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In general, I don’t review plain noodles. I usually require instant noodles to have a seasoning with them or have seasoning infused into them. Well, I hadn’t told this to CarJEN and they sent lots of them – I figured it only fair to do up a recipe with them! The picture on the front of the package certainly looks like mee goreng, so I figured I’d round some things up and make some for Kit for breakfast today. Let’s check it out!
Here’s a short video showing CarJEN Food Sdn Bhd’s factory in Melaka, Malaysia and their products! Happy Friday!
Here’s the other variety of J.J. snack noodles CarJEN produces. Ayam translates to chicken. The mighty chicken seems to be the universally accepted flavor in the world. I was just wondering – how many are there? Chickens, I mean; how many chickens are there on the planet? I typed in world population of chickens into Google and it spat this out instantaneously:
Here’s the new CarJEN Nyonya Curry Laksa! This one’s supposed to be pretty good and comes with a sachet of sambal dipping sauce. So to start, let’s see what wikipedia has to say about the term Nyonya:
Another box from CarJEN Food Sdn Bhd arrived yesterday!
They sent more of their CarJEN Nyonya Curry Laksa and E-Zee Kari as well as a vegetarian curry, vegetarian flavor and a unique one – spinach flavor! Looking forward to reviewing these as part of Meet The Manufacturer! Thank you!
I’m sure your first question might be ‘what is asam pedas’ so let me break it down for you. Pedas means spicy. Asam is tamarind. The two together refer to a dish which is both sour and spicy. Here’s what wikipedia has to say about asam pedas:
Instant noodles are usually served cooked, but there are other methods as well. These are ‘snack noodles,’ which are eaten without any cooking straight from the bag. Although not well known in the United Staes, they indeed are very popular around the world – there are multiples brands and varieties spanning Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan to name a few. Today we’ll look at an individual pack (the picture above is a ten pack). Let’s check out these J.J. Snek Mi from CarJEN!
To start things off, I felt it would be great to try this Mi E-Zee Kari. Kari (curry in english) is one of my favorite flavors since I was a kid. My mom used to make curried chicken liver over rice and it was some seriously delectable stuff. Over the years, I’ve experienced a great many kinds of curry: Japanese curry which is usually sweet, Indian curry, Thai curry and my current favorite, Malaysian curry. Let’s see how this Mi E-Zee Kari measures up!
A very large box of samples arrived today!
Looks to be full of interesting items from Malaysia! Let’s see what CarJEN Food Sdn Bhd sent!
Interview With CarJEN Food Sdn Bhd * Product Samples From CarJEN Food Sdn Bhd * Product Samples From CarJEN Food Sdn Bhd (2) * Mi E-Zee Perisa Kari * J.J. Snek Mi Perisa BBQ * E-mi Mi Perencah Asam Pedas * CarJEN Nyonya Curry Laksa * J.J. Snek Mi Perisa Ayam * Friday Video: CarJEN Food Sdn Bhd Spotlight * Mi E-Zee Plain Noodles Mee Goreng * Mi E-Zee Perisa Bayam * E-mi Mi Perencah Ayam Jagung * Mi E-Zee Perisa Kari Sayuran * Mi E-Zee Perisa Sayuran
Hooray for White Curry! What’s great is that there are so many new brands coming out and I like curry so much. This is Curry Prince – looks interesting! Let’s check out Curry Prince!
Wow – a big box of stuff from Hao Way of Malaysia! Let’s peek inside!
Looks pretty well packed!
I’m sure everyone has been noticing – I’ve been reviewing a LOT of Malaysian instant noodles lately. The reason for this is that I have a ton of different varieties with more on their way – but this one’s a first! This is the first Penang White Curry bowl variant I’ve tried. Let’s have a look!
One thing that tends to baffle a lot of my readers is my fascination with ‘store brands.’ I often get ‘it nothing special’ and thoughts like that. To me however, any instant noodle I’ve not reviewed before is definitely fair game and believe it or not, store brands tend to be much harder for me to source than any others. The reason for this is that large supermarket chains are mostly regional and don’t distribute their instant noodle varieties to anywhere other than their own stores. This one is particularly special – I got this one on my trip to Malaysia, and got it at the Econsave grocery store in Butterworth, Penang!
The last of the batch of different Malaysian noodles sent to me by Annie T. over at MyKuali a while back – thank you again! This sounds good – curry mi goreng. I know that’s it’s curry from the word ‘kari,’ but I can’t figure out the ‘ori’ word. If anyone knows, please impart your fine wisdom! Let’s give these a try!
Saw this brand called Curry Prince on facebook and thought maybe they’d like me to sample their noodles. They did!
Most of the instant noodles from Malaysia have been just that – sent to me FROM Malaysia by manufacturers. What’s kind of cool is that now I’m seeing more of them start showing up in the United States. I found this Uncle Sun White Curry a few miles north of here in Everett at a newer Asian grocery simply called Asian Grocery (great name). It’s actually a great place – they have two varieties of this one – the one you see here and one that looks identical but says it’s extra hot! They also had Milo, a popular drink from Malaysia – kind of like chocolate milk, but like dark chocolate milk. Anyways – sweet – more white curry! Let’s check it out!
Well, here it is! I have been waiting for this package for a while now and it’s here! Check it out!
Got another package from Hao Way this week!
They’ve adapted their Penang White Curry and Penang Laksa varieties into bowl form! I’ll be reviewing these soon – thanks!
I got some samples the other day to try! This is Hao Way’s new Penang Laksa. They’re very excited about it, purporting it to the the very first instant Penang Laksa whose paste contains grilled fish in the mixture. Sounds pretty good to me! Let’s give it a try.
Still got some duck left from our special anniversary lunch the other day! It’s pretty rare that I have any duck at all! Let’s check out this Perisa Itik (duck flavor) instant noodle from Mamee!
Went to the office and got packages – five minutes later, they called and said I had another!
During a trip to 99 Ranch recently (my son wanted to get my wife some Christmas gifts), I happened down the noodle aisle and found these! Ibumie CurryMee! Wow – white curry on the shelves so nearby! Can’t complain about that!
A while back, I reviewed Nanyang Chef’s Penang White Curry Noodle With Nanyang Chili Paste. Today, it’s a new product from them – Asan Pedas. At first, I thought this would be Asam Laksa, but then I dug a little in Wikipedia and found that Asam Pedas is a stew accompanied by fish. The Asam word refers to tamarind, which lends to the sour nature of Asam Laksa as well as Asam Pedas. Let’s check out this new comer from Nanyang Chef!
Got a package in the mail today Penang Asam Pedas – a new product from Nanyang Chef!
Asam Laksa is a sour and spicy soup popular in Penang, Malaysia. But what’s the pedas part?
One thing that really surprised me during our trip was seeing that a lot of the fast food chains that are popular here in the United States are also popular in Malaysia. Burgers, fried chicken and even pizza were well represented by popular chain restaurants over there (I will say that there was no sign of the ubiquitous taco chain here). They all had different ways of serving things to fit with the local taste; like spicy fried chicken with rice or seafood pizza. This got me thinking that maybe a fusion of pizza and MyKuali White Curry might work in some way. I thought about it for a while and decided today was the day. We got the ingredients together and The Ramen Rater’s MyKuali White Curry Pizza was born! Check it out!
Here’s another one that Thomas from MyKuali got for me while we were on our trip to Malaysia! Thanks again! Vit’s is a brand that’s well known over there, but one I’ve never reviewed before. This looks like a spicy seafood variety – let’s give it a go!
Yet another one got in Malaysia during our trip! Thank you, Thomas! A popular dish in Penang is Char Kuay Teow, fried rice noodles. It’s kind of like the mee goreng of rice noodles. Kua Teow is rice noodles – and this is rice noodles with tom yam broth. From what I found online, it’s more a popular Thai dish. Either way, this sounds really good! Let’s dig in to some spicy stuff from Malaysia!
A week or so ago, I reviewed Mamee Chef Gold Recipe Mi Kari Seribu Rasa. This however is Mamee Chef Gold Recipe Bihun Kari Seribu Rasa. What’s the difference? Well, ‘mi’ means noodles – as in instant wheat flour noodles. Bihun is the Malaysian term for rice vermicelli. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about bihun:
One thing I didn’t expect to see during our stay in Malaysia – in the lobby of the hotel we stayed at, there was a Halloween display! A pretty good sized one, too! It seems that Halloween is somewhat popular over there! Well, last night was Halloween and we got a huge bowl of candy (yes, I tossed in some instant noodles for the trick or treaters as well). Well, nobody came. Not one kid. So, we have a ton of candy. Those kids really missed out – we’re generous when it comes to candy!
Today we have a new one from Mamee Chef. Mamee Chef’s products made not only the Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2014 list, but also topped the Top Ten Instant Noodle Cups Of All Time 2014 list. Really exceptional stuff! They have come out with two varieties in this flavor: one with their ‘mi tarik’ noodles (noodles made in a way to emulate hand-pulled noodles) and a version that comes with bihun (pronounced bee-hoon, it’s a very thin rice noodle). Today I’m reviewing the wheat noodle variety.
Wow – 1,500 reviews! 1,500 different varieties of instant noodles! What’s even more crazy is that I don’t even feel like I’ve scratched the surface of the world of instant noodles; there are always new varieties coming out, and I think there’s never going to be a day when I’ve tried every variety. Which is a good thing because I really enjoy reviewing these things! Today’s review is a special one. I usually try to pick one that’s a little more interesting than others – and this one is very unique. Usually, companies either send me samples, readers donate varieties I’ve not tried, or I just go to a store and buy them. This is one of the first ones I’ve received directly from a company – literally handed to me. Not only that, I brought it all the way back here from Penang, Malaysia! That’s a long way! I think it was more than 16,000 miles round trip! I’d like to thank everyone who has supported and enjoyed The Ramen Rater throughout the years – without your support and readership, well, it’d be pretty quiet around here! Anyways, let’s check out this new Tom Yum variety from MyKuali! On with number 1,500!!!
During my trip to Malaysia, I got a notification that I had a package from Malaysia back at my apartment! It was kind of funny; when we were in Kuala Lumpur’s airport, we saw DHL jetys on the tarmac – could be the same ones that brought these my way! These are brand new Mamee Chef varieties! Let’s look inside!
Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6
Another day of adventure! Today, we flew to Langkawi and tried some of the local foods and had a great time – check it out! I should also mention – pictures in these posts are by myself, my wife Kit and our friend Thomas Tang of Sky Thomas Food Industries Sdn Bhd.
Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6
Feasting on Penang’s succulent culinary treasures continues, with a lot of prawn-tasticness! Here is the United States, we often call them shrimp, but looks like everywhere else, they’re prawns. Did you know that the translation of the Chinese word for lobster is ‘dragon prawn?’ Well, now you do. I for one will be calling them prawns from now on. Let’s check out day three!
Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6
I was planning on doing a post each day consecutively, mirroring the prior week when I was actually in Malaysia, but I hit a snag yesterday. I’d always heard of this thing called ‘jet lag’ and now I can tell you, it’s real. Shifting from timezones and different days really messed us up! We woke up at 2pm yesterday! Haven’t slept in like that since I was a punk kid! Well, we went to sleep at a realistic Pacific time zone time last night and so this morning I’m doing day two! This is a long post folks! Here we go!
Here’s another poor cup noodle that got beaten up a bit on the flights back from Malaysia. Could’ve been between Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur and Taipei, or Taipei and Seattle – probably a combo of all three. Poor foam cup! There was a lot of turbulence last Sunday morning over Japan. Luckily, this is a noodle that gets drained anyways, and so it’ll come out fine. What’s funny is that the cup got banged up, but the noodle block is almost completely intact! Got this one at Econsave in Butterworth! Let’s check this mee goreng out! By the way – you may have also seen ‘mi’ goreng. Mi Goreng and Mee Goreng are the same thing; they both mean fried noodles – there’s also Mie Goreng you may see as well.
Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6
From September 29th to October 4th, my wife Kit and I were treated to a visit to Malaysia by the kind folks at Sky Thomas Food Industries Sdn Bhd, makers of MyKuali Penang White Curry Noodles. The purpose of the trip was not to promote for them, but to show us the foods of Penang. Here is the first day of the trip!
We have returned from our journey to Penang, Malaysia!! Our flight from Taipei, Taiwan arrived in Seattle around 7pm last night. This is a picture of where we were waiting for our shuttle to the parking light where we left our car. The flight left at 11pm Taiwan time, which is the same for Malaysia too – and then arrived the same day but 4 hours earlier! So we got back 15 hours all said and done which was kind of odd – time traveling! Over the next week starting Monday, I am going to do a new daily noodle review, and then a post highlighting everything of that day during our trip. At the end, I’ll be reviewing the new MyKuali Tom Yum instant noodle – my 1,500th review. Stay tuned!
