Cintan "Perisa Kari"

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.

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"

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"

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"

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

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"

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