things to pinpoint, prawns and chilis and onions and soy and fried stuff. All together, it's like the slightly more wet cousin of mi goreng, and I'll be honest here – that fills me with a smile. This is definitely the winner of the set.

Thanks again, Hana! Next review, I return to the goodies from Ramenbox. Stay tuned, ramen fans and fanatics!

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 5, overall 4
Music: Matthew Ebel - Goodbye Planet Earth - Everybody Needs A Robot

Maggi "Perencah Asam Laksa"

2010-02-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

Brand: Maggi
Flavour: Perencah Asam Laksa
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder
Sodium: unknown

The third of the ramen flavours I received from "Hana from MIT" (thanks again!) turns out to be a very interesting one, a set of strange contradictions. I'll eschew the usual chronological style of my reviews and go with a more Powerpoint-ish point-by-point system for this one. Consider it a belated Valentine's Day gift, if you're into that sort of thing (and baby, there's almost nothing wrong with that if you are.)

The packaging of this Malaysian noodle starts out simultaneously more colourful and more "designery" than any of the common brands in the States. There are subtle gradient effects, a photo that doesn't look nearly so abhorrent as one might expect, and a cheerful illustration for cooking directions. Those directions are amusingly simple, however. They consist of a picture of a pot of water already over a flame with the noodle brick, the flavour packet, and two 200ml cups of water being dropped or poured in. It seems to imply adding ingredients at the same time, but that goes against conventional wisdom given that the noodles have to cook for two minutes and they'll barely be warming up if the water starts out at room temperature. It's an odd bit of ambiguity for a package that reminds me of the over-explained over-designed packages aimed at American audiences.

The over-explanation is saved for the flavour packet, which is pinked and has a clear (if small) instruction to "tear here". If one can assume boiling water but not figure out how to open a packet with zig-zag edges, then... well, I was going to remark on the absurdity of that, but I do wonder about folks who would wonder why I need instructions to boil water for such a simple food but assume that foil packets are natural. It's a culturally relative thing, perhaps? I wonder if the Na'vi make noodle soup. Wait, no, I don't.

I boiled the water first. It turns out that I may have been wrong, somehow. After two minutes' cooking, the noodles actually came out a little mushier than I'd usually like, which by contrast lends credence to the previously reviewed noodle's claim about noodle springiness. I expect mushiness from four minutes or so, but two-minute noodles really should be a little more al dente, even if they're not terribly Italian.

The single flavour packet turns out to generate something more complex. The pungent-smelling orange broth is rather tangy with a seafood-and-citrus theme, and some spice. More than most other noodles, I can see folks being split on whether this is good or not; I'm rather enjoying it, but I could see it being a real turn-off for some people in a way that most seafood ramen wouldn't be due to that moderately astringent note. It's almost balanced by being so overpowering in the citrus aspect that it seems like a feature. Without knowing the dish this is based on, I can't really tell if it's authentic or accidental. In fact, I think I'll just level the numbers across the board for this one, even if I like it a little more.

Post scriptum: There's a little semi-glurgey bit on the back of the package about the "just-in-case noodle traveller" who always packs instant noodles in their luggage just in case wherever they're going runs out of their culturally signature food. Somehow, I don't think I'll be bringing these noodles with me on my next trip. Then again, I just might for the bizarreness factor....

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 3, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Inoue, Nozaki, Hirarin, Kame - Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (NES) - China ~ Chin (Kungfu Master)

Cintan "Perisa Kari"

2010-02-11T13:52:00.001-08:00

Brand: Cintan
Flavour: Perisa Kari
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder
Sodium: unknown

It turns out that "kari" is simply the Tamil word (loaned to Malay) for "curry". While curry refers not so much to a group of spices as a style of food (usually, gravy or sauce), it's taken on a particular flavour association due to some of the most common spices involved. As always, there's an excellent Wikipedia article about it. In this case, it seems to be a spicy vegetarian soup with lots of noodles.

The rather smooth, gradient-laden wrapper for the five-pack reports that Cintan has a "reputation for high-quality, springy noodles". I usually don't think of springiness being a requisite, but the more I considered it, the more it rang true. Spring noodles are more fun, and if you're not having fun with what you're eating, you're taking it all too seriously. Bring on the springy noodles, I say!

It turns out that cooking such springy noodles is an exact science made inexact for the convenience of the consumer. The preparation directions say just how much water to use, but not just how long to cook the noodles. Quite literally, the direction given is, "Cook the noodles," which leads directly into, "Add soup mix." It's a good thing this isn't my first review, or I might have called the whole deal off right then! Experience tells me, however, that two minutes will usually suffice, especially when being cooked in a pot instead of simply being doused with boiling water.

My educated guess turned out to be correct. The noodles are as excellent as promised, springy and perfectly textured with only two minutes' cooking. The faintly orange broth is flavourful and not a little spicy. It's a straightforward and dead-centre curry, with neither distinguishing nor disappointing qualities, and in the grand scheme of flavour that's just fine. It's good to have something reliable. I find myself wondering how well this noodle would work done semi-dry style, the way the Maggi brand does it.

Post scriptum: I accidentally coughed while eating, and some curried broth went into my nose. I didn't snarf it all over the place, but I did have a terrific burning for a while which I normally only associate with horseradish. I've said it before, friends, and I'll say it again; envy it not, because this job has its hazards.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 4, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Chris Geehan & Dan Byrne McCullough - Iji (PC) - Kinda Green

More noodles arrive.

2010-02-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

I recently received a variety of instant noodles, courtesy of one "Hana from MIT". Hana didn't just send single packets; these are multipacks, meaning that if I find a favourite I get to have more of it! This sort of generosity warms every last bit of my heart, friends, and of course great thanks go out to Hana for ~~enabling my ramen addiction~~ contributing to the ongoing ramen adventure.

The four packages include three different styles of instant noodle, and one bag of what turns out to be snack ramen. I'm no stranger to this sort of thing, personally. These look like standard ramen packets, except that instead of directions to cook the contents, one simply eats the noodles which are either pre-flavoured or meant to be shaken with the contents of a flavouring packet. This is something I've done with standard ramen before (sometimes to great amusement) so it's no surprise that it was adapted into a snack food, sometimes with more sweetness than would go into noodles meant for cooking.

This particular brand is called "Mamee Monster" and claims to be "BBQ flavour". The colourful packaging, clearly meant for the younger set, bears a fuzzy creature with the appearance of Cookie Monster if he put on a clown nose and an 80's surplus headband. He's pictures leaping through a ring of flames, which I believe is the international symbol for, "Lunch will soon be ready, and it's likely to be roast monster." That's all right... I'm adventurous.

In this particular case, there's really no excess sweetness. It does indeed have a sort of well-rounded and strangely subtle flavour of roasted spiced vegetables and... meat. No particular meat, just meat. It's close enough to neither fowl nor pork to definitively declare it to be one or the other, though judging by the halal designation I'm leaning towards fowl. Possibly, it's monster-flavoured. Overall, it's a nice little snack, and I'm guessing these packets won't last long at all around here. However, I promise that my next review will be one of the proper cook-then-eat noodles from this package.

Thanks again, Hana!

Koka "Spicy Singapore Fried Noodles"

2010-02-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

Brand: Koka
Flavour: Spicy Singapore Fried Noodles
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder, white stuff
Sodium: 0.73 grams

I wanted to go back and slip in a review of a ramen package that's been sitting on my shelf for a while now. It's the anticipated counterpart to another flavour of the same brand. About the only claim on that package which doesn't appear on this one is "low fat". Well, it does say the noodles are fried....

Preparation gets a bonus for this one because the noodles only need boiling for two minutes. I keep wondering if I could get away with just pouring the water into the bowl and covering it like yesterday's lunch but no – when I do these reviews, I follow the directions on the package, full stop.

The packets come as an attached pair with the word "SEASONING" emblazoned across both. They're decently pinked, but opening can be a trick because the one with powder is filled to the brim. I recommend opening over the noodles. The other sub-packet is full of white palm oil. An advantage of having an opaque packet is that I tend to spend less time squeezing every last bit out.

The result? These are, in fact, spicy. Surprisingly spicy. I'd put them on the level of Shin Ramyun (which has, in fact, become the one I compare others to.) Fortunately, they're also very tasty, mixing that prominent hot pepper with the sweet onion flavour that makes "Mi goreng" so popular among instant noodle aficionados. It doesn't have the fried onion bits of Indomie's Mi goreng, but I have to admit that I gladly trade that for the spiciness. If you're an Indomie addict, be sure to try this one also, if you can find it.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 4, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: Moxy Früvous - 'b' - Johnny Saucep'n

Kung-Fu Brand Instant Oriental Noodle Soup "Artificial Beef Flavor"

2010-02-03T13:54:00.001-08:00

Brand: Kung-Fu Brand Instant Oriental Noodle Soup
Flavour: Artificial Beef Flavor
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, dried herbs, flavour powder, orange oil
Sodium: 2.20 grams

I've heard it said that "kung fu" roughy translates to "how to do it right". It's a promising name for this brand of instant noodles. I can say with certainty that it does not apply to the graphic design of the packaging, as evidenced by the photos. If there's one thing I've learned from doing this blog, however, it's that the appearance of a package has basically zero correlation with the quality of the contents. (As a note, the contents are visible through a little clear window on the packet, which does seem a little pointless....)

The contents of the package start with a heavily fried noodle brick. I say this because it's somewhat yellow with browned areas and feels slightly oily, as opposed to most instant noodles which are sort of pale ivory and dry. A foil sachet opens easily to reveal dried herbs and a strangely sweet-smelling flavour powder. A clear, well-pinked packet shows thick, semi-solid oil the colour of orange juice. That's actually good, because in this case it means that the palm oil is unrefined. Health benefits!

The directions are the best part of this packet. There are two sets. The second is a standard "boil for two minutes" deal, but the first is a more convenient method of putting all the stuff in the packet into a bowl, pouring 400cc (two cups by their measure, but those are six-ounce cups) of boiling water in, and covering for three minutes. This appeals to the lazy part of me, which is approximately all of me, so I did that. After three minutes, I lifted the cover off the bowl so as to ~~drip steaming hot condensate from the lid all over my hand~~ get at the cooked noodles.

The flavour... well, it's lightly beefy, yes, but due to the sweetness and the pronounced wheatiness of the slick noodles, I was reminded more of graham crackers than cow, especially as I sip the salty, oily broth. I'm not really sure how to rank this. It's not bad, but it's not quite what it claims to be, and it's a bit oily for my tastes. As far as the choices in my Ramenbox order, it's the least-appealing ramen I've had, and the first I wouldn't really recommend.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 0, flavour 2, overall 3
Music: Elvis Costello - Spike - Veronica

Paldo: King Cup Noodle "Lobster taste LANGOSTA"

2010-02-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

Brand: Paldo: King Cup Noodle
Flavour: Lobster taste LANGOSTA
Format: cardboard bowl
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle frustum, dried veggies, fish cakes, flavour powder
Sodium: 2.68 grams

The Paldo King Cup Noodle! Few things in this world are as awe-inspiring as the height and girth of this ramen bowl. In fact, it takes up three slots in a Ramenbox! The grandiosity doesn't stop there; it takes five distinct languages to fully express it though none of them do it in quite the same way. Japanese seems to be used for everything. English is used for the name of the bowl, the nutritional information, the import label and the instructions. Spanish is used for the ingredients list. French is used for the allergy warning. Korean is used for the name of the bowl and part of the directions. It's as though straws were drawn for whose language got the most coverage.

Once the foil lid is off the bowl, it's fairly standard, except that it becomes apparent that a significant part of the height of the bowl is empty space even past the fill line. This may make for a convenient bowl for those who are messy with their noodles, but it's also why the thing takes up three slots! The packets are actually rather standard, and I may start referring to them as the "Common Two"; one shiny packet with flavour powder and one translucent or transparent packet with veggie bits. In this case, neither has any English.

Preparation, according to the ring of directions around the lid, consists of opening the lid partway, adding the soup base and boiling water, and closing the lid to wait three minutes. Nothing is mentioned about the veggie bits or just how much water, though an assumption to include the veggies with the powder and pour to the inside fill ridge seems to have worked out decently.

The results are basically Nong Shim's "Seafood Ramyun" with more and larger pieces of seaweed and fish cake, and grittier broth. The heat level and flavour are very similar, and in no way is this a bad thing. It's a very satisfying bowl, though I wish it were shorter....

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 4, heat 4, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Jake Kaufman - Contra 4 (DS) - Factory

News: Instant Noodle Recall

2010-01-31T17:34:00.000-08:00

In the interest of safety, I'll repeat this rather relevant bit of news here:

In the United States, Jin Mai Lang brand instant noodles are being recalled. The reason given is that federal regulations regarding product inspection have not been met. This means that the health risk is low, but may be present. Just thought my readers should know. And no, I haven't reviewed anything by this brand yet.

Wu-Mu "Dr. Noodle: Shiitake Flavor Spinach Ramen"

2010-01-29T14:33:00.000-08:00

Brand: Wu-Mu
Flavour: Dr. Noodle: Shiitake Flavor Spinach Ramen
Format: brick-in-packet (times four)
Packets: two (times four)
Identifiables: green noodle brick, dried veggies, salt, spotty oily stuff
Sodium: 1.24 grams

This morning, I woke to find my wife eating ramen for breakfast. It turns out that she couldn't help herself when faced with a large, friendly package with a large, friendly line-art doctor on it. I'm not sure what this means for our relationship, but speculations about that would have to wait. At any rate, this is why the pictures of the package appear after having already been opened.

One of the types of instant noodle offered by Ramenbox is a large green-hued package by the Taiwanese "Dr. Noodle". It takes up three slots in a Ramenbox, but since the package turns out to hold a plastic tray with four individual ramen bricks and (more or less) separate packets for each, it's a good deal. Once the package is open, the choice is yours; you can share with friends by making all four packets at once, store the rest in a sealed container for later, or even put them in small plastic sandwich bags to bring to work. This is an economical way to do ramen.

The amusing part – or the frustrating part, depending – is that the English text on the package is somewhat troubled. The entirety of the directions are as follows:

Stir 1 piece of noodles in boiling water.

Stir 3 minutes.

Add the spice of source and stir 1 minute, then you can enjoy the delicious ramen.

This meant that from that moment forward, I would think of Ramenbox as "the Spice of Source". It also means that I had no blinking idea how much water to boil! I had to pull aside the flap covering the illustrations to find the Chinese directions, and then decode the Chinese numerals before the "cc" unit notation. It turns out that 500cc is the recommended amount, which works out to a little over two Imperial cups. Once boiling, I slid in one of the healthy-looking green-tinted noodle bricks. (The packaging is fairly clear on the health benefits of noodle bricks which aren't fried, even offering a chart of fat levels, though I can't help but wonder how concerned they really are about health if they're using hydrogenated oil in the flavour packet. Ah well.)

The flavour packets aren't precisely singular. They come in pairs. Two of the pairs are foil packets with dehydrated vegetables and salt in them; the other two pair are translucent and show some sort of dark brown fluid with white oily spots throughout. They're well-pinked, though separating one half from the other for each pair requires either scissors or a willingness to be very, very careful about tearing them apart by hand as my wife apparently did.

The flavour is... green. There's spinach and cilantro to spare, here. The shiitake adds some depth, but this noodle is definitely all about the greens, and that's in no way a bad thing. The noodles have a suitable mouthfeel, neither too firm nor too mushy, and the occasional mushroom or carrot bit livens up the appearance if not the texture. The broth is somewhat oily, however. In total, I'm not sure I can really put this on my recommendations list, but I'm not scratching it off, either. It would be a nice change of pace from meat-flavoured ramen with little vegetable influence, but if you're picking these up, there's a wide range available anyhow. I look forward to trying this brand's other offering.

"You can set your mind at ease, because we can guarantee your expenditure!"

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Faith No More - Album Of The Year - Pristina

Ve Wong "Mì Bò Hu'o'ng Cay Kháu Vị (Artificial Peppered Beef Flavor)"

2010-01-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

Brand: Ve Wong
Flavour: Mì Bò Hu'o'ng Cay Kháu Vị (Artificial Peppered Beef Flavor)
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, oily sludge, veggie bits, flavour powder
Sodium: 1.71 grams

Today, I wanted to get one more review in before I'm on holiday for a week. I dug around the Ramenbox I received, looking for one of the scarier packets... just for you, my valued readers.

There's a backwards cultural conditioning we have which insists that "natural" is better than "artificial". Food science has come a long way, hwoever, so this isn't always the case. Artificial flavourings were one primitive mockeries of their inspirations. Now, the artificial can sometimes taste even better to us than the original because it's consistent, controllable, and much less likely to turn or spoil. Still, people have their old habits, and that's why most packaging downplays the presence of artificial flavours as much as the law will allow. Ve Wong takes a different approach. They come right out and say, "This flavour is artificial peppered beef. You'll like it." The question is... will I?

The unusually shiny packet has silver-finish areas in the background and a very modern-looking grid which may be orange to signify beef, or may simply be orange because it's cheerful. How frequently does one see words bearing two apostrophes, outside of dubious fantasy novels? Frequently, when one is reading Vietnamese; that explains the odd title of this post (which may or may not show up properly, depending.) The package also has plenty of Chinese on it, which means your humble ramen-blogger has no hope of translating it. The Vietnamese, though, works out to "fragrant plant beef flavour noodle," I think. That's close enough to "peppered beef" for me!

The packet's contents are slightly thicker than the average. There are plenty of noodles inside, in a brick which seems slightly more cooked on one side than the other. That seems natural enough. One of the inner sachets is labelled "flavouring oil" and contains a grainy, orange-and-brown oil mixture with a strange vaguely-beefy scent. The other sachet holds light-coloured powder and dessicated veggies of varied types. It's all as straightforward as the average ramen, except that the directions for cooking include both in-the-pot (boil everything together with two cups of water for two minutes) and in-the-bowl, which I followed. That simply meant opening all the ingredients into the bowl, adding two cups of boiling water, and letting stand covered for three minutes. Who don't more ramen packets have these sort of instructions? They'd make my life much easier.

The results? Yet again, I finish lunch before the review's done, and even completely forget to get a photo of the finished product. The noodles have a good texture and slurp easily. The broth is a bit on the salty and oily side, but slightly spicy, full of convincingly beefy flavour and satisfying bits of cabbage and such. Dark brown bits of flavoured soy protein added the visual effect of beef in the dish, but little texture. Overall, there's nothing to fear from the artificial flavouring, and I recommend this ramen rather highly.

Corporate shill postscript: Remember, if you want to order some, head to Ramenbox and look for it there. Use the coupon code "CHEAPERTHANFOOD" to get it for ten percent off!

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 2, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Nintendo Sound Team - Yoshi's Cookie (SNES) - High-Speed Baking Action!

Unif Tung-I "Chinese Onion Flavor"

2010-01-13T15:19:00.000-08:00

Brand: Unif Tung-I
Flavour: Chinese Onion Flavor
Format: cloud-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle cloud, oniony oil, flavour sand, dried chives
Sodium: 0.88 grams

This being the bonus ramen I got with my Ramenbox order, it only made sense that I review it first, yes? It's of a brand I've never even seen before, which is a huge bonus and a sight for this noodle blogger's sore eyes.

The packet's look is basically a primer in imported ramen visual design:

solid fields in bright primary colours – no gradients here!

poorly-kerned text in myriad fonts (not Myriad, which is one specific font) – I count seven, not including two for the company logotypes and one for the bar code

near-inexplicable line art – the fellow on front is clearly making ramen, but the directions on back look like a four-year-old's drawing of toaster pastries and a UFO

overhead photo of dolled up ramen – this one's got all kinds of meaty-looking stuff and a pea-pod! I'll have what they're having....

inner packets haven't a lick of English on them – not that this matters because they all go in at the same time

Turning this pale ivory cloud of gossamer rice threads into lunch is fairly straightforward. It starts with two cups of boiling water, though it's here that I trip up. Two cups of what size? This would seem to be eight ounces, but I've also seen packages give a metric equivalent that worked out to six ounces per cup (as in teacups) so I erred toward the latter, expecting that the worst to happen would be over-strong broth. The directions proceed: cook for three minutes (and the package notes specifically, don't overcook them) then stir in the contents of the well-pinked packets and serve. One packet holds a semi-solid oil with gritty bits in it, and I recognise this as being the same oniony oil experience so often in other instant noodle packages. The other holds what looks like sand but is certainly flavouring powder and salt, along with dried chives. Once stirred into the just-boiled noodles and broth, the oil and sand dissolve nicely and the chives reconstitute.

The result did turn out to be a strong, salty broth and perfectly-cooked rice noodles. In fact, the noodles fell apart just right to be picked up in small wads by the chopsticks provided by Ramenbox — and only once writing this did I realise that I'd neglected to photograph the completed cooked product, so instead I took a picture of what little was left over. You get the idea; imagine that but more of it, but only for a brief time. I found myself eagerly slurping up the simple, slightly-peppery onion broth and noodles with the sort of zeal that belongs only to the good stuff. When I find myself wanting another bowl right after the first, that's how you know it's a winner, friends, and this one is a winner. Even more so, it's what Lucky Me! was trying to be and completely failed at.

This just goes to show that even taking into account the "free food tastes best" phenomenon, good stuff can come in generic, unremarkable packages.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: DOKAKA - We Love Katamari (PS2) - Katamari on the Rocks

Ramenbox.

2010-01-13T15:15:00.001-08:00

Corporate shilling, in my blog? It's more likely than you think.

I already mentioned it once but now that I've had the chance to experience the service myself I find myself compelled – both by first impressions and by the deal I made with their marketing guy – to tell you lot all about Ramenbox. Simply put, this is an online shop specialising in ramen first and ramen only. The procedure is simple:

Go to the website at www.ramenbox.com. Isn't it pretty?

Select a tray with a certain number of slots. This will be what you fill with tasty instant noodles.

Peruse their respectable selection of ramen (I've reviewed about half of them before, and there are some reviews on their site!) and add the ones you want to your tray. Each ramen takes up a certain number of slots; most of them take one, but large ones can go up to three.

Check out, wait for shipping, and receive ramen.

But wait, there's more! The tray I received showed up with a bonus package which contained a few pairs of classy branded chopsticks (the square sort that always split unevenly, but that's part of the charm), a few packets of sriracha hot sauce, a cute Ramenbox sticker (maybe I'll put it on my PC case... or my laptop, if they pay me with more ramen) and – perhaps this is just because they're buttering me up – a super-secret bonus packet of ramen which I'll also be reviewing today. Looking at the spread I'm admittedly impressed. Every item I ordered was expertly packed in the tray (they must have a Tetris expert on the payroll) and the tray itself is a handsome cardboard deal which would sit conveniently on a pantry shelf.

Now, several people have asked me why they would order from Ramenbox when they have a nearby international market. I can offer several good reasons. The selection is pretty much guaranteed to have stuff you've never seen before and would enjoy. Some people don't live anywhere near a decent international market and really shouldn't have to suffer one more packet of Maruchan. Most of all... if being able to command ramen to be delivered to your doorstep isn't cool, then nothing on this blue space-rock is. Push button, get ramen. Oh, and another bonus: If you use the coupon code "CHEAPERTHANFOOD" then you get ten percent off the cost of the entire order just for being readers of this ramen blog. What more could you possibly ask?

Ramen junkies, these folks will hook you up. Seriously. Their slogan is "savor the choice" but I think it should be "We'll hook you up, ramen junkie." And they will.

That free ramen was totally worth the six bucks and the advertisement.

Knorr "AsianSides: Teriyaki Noodles"

2010-01-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

Brand: Knorr
Flavour: AsianSides: Teriyaki Noodles
Format: paper pouch
Packets: zero
Identifiables: noodle pieces, flavour powder, veggie bits
Sodium: 1.58 grams

This packet bills itself as a side dish, but I know instant noodles when I see them. If the marketroids at Knorr want to pretend that this food is somehow Asian, then it gets a review. Teriyaki flavoured? Definitely.

The first thing I notice on the package – besides the photo of perfect, if truncated, lo mein on the front – is that the cooking directions are simple, but booby-trapped. They start with one and a half cups of water, then immediately suggest a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Even if the word "optional" is right there in parentheses, that's always a little troubling. Is there some need for oil that couldn't have been served by, I don't know, adding more oil to the manufactured noodles, or parhaps a small packet inside like any other instant noodle? Oh, I get it; this is meant not for starving teens in college, but for busy people who are making dinner for other busy people. Of course they have vegetable oil just sitting about, waiting to come to life in a dish! We're supposed to be Alton Brown or something Vegetable oil! Fancy.

I used safflower oil. Hey, no trans fats!

Once the oily water was at a boil, I poured the package contents in. This consisted of noodles, what appeared to be the noodles; weight in flavouring powder, and small withered bits of dehydrated carrots and leeks. The noodles started tumbling in the boiling water, but the vegetables all clumped up at one end and formed an unsettling dark green menace which slowly bubbled toward me. I knew that I had only one hope for survival. I grabbed a spoon and stirred the rapidly rehydrating plant matter in with the rest of the dish. Dispersed that thoroughly, it couldn't possibly retain cohesion enough to strike! That's right... the world saved once more by the Electric Keet's quick thinking.

After seven minutes' simmering, the liquid in the pot had reduced to a thicker sauce-like consistency. It was then that I realised that the (optional) oil was far from (optional); it would mean the avoidance of several minutes of trying to scrape burnt noodles off of the pan. I slid the meal easily into a bowl, and thought... wow, perhaps that really is two servings' worth as the package insists. Then I remembered that I was making lunch, not a side, and I dug in hungrily – after two more minutes' waiting as directed on the package. Seriously, nine minutes of preparation? That's two to three times most instant noodles, and reaching macaroni-and-cheese levels of agonising wait.

The noodles end up having a rather sturdy consistency, which is good but entirely different from ramen. The sauce is nice and satisfyingly thick. The flavour is... well, it's typically American teriyaki sauce, a little too salty and corn-syrup sweet. It wasn't bad, but it felt excessive. Do they think we can't taste things otherwise? It wasn't excessive enough to keep me from finishing the bowl before I finished the review, though, and that's usually a good sign.

The same company making "AsianSides" also makes "PastaSides", "FiestaSides", and "SidesPlus". Those are for different blogs, however.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 0, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Taro Bando, Hajimi Wakai - F-Zero X (N64) - Dream Chaser

Tradition "Instant Noodle Soup: Vegetable Style"

2010-01-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

Brand: Tradition
Flavour: Instant Noodle Soup: Vegetable Style
Format: styrofoam cup
Packets: zero
Identifiables: noodle frustum, dried veggies
Sodium: 1.26 grams

When I speak of non-English written languages on ramen packaging, they tend to fall within a certain group. Given the origin of instant noodles, it makes perfect sense that the most common are Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Chinese. I'll occasionally see French or Arabic as translations for export to a wide spectrum of different nations. Today, however, I find myself looking at perhaps the rarest of the lot thus far, Hebrew.

Hebrew? Yes. Granted, there's not that much of it, but this cup of ramen prides itself on being not only kosher but pareve, meaning it doesn't count as either dairy or meat. This cup is a standard paper-lidded add-boiling-water-and-wait-three-minutes deal. The only unusual factor about it is that a stiff cellophane ring keeps the paper lid on, but it has no visible perforations and, out of desire to keep from tearing the weaker styrofoam cup, can only be removed by cutting.

Having grown up in a half-Jewish family, I keep wanting to make off-colour jokes about all of this, but now that I'm a corporate shill (or will be once those codes show up tomorrow!) I have to be careful not to offend anybody.

What I certainly can say is that being kosher may redeem this foodstuff in the eyes of Orthodox Jews, but the rest of us would be happier with other options – Maruchan, even! This ramen's flavour is underwhelming, more blandly cardboardish then anything. The noodles have an acceptable texture. The vegetables add a little taste, but there's honestly not much to detect here flavour-wise other than salt and monosodium glutamate. Less than halfway through the cup, I gave up and squirted some off-brand sriracha in there so it would taste like something, and that worked. Steer clear of this one unless you're trying to impress Uncle Moshe.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 4, heat 0, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: Isao Tomita - Holst: The Planets - Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity ~ Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age

Koka "Spicy Black Pepper Flavour"

2010-01-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

Brand: Koka
Flavour: Spicy Black Pepper Flavour
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder, oily sludge, dried veggies
Sodium: 1.29 grams

Some time back, I visited friends in Boston, and at one point we found ourselves in an Asian market. This is always a good chance for me to sniff out strange new varieties of instant noodles, and that is indeed where I found the now-infamous "porc cubes". Alongside those, I found this smartly-designed packet of a Singaporean brand I'd never heard of before, Koka.

The packet does its best to appear like a modern, healthy food. Among the claims highlighted in bold are: "non-fried", "no trans fat", "low fat", and the most amusing, "no MSG added". I can't help but think that I've mentioned before, but monosodium glutamate isn't some scary chemical. It's a bit of salt with glutamate wrapped around it. Glutamates naturally occur in meats, yeasts, and many vegetables; they are what give that fifth flavour we call "umami". MSG doesn't give people headaches any more than salted beef will. Interestingly, the ingredient label for this packet does list "hydrolysed vegetable protein" which is basically a vegetable extract chosen specifically to be loaded with the same stuff as MSG. This is commonplace. Anyone who thinks they've been avoiding MSG has almost certainly been pratically chugging the stuff under a different name. (Now you know!) Also, the front of the packet claims "less than 3% fat" while the back boasts of "1% fat". Granted, this is a fair cut from most ramen, but one wonders why they can't get numbers straight.

Preparation is as straight-forward as most of these sort of packets go. There's a specific call for 350ml of water to boil the noodles in for three minutes, and that does turn out to be just about right. Along with the noodles are the sachets, one of which is a double-decker of the sort that Indomie adores. One of the halves has powder and the other liquid, but the packet is reasonably well-pinked, so it's possible to do this without a scissors for assistance and avoid the mess. These are mixed in after the noodles are cooked.

The last packet is labelled "garnishes" and has a little blurb on one side about what's inside, complete with mojibake (this is an informal term for character shift in digital text as a result of a change of encoding; now you know!) on the word "season's". The summary is that the contents change on a seasonal basis. Apparently the season of manufacture involved large amounts of garlic, which would make it a favourite season of mine, to be sure. The garnish is added to the noodles last, and though there's no instruction to stir it together, it seemed like it simply ought to be.

The noodles definitely take on a strong black pepper flavour with the accompanying long-lasting "heat" of piperine. (That's the chemical in black pepper that gives it bite in the same way capsaicin does in chili peppers. Now you know! I'm just a regular font of knowledge today.) There's also a rather impressive garlic component. Neither of these are bad things in my book, but I'd definitely warn ramen novices that this is not the nice, safe, bland "Oriental flavour" of the more common eight-for-a-dollar brands. The rich broth soaks into the noodles until what's left is a thick sauce similar to the Indian-style Maggi instant noodles, and that sauce is mighty powerful. The garnish adds yet more garlic, a boon to garlic junkies everywhere.

The verdict? If you like chajang or other dark, rich flavours, definitely seek this one out.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: Ippo Yamada - Mega Man Zero (GBA) - Neo Arcadia

I find myself compelled on multiple levels to add a special segment called simply, "Electric Keet Sells Out." Last Friday, I recieved a very polite and enthusiastic e-mail from the director of marketing for an interesting new service called Ramenbox. It's like an online grocery, but specifically geared toward instant noodles, featuring a special system whereby one buys by the tray and individual prices are replaced by a number of slots per item. The prices are more or less comparable to the average international market, even once shipping is factored in. They have a decent selection, it seems, and about half of the items there are ones I haven't yet reviewed.

Now, I gather that I'm supposed to help them leverage the integrated opportunities of the value-added blogosphere paradigm to synergise real-time mindshare or something. In return for talking about the service, everybody wins, because not only will my loyal readers find a code for ten percent off their entire Ramenbox order, but I personally get a completely free (for only six dollars!) tray of ramen I can then review for this blog. There's no downside here, right?

As soon as the codes and tray of ramen arrive, I can post the discount code here for you lot, and I'll even give a full review the service. Stay tuned and tell your friends to start reading, because Cheaper Than Food is getting even cheaper!

Golden Wheat "Korean Style Stew Pork Flavour"

2009-11-18T15:08:00.001-08:00

Brand: Golden Wheat
Flavour: Korean Style Stew Pork Flavour
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle wall, veggie bits, flavour powder, pork sludge
Sodium: 2.31 grams

Just look at that package. This sort of ramen can be a nightmare if you're not prepared. The packet has no fewer than four languages. Even knowing two of them, I feel ill-equipped to tackle the thing. It reads "porc cubes" very clearly, and how could that possibly scare me, right? Perhaps the best part is that special care is taken to inform me that this is a "cooking noodle". Is that a noodle that can cook? Is that a noodle one uses to cook with? Is it already in the process of slow-cooking within the packet like self-heating coffee?

The directions are simple. "Put noodle and flavouring bag into boiling water (700ml) for 5–6 minutes and then it is ready for serving." The first point I'll note is that a package explicit enough to tell me that the noodle inside is for cooking somehow misses the critical steps of opening the flavouring bag... or that there are three such sachets inside, none of them labelled in English or French. The next point is that the French cooking directions have the header "MODE D'EMPLOL" which... is... sort of close. Finally, not only are there microwave directions, but a second set of "spaghetti cooking directions" below are basically exactly the same except for omitting the flavouring. The only logical interpretation of this is as a warning sign, a method of giving the consumer a second chance to "add your favourite pasta sauce". I considered following the implicit advice, but that would be unfair to you, dear readers.

The packaging was all easy to open, and the inner packets were rather well pinked. One of those packets contained standard-issue vegetable bits. A second had sand-like flavouring powder. The third, however, held a bizarre sort of grainy orange-brown oily sludge that took real work to squeeze out of the packet and into the pot. A small glob accidentally hit the burner, and I readied myself to open a window, but not a single wisp of smoke came from the lump as it boiled away. I suppose inexplicable things happen sometimes.

After five minutes, I poured the cooked mess into the bowl and found that there were indeed tiny little cubes of something vaguely resembling fried pork. My ramen had more pork in it than the average can of "pork n' beans"! And the aroma, the thick, enticing aroma....

This ramen tastes like Pork. I could say it tastes like pork, but it's more than that; it's a lot of pork, and once I've said that I realise that it's actually more pork than pork is, so it must be the very essence of pork, hence the capitalisation. Read it a second time: this ramen tastes like Pork. There are little bits of cabbage and carrot and such, and they provide a nice counterpoint to the Pork. Cooking the perfectly-textured noodles with all the flavouring means that they've even absorbed a goodly measure of Pork. I can't stop eating it. The broth is even more intense, like a sort of unholy and addictive pig nectar or something. This instant noodle is unfairly awesome. The only way this could be better is if I didn't have to prepare it in a pot but... well, actually opened it up to find just-cooked noodles.

I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned here.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: Ryoji Yoshitomi - Wario Land 4 (GBA) - Arabian Night

Indomie "Mi goreng Satay / Mi goreng Pedas"

2009-11-12T14:00:00.001-08:00

Brand: Indomie
Flavour: Mi goreng Satay / Mi goreng Pedas
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: five
Identifiables: noodle brick, fried onion bits, sludgy oil, flavour powder, chili powder
Sodium: 0.78 grams / 0.92 grams

According to Wikipedia, Indomie has released eleven flavours of their instant Mi goreng noodles. I have now tried six of these (1, 2, 3, 4, and the present two), and a seventh which isn't even mentioned on Wikipedia. Comparatively, Diet Coke has twelve varieties released worldwide. Every single variety of Diet Coke tastes like a rusty android urinated into a bottle. Fortunately, every variety of Indomie's Mi goreng tastes like plain Mi goreng: pretty good, and with some little thing added on top of the base flavour.

Thus, this review shall be brief. I tried my remaining two flavours in the same lunch because I was rather hungry. The label of the Satay uses a maroon theme, while that of the Pedas is bright red. Appearance and preparation are precisely the same as every other Mi goreng packet. The Satay tastes like someone added a little peanut sauce to an otherwise straightforward Mi goreng, and the resulting flavour is... basically Mi goreng. The Pedas tastes like someone added a little hot sauce to an otherwise straightforward Mi goreng, and the resulting flavour is... basically Mi goreng. There you have it.

There, done with the Mi goreng and the short-form pictureless reviews. I know you lot look forward to the pictures of piping hot ramen, so those shall return. For now, dear readers, you'll just have to content yourselves with marvelling at how everyone has a greater fascination for the "Maruchan Yakisoba: Cheddar Cheese Flavor" – arguably closer to the nature of Diet Coke than Mi goreng – than anything else on this blog.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 2, heat 3/4, flavour 4, overall 3
Music: Neil D. Voss - Tetrisphere (N64) - Magic Fluter

Nong Shim "Kimchi Ramyun"

2009-09-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nong Shim
Flavour: Kimchi Ramyun
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle disc, veggie bits, flavour powder
Sodium: 2.26 grams

Occasionally, I travel to other places. Sometimes, when in those other places, I visit international markets. Frequently, upon visiting those international markets in other places, I buy instant noodles I've not yet seen. This is one of those times.

Unfortunately, these aren't always terribly interesting. Nong Shim has attempted to take the winning Shin Ramyun formula and adapted it to a kimchi flavour. Anyhow, I'll cut the review short and say that they haven't really succeeded. (I decided to be a little unorthodox with this review and prepare it dry-style, but that doesn't really affect the flavour.) I associate a certain tone with kimchi, a rather more vegetably (!) sort of thing than this particular noodle provides. It's spicy, but a bit less so than Shin Ramyun, which might be a plus to many of you. The vegetable flavour does come through a bit more, and the rich slightly-beefy flavour is perhaps a little less present, but these are more nitpicks than actual distinctions. If you like Shin Ramyun, you'll like this almost as much... but I must say, I'm still planning to buy the family packs of Shin Ramyun for my regular noodle enjoyment.

Yes, I buy Shin Ramyun in five-packs. I'm that dedicated. Someday I might go back and change the numbers on my old review....

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 2, heat 4, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Jake Kaufman - Shantae (GBC) - Tinkerbot Boss Battle

Maggi "Vegetable Atta Noodles: Masala"

2009-09-03T23:18:00.001-07:00

Brand: Maggi
Flavour: Vegetable Atta Noodles: Masala
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder, dried veggies
Sodium: 0.97 grams

A few years back, my wife brought home a handful of interesting items she'd found at a small international market. One of them was a packet of what looked like ramen, but claimed to be flavoured with masala curry. Indian ramen? At the time, such a thing was incredible, beyond my wildest dreams!

These days, I can review such a thing objectively and scientifically. So, I started by picking a flavour at random. The result was a packet which also claimed to be masala, but with "vegetable atta noodles" which, it turns out, are wheat noodles and a foil sachet containing both flavour powder and dried vegetables. I've joked before about how Indomie adds separate packets the way Gillette adds blades to disposable razors – which is, to say, with absurd abandon – but Maggi seems to have the opposite philosophy, and in no way am I complaining.

As an interesting aside, they refer proudly to their flavour packets as "Tastemaker". I don't even have any clever comments right now. All right, just one, and it's that I can't help but think of the Tastemaker as one of those gaudy 80's era World Wrestling Foundation steroid-beasts shouting incoherently about what they'll prove in the ring and to whom. That's right... I was sincerely worried that I would open this pouch and have the Ultimate Warrior jump out at me. (Ultimate Warrior, please don't sue me.)

Unlike most other instant noodles which either intend for thre to be significant broth or require draining, these indicate a very specific amount of water. The noodles and flavouring go in simultaneously, cook for merely two minutes, and then the entirety of the result is served as is. The water is enough to cook the noodles by boiling and steam, and then it soaks into them and forms a sort of gravy with the flavour powder. It's clever and convenient, especially for one such as me who frequently prefers sauce to broth.

The cooking noodles smelled good enough. The real question was whether they would taste as good as the ones I remembered from several years previous. The sad answer is... no. It may well be a personal taste issue, but the initial scent and especially the flavour came across not too distantly from Play-Doh. (Yes... after all these years, I still remember the taste. I mean, scent.) The masala only came through strongly near the very end of the dish where the sauce had collected at the bottom. The vegetables were nice, however, and I couldn't help but think that all the dish would need is a slight tweak of the noodle recipe to be much more appealing... but then again, this may indeed be the intended flavour. I'll just have to try to find masala wheat noodles at the nearby Indian restaurant to compare.

I wonder if the Tastemaker has a theme song...? This thought distracted me so much that I forgot to photograph the cooked noodles.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 2, heat 2, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: David Wise - WWF WrestleMania Challenge (NES) - The Ultimate Warrior

Nissin "Macaroni Macaronis: Tom Yam Goong Flavour"

2009-08-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nissin
Flavour: Macaroni Macaronis: Tom Yam Goong Flavour
Format: mylar pouch
Packets: two
Identifiables: macaroni, flavour powder, oily sludge
Sodium: 1.09 grams

I've reviewed macaroni and cheese. I've reviewed not-macaroni and cheese. Now, I review macaroni and not-cheese. If you enjoy the citrus-and-spice flavour of the Thai seafood soup known as tom yam goong then read on. If you don't enjoy it, then you're dead to me. Go away! (Okay, not really. You can stay.)

This particular journey starts with a packet which initially looks like any other ramen packet, except that the contents are loose and they rattle in that hollow way that only macaroni can. Inside the pouch are two smaller packets; one is opaque and filled with what looks and smells slightly like garlic powder, and the other is translucent to show the brown coagulation of oil and spice within. The latter smells very strongly of citrus, the key note in this dish.

Preparation is precisely the same as most other instant noodles. One needs only dump the contents into a half-litre of boiling water, wait three minutes, then stir in the contents of the packets and then enjoy. However, it is my firm belief that there should be one more step explicitly mentioned, and I would write it as such: "Let sit for two minutes such that the macaroni absorbs the broth and creeps toward the edge of the bowl like wheaty semi-sentient moss." This should be the inspiration for a dish to amaze kids. It amazed me a little, and I'm old enough to have a kid old enough to blog. (To think that my parents worried about how much time I spent on the computer...!)

Normally, I'd use a clear bowl, but only blue ones were available today. Still, I don't imagine much colour would show up in the broth anyhow. Aside from familiar orange oily dots at the surface, the broth is mostly clear. The flavour is subtler than expected, but that's in comparison to a dish which is renown for embarrassing those with delicate palates. It has a pronounced overtone of lime followed by chili and mixed seafood. The resulting hot-and-sour combination is satisfyingly tangy, though the instant version only comes so close as most similar ramen does.

As a note on the heat level... well, I have a confession to make. My last few reviews might be a little off. My tolerance for spice has risen sharply over the last few months, to where I order dishes at Thai and Indian restaurants "spicy as it would be back home" and I find the results to be comfortable, but not challenging. I'll do my best to attenuate that for the ratings, but I'm probably way off nowadays because I'd mark this a two and other would probably consider it a three-to-four.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Neil D. Voss - Star Reach (PC) - Scene 6

Ace Cook "Oomoriika Yakisoba"

2009-08-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

Brand: Ace Cook
Flavour: Oomoriika Yakisoba
Format: styrofoam tray
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, dried veggies, dried squid slices, soy sauce, herbs
Sodium: 0.20 grams

I purchased a new camera (with the gracious assistance of my roommate, Tanya.) This means that the ramen reviews shall rise again, and with new and improved photos! Naturally, to celebrate this fact, I review a ramen with no name.

In all honesty, it has a name, but not one that I can read conveniently. There isn't a single word of English on the packaging. I had to match squiggles on the packets to squiggles in the instructions to figure out the order... though, truth told, I could have guessed at it since most yakisoba prepares exactly the same way. I even took a little time to decode the katakana and found it to be an approximation of the actual brand name, "Ace Cook". It isn't visible in the photo, but the little pig next to the brand name? I think that's Ace. Ace is happy because he didn't have to be the mascot for "Lucky Me!"

The bowl is very well-designed. It's quite similar to the one used in Nissin's UFO Big in that one peels back one corner, puts veggies and boiling water in, the peels the other corner after three minutes and drains. The big difference is that the drain spout is larger... much larger. In fact, it's excessively large. It peels back to about a third of the lid's diagonal dimension and has so many drain spouts that the top two rows never had any liquid come out of them. It's hard to complain too much, seeing as how the usual problem is that it takes forever to drain the noodles.

There are small icons on the lid of the bowl to direct this process, but they're not as straightforward as one might hope. I'm reminded of the first time I came across one of these bowls, well before I started the review blog. I thought that all the ingredients were meant to go in during cooking, like most simple noodle cups. It turns out that yakisoba is far better when it's not made as soup.

The flavour is pretty much what one can expect from instant yakisoba. It's basically slightly-sweet soy with some varied vegetables and wheaty, well-textured noodles. This is a winning combination, and this particular brand has nailed it dead on. The large chunks of reconstituted cabbage and squid are quite welcome. Squid frequently scares us Occidental folks away from such a dish, but in the quantity found here, it doesn't provide a fishy flavour so much as a rich, satisfying meaty tone which really appeals. I imagine I could hand the prepared meal to somebody who didn't know it had squid, and they'd likely never realise.

I feel that the only way to improve the bowl itself would be to include a fork... or a naruto.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 4, heat 1, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: po! & Mustin - More Than Mario - Zebes Sunrise

Pulmuone "Fresh Noodles with Black Bean Sauce"

2009-08-01T00:31:00.001-07:00

Brand: Pulmuone
Flavour: Fresh Noodles with Black Bean Sauce
Format: plastic bag
Packets: four
Identifiables: noodle nest, bean sludge
Sodium: 2.02 grams

Two months! I know, all you Keet fans out there are wondering if I fell off the planet. Rest assured that I did not. I have, however, had a turbulent time of it, and the worst part is that the camera I was using gave up the ghost. I didn't want to use my phone's camera because it's not the greatest, but the replacement camera I ordered is on indefinite backorder and I didn't want to leave everyone hanging forever.

This particular dish is quite a departure from instant ramen, but it's fun enough that I had to share. It's a sizable plastic bag from the refrigerated section of the market. It has a nice picture on it of a bowl of jjajang, a Korean noodle dish with black bean sauce. Note that the picture does not have the sauce mixed in to the noodles. That's because once mixed, the result is a terrifyingly nasty-looking concoction which could turn one away on the spot if not for the delightful smell of it. It's not only real food, but it's really good food when done right.

When I tore the large bag open, I found four packets inside, two matching pairs. One pair was translucent, showing the sturdy-looking what noodles inside. The other pair consisted of thick silver mylar pouches like one might see holding ready-to-eat meals in a camping supply store.

The first part of assembling the dish was easy; boil water, add noodles, cook for four minutes, drain. The catch is that the second part involved boiling more water and heating up the silver packets, then opening the hot packets over the noodles. That's right, it requires either a second pot, or the patience to fill the first one again and then let the noodles get cold while the sauce heats. I went for the second pot. Then there's the tricky step of opening a thick plastic packet full of hot black bean sauce and not making a disaster or scalding oneself. There are notches on the packets for this, but the force required to tear them open makes that a difficult and messy proposition, so a scissors came in handy.

Fortunately, the result was very pleasant. The black bean sauce is heavy, but well-balanced. The deep, rich flavour of it goes well with the wheat noodles. The vegetables weren't terribly plentiful, but quite welcome. The catch is that there's perhaps too much sauce for the noodles, and I'd have balanced them out differently, and with a little less sauce I might have had an easier time picking noodles up with chopsticks. The other catch is that preparation is a little complex and possibly risky. This isn't a pour-and-forget cup noodle; this is an instant meal that has to be kept in the fridge until it's prepared. For that, however, it's incredibly tasty.

Anyhow... you're unlikely to find this outside a Pal-Do Market or similar international place, so just enjoy the pictures. (Then go read Thirteen Ribbons, the serial writing project I've been engaged in while I haven't been reviewing ramen.)

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 1, heat 0, flavour 5, overall 3
Music: Jivemaster - OCRemix - Sonic 3D Blast Power Puppet

Indomie "Mi goreng: Meat Ball Fried Noodles"

2009-06-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Brand: Indomie
Flavour: Mi goreng: Meat Ball Fried Noodles
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: five
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder, soy paste, oniony oil, chili powder, fried onions
Sodium: 1.26 grams

Most Indomie packets look rather similar, save for the colour trim and the colours of the bar showing the type of noodle. In this case, the packet is green and the bar is red with yellow text. It should be noted, however, that I tried the "Jumbo" packet, which also had a friendly pink bar with gaudy red-and-yellow-gradient letters reading "JUMBO". Supposedly, it is three servings' worth when prepared. Also of note is that the untranslated name of the dish is "Rasa Baso Sapi", which happens to be exactly what Yosemite Sam always mutters under his breath.

Interestingly, the noodles only take ninety seconds in boiling water to achieve a perfect texture. Ninety seconds isn't quite enough time to get all the ingredients into the bowl without making a mess, though having a scissors handy will allow such. As usual for Indomie, the various ingredient packets are arranged in pairs and tripleys, and they are pinked in the least helpful way.

As flavour goes, I haven't much to report. They might be "meat ball fried noodles", but they don't taste phenomenally different than any other Mi goreng I've had from Indomie. I might be able to distinguish them in an immediate comparison test, but otherwise I really wouldn't know a difference. That's just fine with me, really, because like most other Indomie flavours, these are too addictively tasty to be weighed down by such small concerns.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 3, heat 3, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Toshiharu Yamanishi - Thunder Force III (GEN) - The Grubby Dark Blue (Stage 3: Seiren)

Thai Kitchen "Spring Onion"

2009-05-29T14:19:00.001-07:00

Brand: Thai Kitchen
Flavour: Spring Onion
Format: plastic bowl
Packets: three
Identifiables: loose noodles, flavour powder, veggie bits, oniony oil
Sodium: 1.36 grams

I don't like you anymore, Thai Kitchen, and I really wanted to.

For starters, the packaging of this bowl made little sense. The cardboard sleeve had tabs to pull it apart, as though one might wish to reassemble it later for a souvenir. Not even I do that. Then, the thin paper lid to the bowl tears when attempting to lift it, meaning that the attempt to retain a coherent enough lid that it acts like one is a tall order indeed. Then, I had to go digging around in the loose noodles to find the oil packet – which I only knew was in there because the instructions mentioned it – and after all that, it was the sort that needed to be opened very carefully lest it squirt oniony chili oil all over. That stuff is red. It stains.

Furthermore, the packaging tries to plain that the bowl is two servings. I know I let other ramen slide on this because it's sort of endearingly irritating (endearritating!) like a young puppy chewing on one's slippers. This is a product with careful focus-tested package design and flawless English. I want to tell it, "No, you're a big dog now, stop trying to eat my bloody couch!"

The couch-eater – I mean, the ramen bowl – was easy to assemble. Open packets, pour into bowl, four boiling water to line, cover for three minutes, and enjoy. Why do they always put that little assumption there? Enjoy? I'll be the judge of that.

It turns out that it's a very mixed bag in this case. The flavour is actually rather good, if you like lots of onion. I love lots of onion, so this is a real treat. The catch is, the noodles stayed disturbingly firm, and they're short. This means that they're very difficult to pick up with chopsticks because they don't drape and they're slick. Slurping them is right out. A spoon would make it genuinely impossible. What good is an oniony delight if I have to work so hard at eating it? The broth is incredibly satisfying, at least, but I don't think it really salvages the dish on the whole.

As an added note, I'm slightly annoyed because the battery compartment lid on the camera just broke. I might simply tape it in place. I place the blame squarely on you, Thai Kitchen!

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 2, heat 2, flavour 4, overall 2
Music: Shnabubula - OC ReMix - Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance Behold the Winged Cathedral

Sapporo Ichiban "Kitsune"

2009-05-28T14:18:00.001-07:00

Brand: Sapporo Ichiban
Flavour: Kitsune
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle brick, soup base, graham cracker
Sodium: 1.94 grams

All right, it's not really a graham cracker. In person, though, you'd wonder, as it looks like one, feels a bit like one, and even smells a bit like one but saltier. It is most certainly kitsune-flavoured, though.

Here's an explanation, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Fox spirits are said to be particularly fond of a fried sliced tofu called aburage, which is accordingly found in the noodle-based dishes kitsune udon and kitsune soba.

What I have here is, therefore, kitsune ramen. It cooks like most any ramen at the start, if slightly longer; boil 600mL water, cook noodles for five minutes. This is quite a bit of water, but the package claims to be enough to serve three, so it's either too much or not enough. The noodles are wider than usual, but they seem similar to average ramen noodles otherwise. After that, the seasoning and fried tofu block are stirred in and it's all cooked for another thirty seconds before serving. When the cracker – I mean, aburage – was added, it almost immediately began to reconstitute and puff up.

The flavour is a bit difficult to describe. The broth is well-rounded, salty and very slightly spicy but rich with soy and gently spicy. The noodles have a good consistency. The tofu is a bit better than one might expect given its humble dried-slab-in-a-packet nature, but it's also strangely sweet. It's a little difficult to pull apart with chopsticks in the bowl, and it practically begs to be broken into small pieces before it's cooked so one can get a bit of that sweetness spread over many more bites. Still, the dish is well worth the effort.

I don't know if this tastes anything like foxes or fox spirits, but if it does, then I know why they've made themselves so difficult to catch. They'd all be eaten up by now otherwise!

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 2, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Andrew Sega (Necros) - Orchard Street

Indomie "Soto Mie Flavor"

2009-05-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

Brand: Indomie
Flavour: Soto Mie Flavor
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, chili powder, flavour powder, seasoning oil
Sodium: 1.36 grams

Today's mini-review covers an Indomie flavour which is slightly baffling. There are only three "sachets", for one thing. The chili powder is expected, the "bumbu sauce" powder packet is usual for Indomie products, but the seasoning oil... was chartreuse. Seriously. The package itself is lime green with a yellow banner, and the seasoning oil splits the difference, which is slightly unsettling.

This is a broth style, as opposed to most of Indomie's other noodles which are a dry style. When I added the seasonings to the cooked noodles, the scent that rose up from the bowl was distinctly fruity. I thought of breakfast cereal, specifically Trix. You know, the obscenely brightly-coloured cereal with the rabbit on the box? It turns out that "Soto Mie Flavor" means "chicken and lime soup" or something to that effect.

It's actually quite tasty.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Norio Hanzawa - Bangai-O Spirits (DS) - Forbidden Fruits Rhapsody

A Taste of Thai "Coconut Ginger Noodles"

2009-05-06T14:38:00.001-07:00

Brand: A Taste of Thai
Flavour: Coconut Ginger Noodles
Format: cardboard pyramid
Packets: four
Identifiables: rice noodles, coconut powder, spice mix, herb mix
Sodium: 0.91 grams

I know I keep having these month-long gaps in the reviews. That's mostly a good thing, being a combination of staying busy and having rather good leftovers in the fridge to rely on. Today, however, I saw this A Taste of Thai box with its curious inverted truncated pyramid shape and I heard the call.

Next time, I'll let it go to voicemail.

To start with, the directions on the box were slightly erroneous. They assume that removing the packets will leave the noodles in the box, which it turns out is simply not the case as the noodles come in their own packet. Furthermore, they direct to close the carton while microwaving, but a label on the top of the box – annoyingly pasted directly over the opening and locking tab, I'll add – read, "New Box! Revised Microwave Instructions: Keep Carton Open When Cooking." In the interest of total disclosure, I'll add that the punctuation there is my personal touch, as there was none on the package.

One packet contained noodles. Another packet contained three packets; two were opaque silvery things (one with the word "COCONUT" stamped unceremonoiusly on it as though an afterthought) and the third was a small clear packet which appeared to contain marijuana. It turns out, after a cursory glance at the ingredients, that the green stuff was actually coriander leaf. If coriander has been legalised in your state or country, you're welcome to it. I was obligated to partake of mine... purely as a matter of science, of course.

Cooking involved putting a cup of water into the box with the noodles and putting it in the microwave for three minutes. When I opened the microwave afterwards, there was a thin layer of hot water at the bottom of the carousel. I wondered if perhaps a leak had formed. I wondered if the bottom might give out when I lifted the carton. Neither was the case, however, and I stirred in the other packets' contents, marvelling at the amount of white powder which came out of one of them. Coconut is not something to be taken lightly. Another minute of cooking – and a quick wipe of the bottom of the carton – and I had a finished product. What would be the result of such strange machinations?

Truth told, the result was a rather unappealing mass of noodles which couldn't decide whether to stick to the inside of the box or each other, so they obligingly did both. Despite my best attempts, the seasonings weren't quite thoroughtly mixed in. I found it to be an unrewarding dig to the bottom, and one I can't recommend to anyone else. I've had worse, but I didn't pay nearly so much for it.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 2, heat 2, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: Malc Jennings - Robocop CPC Zone OC ReMix

One More Cup "Kimchi"

2009-04-10T13:44:00.001-07:00

Brand: One More Cup
Flavour: Kimchi
Format: cardboard cup
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle frustum, veggie brick, veggie bits, flavour powder
Sodium: 0.88 grams

So soon after the U.F.O. BIG, I decided to try another package which had minimal English on it. This time, all the text was Chinese except for the word "Kimchi" in a purple triangle and big friendly script letters reading "One More Cup" across the picture of a bowl of the stuff. Now, the name "One More Cup" leads me to wonder about the possibilities. When I lived in Ann Arbor, MI, there was a coffee joint called "Not Another Café", and the question was whether that was a declaration of uniqueness or a pander to the common groan of seeing yet another trendy café pop up in the area. Now I live in a place where there are more cafés than stop signs...

...but I digress. My mind conjures a bizarre commercial for this product in which a group of Taiwanese office workers are readying to eat lunch. One says, "If I have to eat one more more cup of instant noodles, I swear I'll—" He is cut off by a flash of light and the ramen cup in his hands has miraculously changed to the One More Cup brand. He slurps some noodles, grins, and gives a victorious thumbs-up to the camera. Then a monkey steals his suit jacket and the whole group laughs about it in freeze-frame.

I mean... have any of you ever had that dream?

It took me a short time to decode the directions while I peeled the foil top away from the cup. I know what a few numbers look like in Chinese (hint: the first three are dead easy, as is zero) so I was able to deduce that I was to pour 320 cubic centimetres of boiling water into the cup. There is no line to assist in this. I also guessed, by looking at which characters in the instructions matched the packet, that the soup powder went in before the water was added. I simply assumed that everything in the vegetable packet was to be dumped in before the water. It turned out that the vegetable packet was not to be a group of loose veggie bits, but a single orange cake. By now, however, I'm kind of accustomed to that.

I searched around in the instructions for a number. My suspicions were confirmed, and I waited three minutes after pouring in the boiling water. Then, I had my metal chopsticks handy – they were only a dollar-fifty at Daiso! – and all that remained was to photograph and eat. (The truncated photograph is because either the camera or the memory card is on the fritz and I haven't bothered diagnosing which.)

While the flavour was somewhat reminiscent of what it claimed to be, it really came across more as barbecued pork with a little kimchi on the side, which is by no means bad but definitely not at all what I was expecting. The noodles are quite standard "cup noodle" fare, meaning just firm enough but nothing to write home about. The vegetables are a welcome addition, and the cabbage bits do have a vinegary taste to them which is pleasant to those of us fond of kimchi. I'll give the flavour a four because it is that good, but the cup really should read "Spicy Pork" instead of "Kimchi".

How will I get that commercial out of my head, though?

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 2, flavour 4, overall 3
Music: Shpongle - Tales of the Inexpressible - Dorset Perception

Chewy "Thai Rice Vermicelli: Tom Klong (Smoked Fish) Flavour"

2009-04-07T14:06:00.001-07:00

Brand: Chewy
Flavour: Thai Rice Vermicelli: Tom Klong (Smoked Fish) Flavour
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: one-plus-three
Identifiables: noodle cloud, flavour powder, oniony oil, chili powder
Sodium: 1.33 grams

As we all do, I fall into a good few patterns of predictability. Asked to choose a number from one through ten, I will almost always choose five. Presented with objects of equal quality but differing colour, I will almost always choose the purple one. Served two dishes of food, only one of which is spicy, I will almost always eat the spicy one first. Brought to a bagel shop for lunch, I will almost always order a bagel with lox and onions, because I love smoked fish and onions. When I pick up a packet of ramen with more Thai writing than English and a label that incidates that it is spicy and flavoured with smoked fish and onions, the first question is not whether I want it or even if I want it presently, but how fast can it be prepared?

In this case, the answer is, "about three minutes". This, friends, is why I love instant noodles.

Seriously, there are only ten ingredients listed on the packet and four of them are rice, fish powder, onion powder, and chili powder. There's nothing more complex or weird than monosodium glutamate. The package opens easily, and within it is a soft cloud of ultra-thin rice noodles and a packet containing three packets within. No, really, there's a packet packet within the packet of ramen. The three small packets contain a common spread; a foil packet with soup powder in it, a thick clear packet with oniony oil, and a small thin packet with chili powder. The small thin packet was actually a alrge tin packet, though, and it was stuffed so full of chili powder that some was trapped in the heat-sealed edge. I found it a bit endearing.

The directions recommend putting all the ingredients into the bowl and adding two bowls of boiling water. To be precise, they say, "Add 350ml (about two bowls) of boiling water," which indicates little more than a translation error when they meant to say "cups", but isn't it an amusing image? At any rate, one needn't involve a pot to cook anything, which is a definite plus. The result, when cooked, is a bowl of mostly-clear broth with a bit of orange colour from the chili powder and a mass of perfectly-cooked rice noodles.

The flavour of the dish boils down fairly well to what it says on the package. It tastes like smoked fish and not much else, save for some onion. I find that wonderful because I really like smoked fish and onions both. It's rather spicy because I dumped in the entire chili powder packet, but obviously that's en entirely optional component and could be adjusted as desired. However, it has been rather well-established that I am a bit of a masochist and will generally go whole-hog. This, I do for you, loyal readers; this, I do for you.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 5, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Tim Follin & Geoff Follin - Silver Surfer (NES) - BGM I

Noodle King "XO Sauce Flavored"

2009-04-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

Brand: Noodle King
Flavour: XO Sauce Flavored
Format: plastic tray
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle mass, dried veggies, flavour sludge
Sodium: 0.52 grams

Before I opened this package, I had no idea what "XO sauce" was. What I did know was that the tray was a high-class production, all black and very slick. Upon opening it, I was even more surprised; the plastic lid matched, and the bowl itself had a clear plastic liner inside which seved both to create a smooth surface so the veggies wouldn't get stuck in creases and to create an insulating gap of air so the outside of the bowl would stay cool. Very spiffy!

The other contents of the bowl were more standard. There was a roughly-circular mass of yellow dried noodles, a mostly-opaque white packet containing dried veggie bits (including corn!), a mostly-opaque red packet containing some sort of pitch-black flavouring sludge, a small piece of paper with standard preparation instructions on one side and microwave oven instructions on the other, and a small plastic fork for convenience. This was beginning to seem like the perfect businessman's lunch. You know, bring in a really spiffy-looking noodle bowl, prepare it easily with hot water, and there's even a fork included. No mess, no fuss!

Unfortunately, there were a few hitches. To facilitate the preperation of the "dry style" noodles, two corners of the lid had three small cuts to form waterspout holes, but they had to opened manually and it was a bit of a challenge. Also, while the bowl itself was somewhat insulated, the lid got very hot after three minutes of boiling water under it, so draining the noodles was slightly uncomfortable. After cooking, the sludge packet opened easily with a notch on the side, but the sludge inside was slow to squeeze out and it left a good bit of gritty remains which simply couldn't be coaxed from the packet.

The smell was... very odd, slightly fishy, and rich without being particularly distinct. It reminded me of fried rice, which makes perfect sense when one reads about XO sauce. Imagine somewhat brown noodles that taste rather like salty fried rice, and you have about the right idea. (Apologies for not having photos of the prepared noodles; I got a little ahead of myself.)

The catch, of course, is that the noodles were undercooked despite strict adherence to the directions, and they had a strong flavour of their own that was slightly unexpected (though not unpleasant). Also, the sauce was somewhat clumpy, so there were noodles without much flavour and then pockets with a very strong salty-seafoody punch, though even then it didn't seem very spicy at all. It seems like the dish would have been far more pleasant were it not for these facts, as the flavour was rather enjoyable. I find myself wondering if the microwave directions might have been the preferable option, so I'm allowing a higher score based on the idea that warming the sauce sachet a bit and cooking the noodles slightly more would have helped.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 3, heat 2, flavour 4, overall 3
Music: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here - Wish You Were Here

Cream of Wheat "Instant: Original Flavor"

2009-04-01T12:17:00.001-07:00

Brand: Cream of Wheat
Flavour: Instant: Original Flavor
Format: paper packet
Packets: zero
Identifiables: loose farina
Sodium: 0.16 grams

Sometimes, one will spot a ramen which is clearly meant explicitly for the American market. It will seem to prepare like any other instant noodle, but the packaging will have Western sensibilities and the flavour of the stuff will bear almost no resemblance to Eastern cuisine. This was such a case. From the cheerful chef pictured on the box to the stalks of wheat also pictured on the box, the packaging sets the seasoned instant noodle eater ill at ease. Merely one solid colour for the background? Where is the photo of the expanse of noodles accompanied by meats and vegetables of all sorts? Even Samyang Ramen had that much.

It turns out that the box contained twelve packets within it, each an individual portion. I knew from the size that I was probably buying a multi-pack, but I didn't realise how small the individual packets inside were; twenty-eight grams is less than half the size of even the smallest ramen packets! I opened one up – easily, even without any sort of pinking on the packet – to find that rather than noodles, it contained what appeared to be coarse-ground wheat with nothing indicating additional spices, herbe, or vegetable matter. Undeterred, I boiled two-thirds of a cup of water as directed.

At first, when I poured the water over the fine sand-like pile in my bowl, it appeared for all the world like... wet sand. Chopsticks – even from IKEA – would not do for this, so I grabbed a plastic spoon to help. After a minute of stirring, however, the product soaked up all the water until it had a sort of gritty paste-like consistency reminiscent more of grits than ramen. Hesitant but unwillign to back down from a challenge, I spooned some up.

The very short cook time is definitely in its favour, but because it's not fried, it has less flavour than one would expect from even unadorned wheat noodles from Nissin or Ottogi. In no way was it bad, but it simply doesn't have anything to recommend it when there are incredibly enjoyable flavours to be had. It turns out, from looking over the box more carefully, that there are other flavours including such things as "cinnamon swirl" and "strawberries 'n cream". As unusual as ramen varieties have been, even the sweetest of them still held firmly to the savoury camp. Fellow noodle lovers... I simply don't think America is ready for this product.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: The Who - Who's Next - Won't Get Fooled Again

Nissin "U.F.O. BIG"

2009-03-31T21:58:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nissin
Flavour: U.F.O. BIG
Format: styrofoam bowl
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, liquid sauce, garnishing herbs
Sodium: 2.80 grams

One of my roommates presented me with a gift. It seems that she'd been to an international grocery and spotted a square bowl with garish cellophane packaging bearing a picture of tasty-looking yakisoba, the bold declaraction of "130g!", and no English save for the name of the product: "U.F.O. BIG". Preparation would be a completele mystery, since the iconic directions were covered by a post-hoc nutrition label. Apparently, alien invasion begins with instant noodles.

Fortunately, once I'd peeled away the cellophane, the foil lid on the bowl had even more detailed iconic directions. I followed them as closely as I could, guessing by the repeated digit "3" in the sea of Japanese script that the cooking time would be three minutes. The process followed as such:

Pull front tab 1 to easily open lid as far as line 2.

Remove large opaque foil packet of liquid and small translucent packet of herbs and tiny mysterious pink bits.

Pour in boiling water, cover with lid, and wait for three minutes.

Tear side tab 3 across to reveal array of drain holes, and tilt bowl over sink to drain well. Remove lid.

Struggle to open the pinked but nigh invulnerable opaque packet, give up, and take a scissors to it. Dock entire point from packaging score in fit of pique.

Pour black liquid over noodles. Stir until noodles are a uniform medium brown.

Open small translucent packet easily and attempt to sprinkle contents over top of noodles. Instead, watch entire contents spill out into one central mass of herbs and inexplicable pink bits.

Stare at pink bits for a short time, recieve no help from ingredient list, wonder why licorice extract is on there.

Eat with alien-green (aliens are green, of course!) IKEA chopsticks. Enjoy.

The flavour was somewhat sweet without being overbearingly so, and reasonably rich with soy and vegetable components. The noodles were standard Nissin quality, meaning they had just the right tooth and a good flavour.. The cabbage bits were a pleasant surprise, especially in how well they reconstituted. I still have no idea what the pink bits were. And yes, if I stretch my imagination, I think I can taste a smidge of that licorice influence, though I wouldn't call any of this alien. Perhaps, however, it just might be... out of this world.

No, I still don't have the marketing chops.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 1, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Machinae Supremacy - Jets'N'Guns (PC) - Little Green Men

Nissin Choice Ramen "Slow Stewed Beef"

2009-03-30T15:12:00.001-07:00

Brand: Nissin Choice Ramen
Flavour: Slow Stewed Beef
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle disc, flavour powder
Sodium: 0.80 grams

Nissin elected to introduce a line of health-conscious ramen in America. It's called "Choice Ramen" and it features some very interesting claims. I'll avoid getting into a discussion of modern nutrition here, but the package does state the ramen to have one-fifth the fat of their normal product. More specifically, it says "80% Fat Free", which implies that it's twenty percent fat, but there is a small disclaimer that it's a compariton to their normal ramen, which is especially strange to say since their normal ramen is about one-fifth fat to begin with. On the back of the package, somebody wised up and changed the claim to "80% less fat", but without a disclaimer. I suspect I will never understand marketing types, and I also suspect that this is a good thing.

I'll also note that the primary ingredient in the flavour mix is monosodium glutamate. This isn't inherently bad, but some people are sensitive to the stuff, so it's a point to consider.

The package itself opens easily to reveal a yellow noodle disc in its own cellophane wrapper. That's slightly strange, and I find myself wondering if this is for some genuine concern of preservation or an attempt to lend more prestige to the product than the usual ramen holds. The preparation is also slightly unusual; the flavour packet is added after the ramen is cooked. At any rate, I followed the directions and let the noodles cook while I prepared my white chopsticks. White chopsticks, because it's light cuisine, get it? Perhaps I'm catching on to this marketing thing after all.

Upon tasting, I was struck by the flavour. Far from any beef ramen I'd had previously, this was tangy but not terribly rich, and oddly a little sweet. The umami of the MSG gave added dimension in the same way a sickly yellow light might give warmth to a jail cell. I can't help but wonder if this is supposed to give the impression of slow-stewed flavour at the same time as "light" cuisine, but it all seemed almost insulting. It's probably the lower-fat formulation to blame.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: Prodigy - Mindfields (LT3M Radio with DJ Failover)

Nong Shim "Seafood Ramyun"

2009-03-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nong Shim
Flavour: Seafood Ramyun
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle disc, dried veggies, soup powder
Sodium: 2.42 grams

I found myself staring at the pantry shelves, wondering what to have for lunch. My eyes kept drifting to the ramen, and I'd admonish myself. "No, self, we have ramen all the time." I couldn't resist for long, however, and before I knew it I was carrying a bright red packet back to the kitchen in a sort of hypnotised shambling way. I didn't even bother getting the camera for pictures; I needed the ramen and I needed it bad.

Upon opening the packet, I caught a strong whiff of seafood. It turns out that some of the seafood flavour comes from something on the noodles themselves, perhaps added to the oil that goes into them. This also meant that the packets were a little oily on the outside, but that didn't metter to me. The noodle disc and veggies went into boiling water, and four very, very long minutes passed.

I should note that sometimes I'll prepare a soup-style ramen as a dry-style. What this means is that instead of adding the flavour packet to the broth, I'll drain the noodles and then mix in the seasonings. I'd decided to do that with this ramen, especially because experience tells me that Nong Shim tends toward very spicy noodles and I love the heat overload. Yes, I'm a capsaicin junkie. Anyhow, I figured this would be a very informal review, so I allowed myself this variation on the directions.

I drained the noodles, stirred in the reddish powder, and barely got out of the kitchen before I was hungrily slurping up the noodles. I must say, this flavour is precisely as though they decided to take Shin Ramyun and make it more fishy. Salty, yes, but with a very satisfying rich flavour, and the heat carries with it a tangy roundness that really makes it sing. I'll rate this flavour as higher than the standard Shin Ramyun because of that balance. This has become a favourite, I think.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 4, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Yoko Shimomura, Koji Kondo - Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (DS) - The Yoshi Village

Wai Wai "Oriental Style"

2009-03-18T14:18:00.001-07:00

Brand: Wai Wai
Flavour: Oriental Style
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, chili powder, soup powder, garlic oil
Sodium: 0.93 grams

I dug through the box which holds Batch Three, looking for something interesting for the day's review. I found one that was small, quirky-looking, but simple. After all, there were a total of nine ingredients, all of which I had in my kitchen at the moment. If anything, I feared it would be too boring to be of interest. It was under this happy delusion that I began to photograph.

Note the complex, over-saturated arrangement of food items on the packet. We can see noodles, eggs, prawns, several types of chilis, mint, lemongrass, what might be chicken or duck, something yellow, and what looks like a tongue made of strawberry jam. None of these are in the packet, save the noodles. Pause a moment and imagine my relief.

There is a clear window on the packet which shows the medium-brown dried noodles inside, and I figured that tucked behind the noodle brick would be a single flavouring packet. To my great surprise, there were three packets inside, two of them conjoined Indomie-style. One clearly held a small quantity of ground dried chilies. Another was translucent but appeared opaque white from the soup powder within. The third, however, was an inscrutable blue packet with liquid inside. Had I missed some of the directions? I checked carefully, and here they are, verbatim and including typoes:

INSTANT
1. Pour in boiling water.
2. Put cover on and leave to sit for 3 minutes.
3. The good tasted instant noodles soup is now ready to serve.
COOKING
1. Add noodles to boiling water 400cc. Simmer for 2 minutes,stir occasionally.
2. Remove to the bowl with seasoning. Stir,the noodles are ready to serve.

Once I decoded them, I elected to follow the latter batch of instructions, even though only the former held the promise of "good tasted instant noodles soup". While the noodles boiled, I opened the adequately-pinked packets and emptied them into a bowl, nearly squirting semi-opaque garlicky fluid past the bowl. My poor aim was, of course, a result of shaking hands... hands which shook with a mix of terror and exhiliration. During my hiatus – no, let's call it a sabbatical – I had forgotten how it felt to be in over my head, to be held hostage at the culinary whim of ramen. There's a strange joy to it.

After two minutes, I stirred the noodles and liquid together with the spices in the bowl. The result was a small hill of noodles which disappeared about two millimetres from the surface of an unappealing-looking tan broth, complete with a sheen of oil on the top. I thought of the "Lucky Me!" brand and shivered, even in the warmth of my own home. Would this be a repeat... or worse?

The truth is that the results are disappointingly – or maybe mercifully – bland. The noodles had a firm texture, possibly slightly undercooked, and they didn't soak up much of the taste. The broth itself was as murky in flavour as in appearance, being little more than garlic and chili. In fact, the broth seemed to have leached much of the wheaty flavour of the noodles, which meant that drinking the broth was actually more enjoyable than eating the noodles. Given that the ingredients were so few but the packets so many, the noodles were not cooked with the seasonings but the broth was kept, and that the broth ended up more interesting than the noodles themselves, the one word I would use to describe this ramen is "backwards".

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 2, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: The Alpha Conspiracy - Cipher - Cross Product

Nissin Cup Noodles "Mast Masala"

2009-03-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nissin Cup Noodles
Flavour: Mast Masala
Format: plastic cup
Packets: zero
Identifiables: noodle frustum
Sodium: 1.35 grams

Naturally, given the overblown anime name of this batch, I'll start it off with an Indian dish. I found this cup at a nearby Indian grocery, and given that I'm a fan of the cuisine I simply had to grab it. Plus, it's clearly labelled as a "Proprietary Food" and that's just not a context I often see the word in. I'm guessing that it means Nissin is the only company putting instant Indian-styled noodles in a cup. Is that worth bonus points?

The cup is plastic, not styrofoam. I do prefer the plastic because it's far less likely to be crushed into oblivion by clumsy pallet handling, and it's somewhat more recyclable – though I'd be more impressed with that were it not for the difficult-to-recycle foil lid and the additional cellophane around the whole package. (Tell your friends, CTF is going annoyingly green. In fact, all these electrons are one-hundred percent post-consumer content!) The plastic cup is slightly tricker to handle when hot, however, and requires that the consumer be more intelligent than the product. (I'm shaky on this point, but learning with every attempt.)

I got a closer photo of the inspirational text on the side of the package. You know, I could probably dedicate this blog to the memory of Dr. Momofuku Ando.

The cellophane covered the nutritional facts on the lid with a paper sticker bearing nutritional facts. This is less absurd when one considers that the latter is the U.S.-style fact sheet indicating the serving size facts and the one on the lid... isn't. Either way, it should be noted that Indian cuisine is frequently the most efficient way to eat vegetarian without accidentally eating healthy at the same time. Regardless, the lid came off with little effort and no tearing. In fact, you'll notice in the photos that I erred by pulling the whole lid off instead of peeling half back. (Like I said, I'm learning.)

After cooking the noodles by pouring boilign water in and waiting for three minutes, I noted that there was rather less broth than most Cup Noodles. What was there, however, was fairly rich and spicy, with a good amount of pleasant but not spectacular flavour. The noodles themselves are quite standard for the format, meaning they in no way conflict with the seasonings. I sincerely wish this flavour were available locally instead of via import, as it would then be as inexpensive as the shrimp Cup Noodles and I'd likely make it my regular instant noodle.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 4, heat 3, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Yuzo Koshiro - Etrian Odyssey 2: Heroes of Lagaard (DS) - Labyrinth VI ~ Forbidden Forest

Round Three: Graceful Noodle Savior Ramen 7 SPLASH!

2009-03-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, this batch doesn't scare me, except for most everything in the top-left corner. And the top-right corner.

Indomie "Mie Keriting Goreng Spesial"

2009-03-04T13:44:00.000-08:00

Brand: Indomie
Flavour: Mie Keriting Goreng Spesial
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: five
Identifiables: noodle brick, vegetable bits, soup base, thick soy sauce, chili paste, oniony oil
Sodium: 1.14 grams

Before I talk about today's noodle, I'd like to talk about cell phones. Right now, I'm using my T-Mobile G1, built on the Android platform, to take pictures. There are a number of reasons to use the G1: sleek and snappy user interface, 3G data network, fairly tight integration with Google's wealth of online tools, full keyboard, and it's not a freaking iPhone. If you care at all about the quality of the camera on your cell phone, however, it will disappoint greatly. Nothing frustrates quite like having to struggle through ten pictures to get one that doesn't have motion blur just to end up with a photo that has poor focus and lousy colour balance. This situation is far, far from ideal. It's also why I have no picture of the final product, but don't worry; it looks about like one would expect, namely noodles with brown sauce and veggie bits.

I'd also like to talk about world politics for a moment, but I won't. I have a noodle review to get to.

On the package, below the brand name, there is a small line of black all-caps text which reads, "Special Quality Instant Noodles". That's a good start. The line below that, larger and in mixed-case red type, reads, "Mie Keriting Goreng Spesial". Below that is another all-caps line like the first which reads, "Special Fried Curly Noodles". I suppose I can understand some subtle differences between these three lines. After all, one line says nothing about quality, one line says nothing about curly, and another line doesn't say much of anything in English. Still, I couldn't help but feel that somehow I was wotnessing a bit of overkill in the attempt to impart the notion of "special noodles" upon the consumer. Thus, these must be very special noodles indeed.

The brick of flat, slightly wide noodles is a bit larger than the usual Indomie packet but not as large as their jumbo packets. As always, however, the flavouring sachets are in a two-and-three configuration, and as always the ones with the liquid are pinked in exactly the wrong way. As noodled boiled and I opened tiny packets, I found myself imagining the reaction of the first envoy of an extraterrestrial species whose first contact with humanity was not through direct conversation or through bovine vivisection, but a packet of Indomie noodles.

"These Earth people really love their instant noodles, Captain Ach'kanaitsa," one would say to the other, bobbing his egg-shaped head.

"Yes," that one would say to the first, "but these flavouring sachets cannot be opened properly by either telekinesis or direct physical manipulation without their contents spilling uncontrollably, Dave!"

"Are you serious, Captain? Must I fetch a scissors?"

"No, Dave. If their civilisation is so primitive that they cannot figure out which edge of a packet to put the ridges on, then we'll need more than that to deal with them. Prepare the anti-neutron planet penetration beam!"

Earth would be totally demolished thank to poor packaging design. Thanks, Indomie!

Once I followed the directions – "Take out noodles from water and drained well" was my favourite part – I had a bowl of noodles which looked very much like every other Indomie dish, save for the addition of tine vegetable and TVP bits. That's about how the flavour worked out, also; moderately sweet and rich, though not so oniony as usual. I don't know about them being particularly special, but these noodles certainly are enjoyable. It's almost worth the very real risk of failed intergalactic relations.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 4, overall 3
Music: III - Remastered Tracks Rockman Zero TELOS - Prismatic

Wang "Rice Noodle: Anchovy Flavor"

2009-03-03T14:00:00.001-08:00

Brand: Wang
Flavour: Rice Noodle: Anchovy Flavor
Format: cardboard bowl
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle filaments, soup base, brick of dried stuff
Sodium: 0.82 grams

I bet you forgot about me, didn't you?

You know, I felt bad over the last month that I just hadn't had the chance to do a proper review. It seems like I was doing them nearly every day, and then suddenly there were a lot of great leftovers in the fridge and I wasn't falling back on ramen. Then, I remembered that I have a higher calling, a mission, a real purpose. Mine is to bring the true, real, raw world of instant noodles to the rest of you fine people that you may vicariously experience the joys and sorrows and sheer bloody terror of this incredible medium for culinary artistry. (I also remembered that I'd left one of the bowls from the previous batch untouched, and I'd better get that out of the way before I started the next one.)

I had second thoughts when I looked at the package. Rice Noodle... Anchovy Flavor.

Now, I like anchovies. I frequently order pizzas with anchovies, I like anchovy in Caesar salad (blended with the dressing or bits added after), and anchovies are a fine way to add depth to the flavour of all sorts of dishes. Those anchovies, however, are either a paste or filets packed in liquid of some form. I knew that these would have to be dried, and as we all know, strange things happen to dried meats and fishes. I opened the package hesitantly, but filled with the same sort of eager but morbid curiosity I had when watching the Care Bears movies again recently. (As a note, the verdict is: Care Bears Movie II, fairly decent and watchable, but the first film... something went wrong in ways I can't quite explain.)

As the water slowly came to a boil, I stared apprehensively at the brick which came out of the "flake" packet. It seemed to be a lightly pressed block of suop base and vegetables and... yes, you can clearly see them, dried anchovies. The smell wasn't bad, but it definitely caused me to stop and think about just how far I'd come from thinking that the dried shrimp in Cup Noodles were something unusual. Had I perhaps gone too far? Might I have ended up out of touch with the common people's ramen and found myself perched in some ivory noodle tower? I poured boiling water over the soup block and the loose, translucent noodles and considered for two very long minutes whether I was on the right path.

When I opened the bowl, I was greeted by a rather standard-looking mass of cooked noodles in fairly clear brownish broth, and several things which appeared to be waterlogged twigs. I realised that these were reconstituted anchovies. I allowed my sense of duty to overcome my fear, and set my chopsticke to pucking up a goodly mix of noodle, carrot strip, and anchovy.

It turns out that the flavour of this bowl is rather well balanced. Despite the reputation of anchovies for being exceedingly salty, it seemed no saltier than any other ramen I've had and in fact less so. (The numbers back this up.) There was a bit of that rich, fishy flavour, but it didn't overpower the seaweed-and-mushroom-and-veggie component of the dish, and overall the broth isn't all that strong. The noodles are rather fine, which takes getting used to after so many bowls with rather thick noodles, but the effect works.

This just goes to show that sometimes our fear is misplaced. What seems scary – anchovy ramen! – can be decent, and what seems harmless, like cheese ramen.... All right, that was a poor example.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 4, heat 3, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Hideyuki Fukasawa - Street Fighter IV (ARC) - Africa Stage

Indomie "Onion Chicken Flavor"

2009-01-30T15:15:00.000-08:00

Brand: Indomie
Flavour: Onion Chicken Flavor
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, chili powder, oniony oil, flavour powder
Sodium: 1.56 grams

Indomie, you disappoint me. Only three "seasoning sachets"? Only one grammatical oddity in the cooking instructions? A flavour that doesn't even really excite me? I suppose we can't be at our best all the time....

"Onion Chicken Flavor", also labeleld as "Rasa Ayam Bawang", comes in a pale yellow packet with white Helvetica Narrow Bold text on a red bar. The usual exaggerated serving suggestion is there, complete with a roast chicken breast. Do not be fooled, fellow ramenauts; the packet contains only noodles and flavouring. Preparation is quite standard for this brand, including the "bring water to the boil" part. Nothing is terribly unusual so far.

Sadly, nothing unusual means uninteresting. I found the flavour less compelling than the usual Mi goreng, but it wasn't bad.

As a note... I think my heat calibration score might be going further out of whack. Anyone relying on it should consider the source; I regularly add a drop or two of Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce to a sandwich worth of egg salad because anything less is boring. My heat rating of three might be anyone else's high four.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Philip Glass - The Truman Show - Anthem, Part 2

Nissin "Cup Noodles: Chilli Crab"

2009-01-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

Brand: Nissin
Flavour: Cup Noodles: Chilli Crab
Format: plastic cup
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle frustum, veggie bits, soup sludge
Sodium: 1.41 grams

How long has it been? Too long, I hear you say. You didn't think this was over, did you? That's right, the Electric Keet is back with a whole new set of scary stuff. Photos later; first, I want to get a very special review underway.

Cup Noodles are a comfort food known to so many here in America. Popping oven a styrofoam cup, pouring in hot water, and chowing down on noodles and reconstituted bits of veggies... it's almost like a zen ritual to me by now. I don't have to think while I do it; the motions are as natural as tying my shoes. Then, I ended up with this cup from Singapore and everything I thought i knew was turned upside down.

First, the cup is plastic, not styrofoam. This is, of course, inexplicable. Next, the packaging has a markedly different tone in the way the text is printed on there, the introduction of French and Japanese writing, and the fire-engine-red background colour. Finally, a burst on the box insts that this will be my "new hot favourite". We shall see!

Opening up the lid turned out to be the first challenge. I'm accustomed to Cup Noodles with a thin paper lid, not a foil-lined one... and apparently, so is Nissin. The paper peeled away from the foil, meaning I had to go after it with a chopstick and mangle the thing to open it. Peering inside, I spotted a packet with red print, filled with some kind of black sludge. Since when do Cup Noodles have packets? It's as though this surprised everyone, because there is absolutely zero mention of the packet in the instructions. I thought for a moment that I heard the Twilight Zone theme music. As can be seen in the photo, I was so curious about the contents that forgot to take the photo before opening.

I squeezed the ichor into the cup and added water. I waited three minutes. I stirred the result and marvelled as little bits of imitation crab surfaced. Shrimp is one thing, but bits of imitation crab? Is this how things are done in Singapore? Were my IKEA chopsticks ready for such a thing? Was I?

The flavour was reasonably good, and certainly spicier than any of the made-for-America "spicy" flavours. The broth is thicker-seeming than usual, certainly owing to the sludge and the lower amount of water required to cook. The noodles seem slightly more wheaty, denser but thinner. The bits of imitation crab were... well, they were to crab as reconstituted shrimp are to shrimp, meaning surprisingly tasty but certainly not to be mistaken for fresh.

The verdict? I certainly would take it over even my favourite American flavour most days, but the packaging leaves plenty to be desired. This, of course, is merely the warmup. Stay tuned, friends, as Cheaper Than Food: The Ramen Break enters Round Three: Graceful Noodle Savior Ramen 7 SPLASH!

Also, mad props for the name of the next round go to... well as it was put, "With a strong back and a ferocious will, breaking through heaven and earth to reach tomorrow, I, the great and powerful Boss Goji, am responsible for this title!" You heard it here first, true ramen believers.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 3, heat 4, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Yuzo Koshiro - Streets of Rage 2 (GEN) - Good Ending

Maruchan "Yakisoba: Cheddar Cheese Flavor"

2009-01-01T16:09:00.001-08:00

Brand: Maruchan
Flavour: Yakisoba: Cheddar Cheese Flavor
Format: plastic tray
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle brick, "cheese" powder
Sodium: 0.96 grams

I'm sorry... so, so sorry.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 3, heat 1, flavour 1, overall 2
Music: The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets - The Shadow Out of Tim - Epilogue: Some Things Man Was Not Meant To Know

Ottogi "Jjajang Bokki"

2009-01-01T16:04:00.000-08:00

Brand: Ottogi
Flavour: Jjajang Bokki
Format: cardboard bowl
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle frustum, flavour powder, dried veggies
Sodium: 1.26 grams

(Apologies; this review is actually from 2008 December 19. Also, for this review, Diamond – the arctic fox in the photos – insisted on helping, mostly by getting in the way of said photos.)

Ah, another instance of the famed jjajang. I'll admit, I'm assuming the brand based purely on the matching logo, as there was English enough on this bowl for only two things: instructions for preparation, and a warning that hot soup may be hot. Well, if I'm cooking it in boiling water, it bloody well had better be hot!

Similar to the previous Ottogi bowl, this one follows the standard of having four scored areas on the lid easily punctured by any random chopstick to allow the cooked noodles to drain. Different this time is the careful instruction to not drain it completely. "Drain Through The Holes Leaving 4 Spoons (60cc) Of Water, Add Powder Soup Base, Mix Well And Serve." The number of holes is left vague despite their very specific labelling, the number of spoons of water is very specific despite the measure of remaining water being a very vague thing, and the entire passage is typeset in capital letters, including articles. I am not making this up, and I have photographic evidence.

Also, the little Ottogi mascot looks like Vault Boy from the Fallout game series crossed with Big Boy from the restaurant chain. I just thought I should mention that.

The best part of the directions is that they are echoed just under the scored holes, but in three half-length lines of text instead of five full-length lines below. Is the language simply that much more compact and efficient? Are Koreans simply that much less prone to confusion? Is one of those lines perhaps simply ad copy and they're really kicking our butts in the category of language efficiency? I want to know, but I don't want to learn Korean just to find out.

Then again, upon viewing the side of the bowl, there's a heck of a lot more Korean along with icons of just how far one should tip the bowl to achieve the correct amount of remaining liquid. The confusion sets in as I begin to wonder just how much I'm missing. Is there more to read in English? Did I get only page one of the directions? Should I be, I don't know, adding something?

It turns out that, no, I followed the directions properly, even if I did fail to notice that the lid had three (!) table to open it and I tore it a little trying to "pull back to dotted line". It also turns out that unlike the Ottogi jjajang from a packet, this stuff seems too salty, which is incredible considering that the sodium level is pretty much equal. In fact, it's clearly a different dish, a little lacking in flavour by comparison. I'm left wondering why they would reformulate the bowl version to have one fewer packet and inferior taste. If you crave the hearty, beefy taste of jjajang, go with the Ottogi packet or a different bowl.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 1, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets - The Shadow Out of Tim - Chapter I: A Marine Biologist

KOYO "Seaweed Ramen"

2008-12-16T14:59:00.001-08:00

Brand: KOYO
Flavour: Seaweed Ramen
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder with seaweed bits
Sodium: 0.79 grams

It's made with organic noodles. It says so right beneath the gigantic word "RAMEN" on the front of the package. I'll admit that I don't give much thought to instant noodles being organic because, frankly, I expect some portion of them to be inorganic. It is, however certified to be organic, so I suppose that's a significant bonus. I'm also assured by the packaging that it's low-fat, and that the charming illustration – not a photograph! – of a bowl of prepared ramen with veggies including star-cut carrots is purely a serving suggestion.

Now I'm imagining that gig. You're a professional freelance illustrator trying to scrape together enough money to afford crappy health insurance and gas for your ailing '87 Honda Accord, and then you finally get a cushy gig... drawing noodles. Just a few squiggles on a page, right? No prob. Except that they want a Japanese-style spoon picking some up, but none can drip over the edge of it. And they want a bowlful beneath that, with cute veggies on top. Cute veggies? Oh, and the seaweed has to be fresh and green-looking, even though you know that reconstituted seaweed looks like a wretched green-black mess. But... you're a professional. Not only can you do this thing, but your bank account practically demands it. If they want cute vegetables, then you'll give them star-shaped carrot slices.

Sorry about the digression. Where was I? Oh, yes. One package, opened to reveal one noodle brick of a slightly lighter-than-usual texture and one large foil packet with no visible notching, pinking, or other means of opening it. The scissors come out and the packaging score drops by a point. A cup and a third of water boils, noodles cook for four minutes – strangely long, but the directions insist – and then the contents of the flavouring packet are mixed in with cheerful orange chopsticks from IKEA.

The verdict? The ramen does indeed taste rather like seaweed and miso, but the texture is that of glutinous, overcooked noodles. It's not bad, but it's not good, either. It simply is, and now it occurs why the cute veggies were requested. They would be the last, greatest hope for a mediocre lunch.

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: R.E.M. - Green - Orange Crush

Maitre Khan "Spicy Hot Pork Rib"

2008-12-15T14:29:00.001-08:00

Brand: Maitre Khan
Flavour: Spicy Hot Pork Rib
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour sludge, flavour powder, veggie bits
Sodium: 3.89 grams

Spicy Hot Pork Rib? How can one go wrong? There's even a cheerful little chef-looking guy named Maitre Khan....

Hey, he looks awfully familiar....

Great googly moogly, it's Mr. Kon!

This time, the product is not in a bowl, but an unassuming plastic packet which turns out to contain a massive noodle brick in it and three smaller and easy-to-open numbered packets. One of the small packets, "20a", contained orangish-beige soup powder. A second, "05c", clearly showed a variety of dehydrated veggies, including tiny pepper rings (much to my delight.) The third packet, "15b", held a thick, dark orange mystery sludge which I could only guess to have at one time been a pork rib which was made spicy hot. There's simply no other explanation.

The directions for this one are simple. Put all the stuff in a bowl, pour a measured amount of water into the bowl, cover for three minutes, then stir and enjoy. This means that it's pretty much exactly like any instant noodle that comes with its own bowl, except without that. I wondered whether that made a significant difference in cost, but simultaneously vowed to give it a preparation rank of three simply because I didn't have a pot to clean afterwards.

The catch, really, was in finding a bowl large enough for it. Seriously, even the one pictured wasn't large enough for the brick to fit into. I had to snap the brick in half, which may come across as a brutal break from tradition for some ramen purists, but I'll have to insist that such an act doesn't really detract from the ramen experience. Thus, I prepared the ramen.

The result is a reasonably tasty, if somewhat salty and oily, bowl of noodles. The flavour's not quite as rich as I might have expected to back up the spice level, but it's not nearly as unbalanced as the disappointing "Seattle Ramen". The broth is actually quite satisfying, which is good because there's quite a lot of it. Six-hundred millilitres of hot water makes for a good bit of ramen.

It's a good thing, too. Apparently I was hungry; I finished ther bowl before I finished typing the review. So, I'll bump the rank up a notch.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 4, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts - Coyboy Bebop OST - Cat Blues

Indomie "Mi goreng Rendang"

2008-12-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

Brand: Indomie
Flavour: Mi goreng Rendang
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: five
Identifiables: noodle brick, soy sauce, flavour ooze, chili powder, flavour powder, fried onions
Sodium: 0.92 grams

And... a second review in one day! Admittedly, it's one of the short picture-less ones, but that's because it's another Indomie packet. Save for the particularly interesting-looking ones, I'll be doing only brief reviews of these from here on in, because the packets are mostly identical. Each follows the pattern of having a coloured banner over a picture of prepared noodles – with excessive garnish, natch. This particular one has a day-glo orange banner with yellow text.

As preparation goes, it was identical to the Mi goreng BBQ Chicken in that it had five packets. As always, points off for having the packets glued together and pinked in such a way as to guarantee a disaster unless one instead employs a scissors.

The flavour is inexplicable. It's Mi goreng, all right, but with the added elements of a rendang curry. The result is something different and more complex than either, but exceedingly pleasant. In all, this ramen is as highly recommended as the others from Indomie. Just be ready for a little annoyance in preparation.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 4, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: I, Monster - Neveroddoreven - Hey Mrs.

Simply Asia "sesame teriyaki"

2008-12-12T16:25:00.001-08:00

Brand: Simply Asia
Flavour: sesame teriyaki
Format: cardboard box
Packets: three
Identifiables: loose noodles, sauce, sesame seeds
Sodium: 2.55 grams

(This is actually from 2008 December 06.)

Here's yet another field review, though this time it's not at a ramen restaurant but instead my parents' home in Louisiana. The story is simple; I was there to visit them, the subject of lunch came up, and Sarah – a friend of the family who lives with them – suggested these noodles that my father had purchased on sale. We had great fun reviewing them together. Thanks for the assist, Sarah!

The box helpfully lists the included packets as containing "Authentic Asian Noodles", "Simply Asia Sauce", and "Toasted Sesame Seed Topping". I always worry when any descriptor which sounds perfectly legitimate on its own has the word "topping" added to it. It's like pasteurised process cheese food. "Pasteurised" I can understand, "process" is innocuous enough, "cheese" should be hopefully obvious, but "food"? Do we really need reminding? Is it so distant from what we'd normally think of as food that we have to be told it is, in fact, edible? In that case, yes. Fortunately, inspection of the sesame seeds revealed that they were perfectly normal, and the the spurious label of "topping" was purely for the sake of adding a word.

This noodle, it turned out, was a cold style. We boiled the noodles in a pot according to the directions, rinsed them in a strainer under cold water, then returned them to the pot and added sauce. Only after portioning the resulting mass into two bowls did we add the sesame seed "topping". (In other words, don't let that sodium number frighten you; that's for three servings, and I only ate half that.) Consider this in the ratings; the only factor that makes this less a pain in the butt than the infamous five-packet Indomie "Mi goreng BBQ Chicken" is that it has only three packets and they're pinked appropriately, even if the sesame seeds did stick to the inside of their packet due to static electricity. Coutnering that is the fact that I absolutely had to get a strainer out. No quick-and-cheap straining of the noodles through chopsticks here.

How's the dish taste? Well, the noodle texture is a bit firm but slippery, meaning that eating with lacquered chopsticks can be a real challenge. The sauce is a bit too sweet for my taste, which makes me wonder if that's going to be a disappointing pattern for the Simply Asia brand. The flavour was reasonably decent aside from that, but definitely aimed more for a side dish than a main course, hence the low overall ranking.

Ah well. The visit was pleasant, regardless.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 1, heat 1, flavour 3, overall 2
Music: I, Monster - Neveroddoreven - Some Thing's Coming

Simply Asia "szechwan hot & sour"

2008-12-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

Brand: Simply Asia
Flavour: szechwan hot & sour
Format: plastic bowl
Packets: four
Identifiables: noodle mass, soup base, fried shallots, veggie brick
Sodium: 0.69 grams

Four dollars! I saw this bowl on the shelf at the grocery store when I was supposed to be picking up milk and red peppers. My wife taunted me. "You know you want to," she said.

Four dollars! It looked like a typical noodle bowl, though with those Western design sensibilities on a full-colour cardboard sheath. Neon pink spot colour? How... Wired Magazine.

Four dollars! Geez, could what was inside really be worth that? That's an expensive bowl, considering I could hit the international market and drop half that for a bowl twice the size.

Of note about this bowl is the fact that there is no high-fructose corn syrup (only pure cane sugar), no trans fats, and nothing to stop it from being vegan. I don't keep vegan, but I figure it's worth mentioning. Also of note is that is has surprisingly low sodium. Might it actually be... healthy?

Upon opening the flimsy-seeming plastic bowl, I found four well-pinked and well-notched packets. One held a mass of pre-cooked thick noodles. Another contained a brownish soup base. The other two were opaque. One was labelled only with a cryptic string of letters and numbers, but seemed to be the packet of shallots mentioned in the cooking instructions. The other claimed to be vegetables, but it had some sort of hard oblong inside. My interest in the weird was piqued. I opened it to find a strange sort of hard mass of vegetable bits press together, bound by some sort of white filler. (It turned out to be difficult to photograph well because of my unfamiliarity with the advanced features of the camera, hence the bizarre colour balance of that pic.) I was overcome by conflicting feelings. Part of me wanted to reject such a brazen and pointless display of food technology such as to make perfectly natural vegetables look like a dishwasher detergent brick. The other part wondered why everybody didn't do things this way because it was, to put it bluntly, awesome.

I put the noodles, soup, and veggie brick (!) into the bowl and poured water up to the fill line. I put the lid on the bowl – loosely, as directed – and microwaved it all for two minutes. This turns out to be a messy proposition, as I opened the microwave afterwards to found some oily water and veggie flakes pooled outside the bowl. Perhaps I should have used cold water, not room temperature? The package didn't specify....

I sprinkled the shallots on top, snapped a photo, then stirred. For four dollars and a mess in my microwave... is the taste worth it? Well, that's hard to say. It's got veggie flavour, certainly, with a sort of soyish aftertaste, but it's rather sweet and edgy in odd ways. I'd explain it to visual persons as such: Imagine that someone hands you a beautiful landscape done in woodcut, rich and dimensional, then a photocopy of the same image. The photocopy has no depth, no colour, sharp edged areas of dark and white, and none of the subtle tactile enjoyment – but it is technically the same image....

That's a bit of an exaggeration, but I'll say that the soup is somewhat a disappointment. Spicy, but not quite managing the rich flavour to back it up, and with uninteresting noodles. The bits of tofu are an awfully nice touch, though, and the veggies were fairly recognisable once cooked. As a bonus, however, the bowl comes with a spoon.

Four dollars? I'll wait until it drops to two or less.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 3, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: AE - Super Street Fighter Turbo HD Remix (X360) - Mountain Breaker (Akuma Stage)

Kintaro "Miso Ramen"

2008-11-28T13:14:00.001-08:00

Brand: Kintaro
Flavour: Miso Ramen
Format: ceramic bowl
Packets: zero
Identifiables: noodles, pork, veggies, miso soup
Sodium: unknown

My friend Steve called me up last week. "How are you for some noodle tourism?" he asked. Noodle tourism? The next thing I knew, I found myself in Vancouver's West End in a little ramen restaurant called "Kintaro".

Now, I live near Seattle. Going up to Vancouver isn't terribly difficult. Still, there's a certain magic to crossing country lines just to get a good noodle, and the idea of reviewing ramen that hadn't come from a packet was too amusing for me to pass up. Thus, armed with camera and much hunger, I approached a Japanese-style ramen restaurant.

There was a brief line to get a seat. While I stood, I snapped a photo of the open kitchen. I saw all manner of things being cooked in giant drums, and I smelled all manner of delightful smells. A feeling came over me of wonder and amazement. Those instant noodles I'd been reviewing all these months... many of them were attempts to replicate this environment, this food. Just how would they stack up, now that I would have a reference point?

Once seated, I recieved a simple one-page laminated menu. There were many choices, but I had to follow through on the simplest thing there; miso ramen. The only choices were how thick I wanted the broth (I went with medium) and whether I wanted fatty or lean pork (I went with fatty, the flavour's well worth it). I sipped at water and waited.

In short order I recieved an absolutely massive bowl of rich-smelling miso ramen. The noodles were completely obscured beneath a mound of bean sprouts, sweet corn, green onion pieces, and a five-centimetre disc of half-centimetre-thick barbecued pork. I snapped a photo – admittedly, I was slightly self-conscious about carefully photographing my food before digging in – and then set to eating.

The noodles were just the right texture, I felt, though long enough that it took real effort to slurp them up. The veggies were crisp and of decent quality. The barbecued pork was very tasty, and made its presence known throughout the bowl. The miso broth was quite rich, leading me to wonder about what the "heavy" broth would be like. The most surprising aspect of the meal, though, was the sheer size of it. I went in hungry, and while I did manage to get most of the noodles, there was still quite a bit of broth and other bits left when I had hid my limit.

Now, this isn't an inexpensive proposition, compared to the average instant noodle bowl. It cost, as I recall, 7.75 Canadian dollars (6.25 U.S. dollars) – I certainly should have written it down, yes? Most of the bowls I've had cost anywhere from one to three U.S. dollars. It can be worth the money to get the fresh ingredients and the sheer size of the bowl, but it's also nowhere neat instant. It may be prepared for you, but I've never had to wait more than six minutes for instant! (That's why "packaging" is a five, but "prepearation" is a one; I had to go to Canada to get the stuff, but I didn't have to clean anything up afterwards!)

The verdict? I would definitely go again and try another dish, but I wouldn't call the brick-in-packet phenomenon lost at all.

Numbers: packaging 5, preparation 1, heat 1, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: I don't recall that there was any, but it was a bit loud in there....

Nissin "Cup Noodles Souper Meal: Chicken Flavor with Vegetable Medley"

2008-11-21T13:06:00.001-08:00

Brand: Nissin
Flavour: Cup Noodles Souper Meal: Chicken Flavor with Vegetable Medley
Format: cardboard bowl
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle chunk, flavour powder, veggie bits, mystery ooze
Sodium: 2.54 grams

Oh, this one will take some explaining, and I don't know what order to explain in.

This is an American soup bowl. What I mean is that it's essentially a giant chicken-flavoured Cup Noodle but with slightly different veggies and many more herbs and a packet of mystery ooze called "Flavor Enhancer". There is absolutely no spice to it whatsoever, and the flavour is salty and unoffensive. The bowl is massive, and labelled only with English and Spanish directions. There is nothing un-American about the dish except that it was manufactured in China. I felt that it needed a little extra Orientalishness (is it a word? It is now) so not only did I eat it with chopsticks, but I even threw in an extra one. That's right; I'm holding three chopsticks, one for each colour of the Korean flag, in my left hand in that photo. Fear me.

Initially, the package was wrapped in cellophane, and the cellophane kept the loose packet of mystery ooze from getting lost. They could have simply put it inside the sealed bowl, but I think there was supposed to be some kind of impression that it was high-class ramen – I mean, noodle soup – because it had an extra packet. Perhaps I'm just too jaded not only by more complex ramen but also by Americanised marketing tactics, but I found myself unimpressed. I unwrapped the package, peeled the lid completely off as per directions, and then stared inside.

The noodles were in a strange shape, something like a truncated piece of a sphere. I searched for a geometric term. Circle is to sector as sphere is to... what? I gave up and opened the powder and veggies to pour them in before adding room-temperature water. Why do they even put the stuff in packets, when the standard styrofoam Cup Noodle just has it all mixed together from the start?

After five minutes in the microwave and two minutes to sit, I opened the packet of mystery ooze – I mean, "Flavor Enhancer" – and squeezed it in. The liquid inside started to come out dark brown, and then changed to clear. The fear began to set in. This is America, my internal voice started to cry. We just aren't ready for things like good beer, intelligent television, and liquid that changes colour as it is poured. Nonetheless, in it went, and I stirred.

The truth is, it's not bad. It's not terribly interesting, but it does taste like chicken soup, the noodles are the right texture, and except for perhaps the cabbage, the vegetables are right. If you're looking for a gateway drug to bring timid family members into the wide world of multi-packet ramen, this might be the way to go... the truth, justice, and American way to go.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 3, heat 1, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Rush - Exit... Stage Left - Freewill

Indomie "Mi Goreng BBQ Chicken"

2008-11-20T13:19:00.001-08:00

Brand: Indomie
Flavour: Mi goreng BBQ Chicken
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: five
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder, soy sauce, chili sauce, fried onion bits
Sodium: 0.90 grams

There's a problem with Batch Two: Revenge of the Noodle. Quite simply, I love spicy food, and I seem to have already reviewed everything in it that's spicy. Now, the booster pack I recieved from Pat McK. is full of stuff which is (or can be) spicy, so I'm making certain to use those to satisfy the cravings for real heat, but this means that the last few things in Round Two will take a bit longer to get to. For example, I've reviewed another Indomie noodle today.

Now, most of the Indomie packets look exceedingly similar; white background, photo of prepared noodles with immense amoutns of extra stuff stacked on top, solid-colour banners, and text reading "Mi goreng" in friendly italic Bodoni with more details in a semibold Helvetica. (Yeah, typography geek.) Honestly, it all feels a bit dated, and I'm always tempted to check the "Best Buy" date to make sure I didn't get a packet from the early seventies by mistake.

Fortunately, the flavour never lets me down, even if it's not quite what I expect. This one claims to have barbecue chicken flavour, though the chicken is entirely artificial. With the variety of flavours coming together in the dish, however, it's hard to say that there's any chicken in particular. After all, there are five packets in here.

Five!

Roll that around in your head for a moment. This particular ramen has more parts to it than the average sandwich. One must cook noodles and drain them, then stir in flavour powder, soy sauce, chili sauce, and oniony-garlicky-oily stuff. Finally, only right before serving, one opens the mysterious fifth "sachet" to find crispy fried onions. It's the most complex ramen I've made yet, yet it's not that much worse than any other "dry" style noodle. Still, about the only way to top this would be, say, if I had to mix one of the packets in with the noodles while cooking, a different one after, fry up a third packet of sauce before adding the noodles back in, stir in a fourth packet after adding the noodles back in, then top the mess with other bits. (Now that I mention it, I may have to invent such a thing. Who here would buy and eat Electric Keet brand ramen?)

As always, I prepared as directed. The catch is, the camera I normally use is actually owned by one of my flatmates who is presently on holiday, so I had to use the lower-quality backup, I didn't have any of my usual clear bowls, so it's a solid ceramic one this time. It's the most slipshod review ever, and I have to say, this noodle deserved better. It's every bit as good as the standard "Mi goreng", perhaps more so because the onion bits really do add to it.

Still... five packets? The preparation rating is a two, but a very low two at that. Also, I'm docking a point from the packaging because the three sauce packets were stuck together in a way that really demanded I ignore the pinking and use a scissors to release the tasty goodness within. Even with that, it's a top-notch noodle, and I'm really having to fight the urge to make a second one because it's simply that tasty.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: Tomohiti Nishiura - Dark Cloud 2 (PS2) - Veneccio

Samyang "KalGugSu"

2008-11-18T13:29:00.000-08:00

Brand: Samyang
Flavour: KalGugSu
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder, veggie bits
Sodium: 1.93 grams

I hate to accuse any ramen of being "fairly standard", especially when there are differing standards. After all, most of the ramen that comes in a brick-in-packet format has at least two packets because one contains veggie bits, and such a packet is practically unheard of for what most people think of as ramen here in the States. In this blog, however, I seem to have shifted toward the one which includes veggies, and as such, this ramen is fairly standard.

About the only particularly curious notes are in regard to the packaging. The edges of the main packet are straight save for a small patch of pinking, which would seem very modern and clever if not for the fact that tearing the packet at that spot would cleave the instructions right down the centre. In that area lies the other oddity; the Korean and Japanese instructions both call for 700cc of water to be boiled, whereas the English instructions call for only 650cc. I'm still trying to figure out how that happened.

So, I split the difference and boiled somewhere between 650 and 750cc of water. Then, I added everything, idly wondering why it was even in different packets if it would all be boiled together for the exact same amount of time. (My curent guess? It's probably to keep the powder from clumping.) The wide, flat noodles took six minutes to cook, double the usual amount.

The result? Well, it's mushroom-and-noodle soup. The flavour is mostly mushroom, with a little bit of fish and other seasonings but nothing strong enough to jump out at my palate. The veggie bits were standard, carrots and seaweed and onions and a couple other assorted things. The noodles had pretty much the same "bite" as the average ramen noodle does. There was no spicy heat at all to the dish. Honestly, I found myself utterly uninspired, but not disgusted. It's edible, it's tasty enough, but it's about as boring as one can get without being an active disappointment.

Sorry about that. I'll definitely have to make up for this with something really odd for my next review....

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: Electric Light Orchestra - Strange Magic - Last Train to London

Nong Shim "Doong Ji"

2008-11-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

Brand: Nong Shim
Flavour: Doong Ji
Format: plastic tray
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle disc, veggie and fish bits, chili sauce
Sodium: 1.06 grams

This blog, this adventure into instant noodles, has been a heck of a ride so far. Expectations have been defied at every turn, and I've experienced some interesting foods I might never have known before. It is in this theme of discovery and wonder that I present today's ramen.

First, the package clearly states that Doong Ji is "Authentic Korean Cold Noodles in Chili Sauce", with the "Chili Sauce" part in larger type and in boldface. They consider this very important. In fact, the package has many strange points to make. On the back, there's an explanation that Nong Shim keeps to traditional methods (Ripe Korean pears and freshly crushed red peppers are aged to perfection for seven days... fascinating!) and something about air-drying the noodles to maintain firmness. The package also claims that the noodles are convenient because they're packaged in single servings, directly contradicting the nutrition facts label which insists that the servings number two. Also interesting is that the package is rather specific about how to boil the noodles. There are warnings about keeping the heat low when boiling so the water doesn't boil over, and how to keep the noodles from boiling over, and various thigns that all seem like elementary parts of cooking.

I opened the outer wrapper. This was not so simple a matter as it should have been, mostly because the single notch for tearing open the package would have guaranteed the destruction of the directions; I instead opened one end as I might a package of cookies. (Mmm, cookies.) Inside, I found a thin plastic tray containing a dark brown noodle disc (!) and two packets. The tray didn't seem sturdy nor smooth enough to be a serving dish; instead, it was primarily to keep the noodle disc from being crushed, I would assume. One packet held veggie-and-fish bits. The other packet, completely opaque, held some sort of liquid, and had the directions for cooking repeated on the back... in Korean. I shrugged (as is often necessary in this business) and set to preparation.

I understand now why there were all those warnings. For some reason, these noodles are indeed prone to causing some pretty impressive boiling. Three minutes later, I found myself draining the noodles in a strainer because I was afraid to lose the vegetables, especially given several cycles of rinsing to get the noodles cold, which always seems a little bizarre. Cold noodles? I just cooked this stuff, and now I'm... what, uncooking it? You got to be hot before you can be cool!

The noodles and un-dessicated (ressicated?) veggies and fish went into a bowl, and I poured the sauce packet over it all. The scent was instant and recognisable. I stirred, quickly, and sampled some of the thin, cold noodles. My theory was confirmed. A better way to quickly describe the flavour is this: Imagine that I took a bowl with some slightly-sweeter-than-usual kimchi and mixed in cold wheat noodles and a few bits of salted fish. That's what I had in my hands, dear friends, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was ecstatic. I've always loved the flavour, and I had just gotten it from a shelf-stable package of instant noodles!

The thing is, it took somewhat more prep than I'm accustomed to for an instant noodle lunch. In fact, nearly all the convenience of a packet of ramen was lost, save the single-serving amounts; I had to involve a pot, a strainer, a bowl, and my own chopsticks for this ramen! That really does bring the overall score down, along with the sense that the thin-but-firm texture of the noodles is wrong somehow. Still, I feel that anything else which claims to be kimchi-flavoured noodle will pale by comparison, and that's worth a lot. Don't think of it as a convenient lunch, merely one that you can keep around for days in which you have time to cook but not to buy fresh ingredients.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 5, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots - Are You A Hypnotist??

Indomie "Mi goreng"

2008-11-12T13:17:00.001-08:00

Brand: Indomie
Flavour: Mi goreng
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: four
Identifiables: noodle brick, soy sauce, onion oil, flavour powder, chili powder
Sodium: 0.84 grams

I mentioned a short time back that Pat McK. sent me a whole boxful of instant noodles. Today, I finally opened up the most well-known and anticipated of those... the "Mi goreng" flavour. The picture on the wrapper shows brownish noodles with a variety of vegetables, a couple prawns, and a fried egg on top... but only the brown noodles are within. Also, be aware that the packaging proudly declares not merely that the dish is halal, but that there are four seasoning sachets within. Consider for a moment the implications of this last part. First, who uses the word "sachet" anymore? Second, four of them? Anybody who's read Watership Down knows that this is the highest number that bunnies can count, so we're really pushing some limits here.

I examined these four sachets. It turns out that they come in grafted Siamese-twin-like pairs. One has the seasoning oil, "minyak bumbu", which is a disturbing blend of pale yellow fluid, murky brown sediment, and little white flakes as one might feed to fish. Next to that is "kecap / soya sauce" which turns out to be the thicker sort, rather like salty chocolate sauce. The shird sachet is called "bumbu sauce", but contains white powder which smelled a bit garlicky. Adjacent to that was the final packet, the chili powder, labelled "cabe". The yellow line art on that is inexplicable; a mutant chef with a small pumpkin for one shoulder snapping invisible fingers at a chili half again his height. I think they're doing a dance number.

I boiled four hundred millilitres of water as directed, all the time wondering who a number was even specified if I'd just have to drain the stuff afterwards anyhow. In a bowl (the instructions say plate, but really, that's absurd) I mixed the full contents of the four sachets – they were, by the way, rather easy to open, even if getting all the sediment out of the seasoning oil packet was troublesome. The noodles cooked in three minutes, and drained easily. I stirred the mess together, snapped a photo, and then thought to myself, "Self, normally we type while eating. Why not simply eat now and type afterwards?" The delightful scent of the oniony ramen had gotten to me, and I could contain my hunger no more!

The noodles are reasonably sturdy, but the best far is the flavour. Oniony, garlicky, and with a fried flavour that I couldn't stop eating. Pat suggested that the previously reviewed Mi goreng might actually have the edge on taste, and I'm inclined to agree, but that doesn't count this one out by any means. The effort to make it is certainly worth it, and I find myself incredibly tempted to open the second packet and make it a large lunch.

Final verdict? If you can't find that other stuff, then stock up on this.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: David Byrne - Sounds of True Stories - Freeway Son

Ottogi "Bekse Curry Myon"

2008-11-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

Brand: Ottogi
Flavour: Bekse Curry Myon
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, veggie bits, soup powder
Sodium: 1.94 grams

Is there anything so misunderstood as curry? Honestly, take a look at the Wikipedia article on it and just try to figure out exactly what curry is, I dare you. Well, Ottogi seems fond enough of the phenomenon, and not only do they produce a curry-flavoured ramen, but they page it in a gold-tone wrapper. Classy, no?

Of curious note are the directions on this package. The first direction is to "Bring 450cc of water and vegetable flakes to a rolling boil. Add noodles and powder soup into boiling water. Cook for another 4 minutes and serve." That, my friends, is a single direction. The entire preparation and consumption of the dish is condensed into part one of two. What more could there possibly be?

Direction two is, "Adjust the amount of powder soup as needed. Add kimchi for better taste." Oh, now you tell me! I already served the noodles, you see....

Also interesting is that the package proudly proclaims that a total of three-hundred milligrams of Turmeric (capitalised as such!) is included for my health. Is turmeric particularly healthy? It turns out that it certainly could be. I feel healthier already.

The cooked ramen was, admittedly, a bit surprising. I'm accustomed to seeing bits of seaweed, carrot, and other odds and ends, but this marks the first time I have ever seen broccoli in instant noodles. It's a bit like driving one's morning commute and passing some guy on a unicycle. It's not within the realm of impossibility, but it's so startlingly unusual that one's co-workers will certainly hear about it. In fact, it almost completely distracted me from the potato bits.

These non-standard ramen vegetables did not deter me in the least, friends. I gladly sampled the sturdy noodles in their rich, ochre (mustard yellow? yellow-brown? curry-coloured?) sauce, and I found them reasonably good. The noodles were slightly less firm than I'd have liked, and a touch slimy with the sauce, but that's almost a nitpick more than a criticism. Plenty of curry flavour came through without any unexpected overtones. There wasn't really any broth, but a very loose sauce; I imagine that cooking in just a little less water would have done wonders for this.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 3, flavour 4, overall 3
Music: Linus Åkesson - Fratres (Arvo Pärt)

Myojo "Ippeichan Yakisoba"

2008-11-04T04:08:00.001-08:00

Brand: Myojo
Flavour: Ippeichan Yakisoba
Format: foam tray
Packets: four
Identifiables: noodle brick, veggie bits, assorted spices, soup base, mustard mayonnaise
Sodium: 1.70 grams

I must confess a love for the "dry-style" noodles. I know that these are not technically "ramen", as they lack broth, but they are instant noodles and such I intend to continue enjoying and reviewing them. In this particular case especially, that is a fortunate decision.

I was up late and jonesing for some noodle, so I picked a semi-random item from my sizable collection. Myojo was running at a fifty-percent success rate, in my estimation, so I knew this could be risky. Also daunting were the four packets included. Four! To make it truly epic, one of those packets was labelled "mustard mayonnaise", which to American ears may seem like saying "cat dog". Generally, these are two separate ingredients, and to merge them is madness.

I must say, however, that the packaging design impressed me. Not only is the look of the outer wrapper top-notch, but once that's peeled away the inside has a very modern design that inspired confidence in the eater. This is no slap-dash noodle; it is hi-technical excellent taste and flavour. It's also extremely convenient and well-considered, right down to the awesome-looking peel-off drain spout. I considered it notable enough to get a separate picture of it after opening. It looks like the sort of future in which I wish to live. It impressed me enough that I decided to slip it a rank five for packaging even though it doesn't come with its own eating utensils.

But, the loyal reader may ask, how is the product for taste? Surprising in many ways. The mustard mayonnaise, sweet soy soup base, vegetables, and spices combine to form a delightful yakisoba flavour which doesn't overpower the thin, wheaty noodles in the way one might expect from such ingredients. The texture is pleasant, neither particularly greasy nor sticky. This is a perfect recovery from the previous disappointment.

I wish there were more in the bowl. That, dear friends, is a ringing endorsement.

Numbers: packaging 5, preparation 3, heat 2, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: Michiru Yamane, Yasuhiro Ichihashi - Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS) - Requiem of a Night of Falling

Pal-Do World "Seattle Ramen"

2008-11-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

Brand: Pal-Do World Inc.
Flavour: Seattle Ramen
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, veggie bits, soup powder
Sodium: 1.99 grams

One wonders what precisely goes into "Seattle Ramen". I live rather near Seattle, and I'm in the city on a regular basis. It certainly has a unique feel, a certain style that I love, but I don't really associate it with a flavour, except perhaps espresso. (I swear, I've consumed more coffee in my two years here than I did in my entire lifetime before that.) I don't see espresso in the ingredient list, but I do see Alaska pollack as the very last ingredient in the soup powder. That... will have to do.

On the surface, the package and everything in it comes across as a clone of Nong Shim's "Shin Ramyun", that standard of instant noodles. It looks the same and cooks the same, so one can get the gist of it by revisiting that review. The noodles even absorb the broth the same way.

The flavour, however, is very different. It has less of the full-spectrum beefy flavour I recall from Shin Ramyun. The noodles are edgier, with spice (a high four) and an almost acidic-seeming high end without all that much below it to give the feeling of a hearty broth. The broth itself is better, but still spicier than expected and in an off-balance way. It's rather like eating a salad made of predominantly green pepper slices; if there are other flavours, they're masked by a hollow earthy flavour that's supposed to be support, not main attraction. The result is a rather dissatisfying meal which, honestly, I find myself finishing not because it's tasty, but because it's not truly repellent. I hate pitting one ramen directly against another, but given a choice, I'd take the Shin Ramyun.

And no, it didn't taste like espresso.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 4, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: Yuka Honda - Memories Are My Only Witness - Some Days I Stay in Bed For Hours

The Gift of Noodles.

2008-10-31T16:20:00.001-07:00

My friends, my loyal readers... I am stunned, absolutely stunned, at the parcel which I have just unpacked. A while back, fellow Seattle-ite Patrick McK. informed me that a whole bunch of ramen – collected from three different stores! – was on its way to my humble abode. It would have been here much sooner, but it was delivered not to my flat but to the front office, and they helpfully gave not a single lick of indication that it had arrived. Once I was able to open it up, I took some photos.

Not only were the noodles were packed in there rather well, but there was a two-page letter sitting on top. I skimmed it, and then had to highlight some segments. From first to last, I address these.

"the world's most addictive ramen" – That's a tall order, there. We shall see!

noodlely goodness – Is noodlely a word? You bet your sweet bippy it is now.

fake mushroom – This caused the gears in my head to skip a tooth. Why would anybody try to fake a mushroom?

Oh, and treat the chili powder with respect. I like hot foods and even then I sometimes cut the amount of chili I add to it. – Ah, Pat, I do appreciate the warning, but that's just not how we do things in ~~the Muppet Labs~~ ~~my orbital space station~~ New Ramen City. I'm always obligated to use everything in the packet as directed. On the second eating of the same flavour, though, I'll adjust as needed. If it's too hot, I'll report on the flavour, but it'll get a five rank in heat and if I can't finish, I might even slip a six in there!

TVP chunks – Ah, the magic words. Is there anything that textured vegetable protein can't accomplish?

Forwearned and forearmed, I proceeded to lay out a spread of the bounty. Note that the bottom row is from a variety of brands, but the rest of the packets are all from Indomie, a company specialising in Indonesian fare including instant noodles. That's, like, a million hundred packets of ramen! Also pictured is my little arctic fox, Diamond, attempting to claim one of the "Mi goreng" packets.

These are tears of joy, dear friends. Such a gift of ramen is so far beyond anything I could have asked or anticipated! My promise to all of you is that I will review each of these with photos (though, I might not bother with photos for every single Indomie packet review, just a few notable ones.) This will be a great time for noodle enthusiasts.

Also, as promised, Pat deserves a huge shout-out, and a link to his LiveJournal. Dude, you are the absolute best.

Thai Kitchen: Noodle Cart "Toasted Sesame"

2008-10-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

Brand: Thai Kitchen: Noodle Cart
Flavour: Toasted Sesame
Format: plastic tray
Packets: three
Identifiables: loose noodles, oil, flavour powder
Sodium: 0.54 grams

Instant noodles are weird.

This is no surprise to anybody, of course, but the more of these reviews I write up, the more I notice it myself. There's a lot of flavour variety, not all of it good, and myriad methods of preparation. In this case, it's a straightforward "served dry" style. I've had these noodles before, but this time I'm going to tell you all about them... as a warning.

Now, I like convenience. The tray has in it a fork, which is always a big bonus for anybody wanting to prepare their noodles in the field or in the office. One can either pour boiling water in and wait or put not-boiling water in and microwave the whole tray, uncovered. The former always seems to leave the noodles a bit crunchy, so I don't know why they bother listing it first. I poured water in to cover the noodles and set it to microwave for three minutes.

In three minutes, my microwave had a thin puddle of water in it and my noodles were foaming. Good start! I attached the lid – it attaches rather securely, I must add, so this was done right – and drained the water through a U-shaped slot in the corner. This went swimmingly well. I sprinkled the "seasoning" packet over the cooked noodle mass, then the oil. These went fairly well also, since the packets are well-pinked.

My roommate was watching as I stirred the noodles, and my wife happened to be home for lunch. My wife said, "I don't want to bias your review, but that smells pretty funky."

My roommate added, "Yeah, smells stale."

Ah, but this only emboldened me! I mixed the noodles and flavouring, and then took a bite. Well, they tasted stale, also. Imagine, for a moment, that somebody has developed sesame-flavoured Play-Doh and extruded it into noodles with a few bits of peanuts and reconstituted carrot for texture. I had no trouble imagining this as I ate. That is what we call an unfortunate impression.

Also, I made the mistake of not eating fast enough. The noodles got cold very quickly and became a glutinous mass that was near-impossible to separate. I found myself picking up most of my lunch in one beige lump and shaking it to try and get most of the noodles to separate from the few on my fork.

This is a legitimately imported product of Thailand, in the same way that Foster's Lager is Australian and Dragonball Z is Japanese. I think they send it to the United States because they hate us.

Also, this one depressed me. No parody lyrics today.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 3, heat 2, flavour 2, overall 2
Music: Yoshito Hirano - Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS) - Sasha's Theme

Shirakiku "Sanukiya Udon: Katsuo"

2008-10-21T14:45:00.001-07:00

Brand: Shirakiku
Flavour: Sanukiya Udon: Katsuo
Format: cardboard bowl
Packets: four
Identifiables: noodle loaf, soup base, veggie bits, fish bits
Sodium: 1.52 grams

I've got my ramen, I've got my ramen
I'd like a million noodles all around my bowl
I want my chopsticks to eat my ramen
So it can warm me up from inside as well
It's got my slurping up and slurping down
And slurping in and slurping 'round

Stumped? Wait for it....

A week's gap? Well, I was a little gun-shy after some adventures a few days ago when my stomach seemed to rebel after eating that last batch of ramen. Might have been the change in weather, might have been canola oil (I think I'm slightly allergic to it!) but whatever it was, it's all okay now and I'm not deterred from this job at all. Well, okay, I was a bit concerned – what if I had to give up ramen? – but I get the feeling that things are gonna be all right.

Well, okay, I had that feeling, then I opened up today's ramen bowl. I bought the thing at World Market, which prides itself on having overpriced goods from all over the globe. Normally I stick to getting Australian ginger beer and then getting the heck out of there before I spend my paycheck on furniture from Cambodia or something, but I saw this and I had to know.

Let's start with the obvious. There are four pouches. One has what I've termed a "noodle loaf", which is to say a vaguely rectangular mass of pre-cooked thick noodles. The others have standard liquid soup base, pretty good veggie bits (with little round things like naruto but plain pink-outlined white circles instead, I'm sure those have some fancy name), and fish flakes. Not fish food, of course, but dry flaked fish, like the seafood equivalent of bacon bits. The ingredients list that packet as having tuna, bonito, and anchovy. Yum!

The noodle packet was more difficult to open than I'd have liked. It had a tear-notch, but in my attempt to tear across without mangling the semi-brittle noodles too much more than they already had been, I ended up tearing off only one corner, which is insufficient to get the loaf out of the plastic. Another attempt ripped half the plastic off the front, but still not enough of an opening. Such comedy! I didn't reach for scissors, so it's not down to a rank two for packaging, but the bowl would have gotten a four if not for that absurdity. Pretty much the same happened with the soup base packet, and... I don't want to talk about it.

I added hot water up to the line – marked on the outside, but also ridged on the inside – and stuck the mass into the microwave for three minutes. Strangely, the directions insist on not adding the dried ingredients to the bowl before cooking, but after. I'll never understand why. Once nuked, I added the veggies and fish to the bowl and stirred. As expected, it smelled of soy and fish and veggies, but in a really tasty way. The result was soup: brown broth, large friendly noodles, tasty-looking veggies, and fish which kind of dissolved into bits that stick to the noodles as they are lifted up out of the bowl, which is perfect. Also, some of the veggies turned out to be soy crists which had bloated into nasty amoeboid sponges with a texture I simply didn't care for. Oh well.

I dunno what's with the package art. It's two guys with weird hair testing the tensile strength of noodles by pulling them from cups of Pepsi drawn from a washtub or something. I will say that the whole noodle bowl experience does taste pretty good and feels fairly authentic, though not quite worth the five bucks or whatever it was I paid for the bowl.

I'm eating Japanese, I think I'm eating Japanese, I really think so
Eating Japanese, I think I'm eating Japanese, I really think so

Yeah, I went there.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 4, heat 1, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: The Vapors - New Clear Days - Turning Japanese

Nissin "Chow Mein with Shrimp"

2008-10-15T14:13:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nissin
Flavour: Chow Mein with Shrimp
Format: plastic tray
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, soup base, flavour powder, dried shrimp and pimiento
Sodium: 1.44 grams

Look around, noodles done now
In the bowl is a crazy taste of ramen

(apologies to Paul Simon)

Mini-review here, no pictures, just a quick ramen blab. I saw that these Nissin bowls were on sale at the local QFC, so I bought one of each available flavour. Today, I decided I didn't have an hour to spend on a full review, so I grabbed one and prepared. My notes:

1. Oh, look, the icons next to the instructions tell you exactly how to prepare it. If I'm ever too drunk to read, I can still make the stuff!

2. There's a shrimp packet. That's awesome.

3. In my haste, I managed to tear the lid off in such a way that a bit of the cellophane inner liner ended up in the food. Easily removed, but a note of caution.

4. I can't tell what flavour this is, but it's decent, if a bit more salty than I'd like. It's closer to Italian than anything else, which really isn't what I expected from something labelled "Chow Mein". It didn't move me like the teriyaki beef, but it's a neat change of pace from typical Oriental-themed fare.

5. It was one-and-a-quarter U.S. dollars. Not precisely college-staple-level cheap, but cheaper than some of the import bowls I've had. If they eschewed some of the fancier aspects of the packaging, I'll bet they could drop the price significantly and make a killing.

All right, so there's a Chicken and a Thai Peanut to look forward to later on. (In time-time-time, see what's become of me!)

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 4, heat 1, flavour 3, overall 4
Music: The Bangles - Hazy Shade of Winter (hey, I like the cover)

Ottogi "Jjajang Noodle"

2008-10-12T18:08:00.001-07:00

Brand: Ottogi
Flavour: Jjajang Noodle
Format: brick-in-packet
Packets: three
Identifiables: noodle brick, veggie bits, oil, flavour powder
Sodium: 1.20 grams

I ain't happy, I'm feelin' glad
I got ramen in a bag
I'm hungry but not for long
My taste buds are going strong.

(apologies to Two-D)

I had help on this one. My lovely wife elected to assist me on yet another experiment, a world-changing experiment (I'm certain) in ramen enjoyment. Armed with my Joker Pair of IKEA chopsticks (one cyan, one black) I ventured forth!

Three packets. Three! I thought this might be a simple review this time, but no, it taunted me. One flavour packet, one veggie packet, and one oil packet. A known combination, yet alien to most noodles destined for Western audiences. I allowed her to prepare according to directions, and I shall share the second half of those directions with you, valued readers.

2. Turn off the heat and drain water, leaving 7—8 spoons of water, add powder soup and oil stock to the noodle, stir well and serve.

Take a breath! That was a lot for one sentence.

Here, hunched over this bowl.... I usually don't take too close a look at my ramen, and this ramen should be noted as an exceptional example of why. It is, quite frankly, disgusting to behold. Thick, muddy ichor surrounding reconstituted vegetables. Most people would not want this... ah, but the taste!

Dark, beefy, with some soy, some onion, definite black bean... this is why I enjoy jjajang, however it's spelled. It's kind of like a dark beer. This is a fairly decent specimen, a little bland, but also not too salty, which is important. The noodles are a bit long for this kind of sauce, as they cannot be slurped with any sort of decorum. They defy decorum. It's like instead of boiling in water, you have to expose them to decorum and they absorb that and become cooked. Boil decorum, add noodles, stir, serve.

The dish does, however, taste better than it looks.

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 2, heat 1, flavour 3, overall 3
Music: Gorillaz - Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood

Disgusted.

2008-10-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

My wife and one of our flatmates were enjoying that commonest of prepare-in-package ramens, Nissin "Cup Noodles: Chicken Flavor". (These have the local short name of "cup noodle". My favourites are the ones with little dried prawns in.) As said flatmate finished her noodles, my wife suggested:

"What you do now is, you take the still-warm broth from that, pour it into another cup noodle, and fill the rest with hot water and let it cook. You get double-strong broth that way."

I stared in abject horror. I married this... this... defiler of ramen?

"I call it 'hot-brothing'," she gleefully admitted. "Or, alternatively, 'chain noodling'."

I consider this to be anathema, which means wonderfully demented and dementedly wonderful. Does anybody else do this? What names do you have for this unthinkable act?

I feel like I've somehow lost my innocence.

Ottogi "Ramyon Bokki"

2008-10-10T14:11:00.001-07:00

Brand: Ottogi
Flavour: Ramyon Bokki
Format: cardboard bowl
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle disc, veggie bits, soup base
Sodium: (amount of sodium in grams, not milligrams)

I can't seem to face up to the facts
I'm brave and hungry and I can't relax
I can't sleep 'cause my mouth's on fire
Don't judge me, noodles are my desire

(Apologies to Talking Heads)

This'll be a short one, friends, 'cause there's not a whole lot to tell. It's a pretty standard bowl with a slightly sub-standard lid (it tore as I tried to open it, but in its defence, it also has to be easily punctured by chopsticks – keep reading) and two Korean-labelled packets inside, one of dried veggie bits (it has a spiraly thing in it, so it must be good!) and one of soup base. The noodles are dead average for ramen, and the cooking directions are nothing special: add boiling water, wait four minutes. So I did.

That's when things diverged slightly. The instructions indicated an area on the lid to be poked open (the markers are conveniently chopstick-sized) such that the noodles could be drained. I did so, carefully, nearly scalding myself despite that caution. This sort of thing is always tricky. Then I added the barbecue-sauce-like soup base. All of it. When something says, "Adjust amount to taste," I just do what any good American would do and add the entirety of said ingredient and plan to sue if things don't turn out well.

They turned out well. The resulting sauce tasted more like somewhat sweet kimchi than anything. In fact, it actually reminded me more of kimchi than any ramen I've had thus far labelled "kimchi flavour" so I'd call that a win. It's pretty darn spicy – not intolerably so for me, but it might be for most people I know – so it's a high four, but a four nonetheless. Darn good showing for Ottogi!

I hate to say it, but if I've made any error with Batch Two: Revenge of the Noodle, it's that so far they've all been pretty good. Not much revenge so far, eh?

Spicy Ramen
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
Hot hot hot hot, hot hot hot hot hot hot, better
run run run run run run run away

Numbers: packaging 2, preparation 2, heat 4, flavour 5, overall 4
Music: Talking Heads - Rock Band 2 (X360) - Psycho Killer

Myojo Chukazanmai "Japanese Style Noodles With Soup Base: Soybean Paste Flavor"

2008-10-09T14:24:00.001-07:00

Brand: Myojo Chukazanmai
Flavour: Japanese Style Noodles With Soup Base: Soybean Paste Flavor
Format: brick-in-paper-packet
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, flavour powder, soup base
Sodium: 3.16 grams

Maruchan, Maruchan
Does whatever a ramen can
Is it good? Listen, dude
It is cheaper than real food
Look out! Here comes the Maruchan!

(apologies to Stan Lee)

All right, so the brand isn't Maruchan, but practically everyone has eaten Maruchan already and it fit the song, so cut me some slack. In fact, today's brand wouldn't fit in any song, except maybe one of the hyper ones that you hear at the start of any given cartoon aimed at the too-young-to-know-better (or too-otaku-to-have-sense) set. I tried finding a shorter brand name, but to no avail. This stuff is straight from Tokyo, baby.

I read the back of the package, dodging Japanese all the way. Aside from finding that it contains "soy, wheat, fishes and milk ingredients", I spotted the directions. They read, quite simply (and as verbatim as possible):

1. Add noodles to 2½cups boiling water. Simmer 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Remove from heat. Mix in contents of both dry and liquid seasoning packets.

That's it. Nowhere does it say "enjoy" or "serve" or even just plain "eat". Was the assumption that I would know what to do with it once I got the rest done, or was this omission perhaps a subtle warning? Japan, like the southern U.S., is a land riddled with foods which seem to have been devised primarily for the purpose of placing bets. I found myself in a gamble.

Upon opening the paper wrapper – no, really, it's glossy paper, like dry soup mixes often come in – I found a depressed-looking (read: slightly trapezoidal) yellow noodle brick and two packets labelled entirely in Japanese. The noodles went into Johann's boiling water, and almost instantly I detected a somewhat eggy smell, even though there's nothing egg-related in the ingredient list. I spent four minutes wondering if I had been taken in by a flashy package once too often. Once the time was up, I tossed in the flavour powder, squeezed the paste-like red-orange contents of the soup base packet into the pot, and stirred.

A familiar sesame-and-soy scent tickled me. The little dishes of sauce often served with pot stickers? Yeah, that was precisely the smell of the finished soup. Good news for those who enjoy that stuff, because this is like a bowl full of an orange-coloured noodle-soup version of that oily, sweet goodness, complete with sesame seeds and little bits of onion. Once my chopsticks got going, they didn't stop. The odds may have been against me, but once more, I triumphed. About the only downside is well, this stuff is incredibly salty, and as tasty as the broth is, it's very oily, so the gamble with taste may end up being a gamble with, uh... well, let's just wrap this up and say: With great ramen comes great responsibility.

Have you ever actually listened to the lyrics to the Spiderman theme? Oh, man.

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 2, heat 2, flavour 4, overall 4
Music: Ramones - Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits - Spiderman

Nissin "Chow Mein: Teriyaki Beef Flavor"

2008-10-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nissin
Flavour: Chow Mein: Teriyaki Beef Flavor
Format: plastic tray
Packets: two
Identifiables: noodle brick, veggie bits, soup base
Sodium: 1.50 grams

Hot water to the line, three minutes' cooking time
Things to taste, no time to waste – Ramen Rainbow!
I can eat anything!
So come and take a ramen break – Ramen Rainbow!

(apologies to Geordi LaForge)

Let's talk about packaging. Actually, I'll write about packaging and you can read and respond when the post is over, dig?

I could get into the differences in visual style between products meant for overseas markets and products meant for the United States. It'd be interesting to perhaps three of my readers, and really, I'm not quite a graphic design expert, so it'd be absurd. I can go on about the functionality of a package, however, because I have to use it. When I saw that the cooking instructions for this particular dish were printed on the wrinkly cellophone near the seam on the back of the package, I cringed. Good luck getting the wrapper off and keeping those directions intact, Keet.

Amazingly, the cellophane wrapper practically obliged my efforts to open it, and it came apart very neatly right along the seams, leaving the instructions intact. When I flipped the package over, I saw the very same instructions printed both in English and Spanish right on the lid, so even if I'd torn that cellophane open like Cookie Monster, I'd have been just fine. It's almost like somebody actually planned ahead for this. Spooky.

I pulled the lid halfway back (a little tough, but the lid didn't tear apart so it's okay), emptied the packet of dried veggies (they always smell like the pellets one feeds to guinea pigs) into the tray, poured in room-temperature water (as directed, go fig) up to the fill line, and set it to be mauled by microwave energy for six minutes. If only the package had come with a plastic fork included, it would have earned a five, simply because all that was needed was a microwave. Once cooked, I opened the liquid packet and poured it in. There was a little clear liquid – certainly oil – and then a brown ichor which smelled of teriyaki sauce, but not the disgustingly sweet sort. I stirred, then sampled.

Here's where the dish truly wins. The flavour is very well balanced, beefy but soyish but oniony but just a little sweet. The flat noodles are perfectly cooked, a little toothy but not at all crunchy. The vegetables have just enough texture to add variety. About the only way I could think of to improve the dish would be to have a spicier version. Dear friends, I may have to bump yesterday's chajang down a notch. I think, given a choice between the two, I would take this one.

Remember that I found this in a standard supermarket, one of the stores that's basically a Kroger with a different name. You, the reader, can almost certainly find this stuff near you, and possibly even in several places. Buy at least one of these – comparison shop for price if you must – and see for yourself. It's good stuff....

...but, don't take my word for it!

Numbers: packaging 4, preparation 4, heat 1, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: 8bit Betty - Too Bleep to Blop - Reading Rainbow

Nong Shim "Big Bowl Noodle (Chajang Flavor)"

2008-10-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

Brand: Nong Shim
Flavour: Big Bowl Noodle (Chajang Flavor)
Format: cardboard bowl
Packets: one
Identifiables: noodle frustum, veggie bits, flavour powder
Sodium: 2.20 grams

It's time to boil the water
It's time to cook it right
It's time to eat the noodles
On the ramen blog tonight!

(with apologies to the Muppet Show)

Welcome to Cheaper Than Food: the Ramen Break, returning from brief hiatus for the next challenge, Batch Two: Revenge of the Noodle. What else can I say? I couldn't stay away for long, not when I had that glorious stack just waiting for me, right? So I got started with the noodle bowl that made a true believer out of me long before this journal of noodley excess got started.

The lid was harder to pull off than I recall. There's a thin plastic lining inside of these cardboard bowls, and it clung tenaciously to the foil cover until I poked at it a little bit, then it separated just fine. This does mean the packaging is bumped back to a normal value; I'd have been tempted to give it better than that simply because the bowl is sturdy otherwise.

I peeled the lid halfway back, started some water to boil, and reflected on my life as I opened the foil flavour packet. One of my favourite dishes at a local Korean place in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was something they called ja jang myun (which I've also seen transliterated as "chajang myung", "jjajang myun", and "that beefy soyish noodle stuff".) I loved it then for its thick, richly-flavoured sauce, vegetables, and filling nature. How could an instant noodle bowl compare?

To be fair, it can't. One doesn't put fresh vegetables in an instant noodle bowl. The sauce will certainly be saltier. The experience of slowly sipping tea and taking in the scent of a good meal while listening to gentle chatter in an unknown language in the background simply will not be there. Especially troubling was when I removed the lid after three minutes to find watery broth and a lump of what looked like wet soil on top of the noodle mass. I would not be deterred from lunch, however, so I stirred...

...and a miracle occurred. The watery broth, once mixed with the sodden mass of soup base, became almost a thick paste just as I would expect from a freshly-made dish. Smells of beef and soy and onion came up to greet me. The vegetables were well-hidden in the chocolate-coloured sauce. I stood in my kitchen, transported twelve years back in time to that restaurant.

So, how did it taste? I put my red IKEA chopsticks to work, and soon found the results pleasing. Every bit of the smell of the dish was in its flavour, and more. True, it's rather salty, but well worth it. The veggies do have a habit of hiding at the bottom, so a quick stir halfway through the meal reveals a whole new side to it as the crunchy bits come into play. It's a satisfying meal in a way that few instant products can hope to achieve when the only ingredient added is hot water... especially for well under two bucks (if I recall correctly; I have the receipt from Pal-Do World around here somewhere.)

There you have it. Welcome back, and remember to tell your friends that in this troubled and confusing world of instant lunches, there's one place you can go for reliable and honest ramen reviews.

And now let's get things started
(Why don't you get things started?)
It's time to get things started
On the most comestible, taste contestable, gastrointestinal, noodle festival
This is what we call the Ramen Blog!

*blows trumpet, explodes*

Numbers: packaging 3, preparation 4, heat 1, flavour 5, overall 5
Music: the Muppet Show theme