Category: * News / Noodle News

Friday Video: Flashback Friday

I woke up today with this song in my head. It’s kind of weird – I got a bunch of hand-me-down audio cassettes from my sister Sue when I was a kid. All sorts of disco and soul stuff – I listened to them over and over and over – lots of Bee Gees and Spinners and O’Jays. It’s kind of like I went through the 70’s pop thing even though I was 5 when 1980 came around. Thought I’d post this one today – my sister and I will be visiting Thailand in May and I’ll have more info about that soon. Some things I can say now is that it’ll have instant noodles, rice, and factory touring involved! Happy Friday to all! ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten South Korean Instant Noodles Of All Time 2015 Edition

The Ramen Rater’s top Ten South Korean Instant Noodles Of All Time made it’s debut last January and I thought this would be a good day to release the new one for 2015! South Korean instant noodles (known as ramyun) are characteristically thicker and chewier than most instants. Spiciness is a common trait as well as beef flavors. Here are my top picks of the South Korean varieties I’ve reviewed of my 1,573 reviews to date. ...see full post

The Ramen Rater App – For Android & iPhone

For Android

Developed by Mike Koval, a reader of the blog for a long time, this app will let you browse and search the site easily. What’s more, by using the bar code scan option, you can scan the bar code of an instant noodle at the grocery store and get results (provided I’ve reviewed it of course). Enhancements will be coming soon as well! best of all, it’s free! Check it out now! ...see full post

Friday Video: Takeru Kobayashi Chugs Down A-Sha Noodles!

Takeru Kobayashi is one of the most famous competitive eaters in the world. For those who’ve never heard of competitive eating, yes – there’s such a thing! In this episode of a popular Taiwanese TV show, watch him scarf down what looks to be ten bowls of A-Sha noodles! Very impressive! He’s doing some special stuff with A-Sha Dry Noodle right now, and I will have more on that soon! For now, enjoy and Happy Friday! ...see full post

Momofuku Ando Day Nissin Cup Noodle Photo Contest

Hey everyone! I’d like to announce the 4th Momofuku Ando Day here at The Ramen Rater will be on Monday, January 19th 2015. For those of you who aren’t aware, Momofuku Ando was the inventor of The instant noodle and he also started Nissin Foods. His first product, Chikin Ramen was sold in 1958. This year, I’m doing something a little different, and I’ll be featuring a couple video reviews dealing with Cup Noodles, which leads me to this year’s Momofuku Ando Day Photo contest! Here are the rules: ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time Hong Kong 2015 Edition

I thought to myself recently that it would be great to end 2014 and start 2015 with a new top ten list – but from where? A couple places came to mind, and Hong Kong sounded like a good one. I’ve found a lot of excellent instant noodles that have been from Hong Kong. Been hoping to see more arrive here in the United States, but many of the ones on this list I’ve found up in Canada. I would definitely like to reach out to instant noodle companies in Hong Kong to take part in Meet The Manufacturer; there’s not been a Hong Kong participant yet! With that, here’s the top ten instant noodles of Hong Kong – the best and most memorable – from the last 1,553 reviews. Enjoy and Happy New Year, Hong Kong! ...see full post

Big News For Mr & Mrs The Ramen Rater

Today’s a special day for us – five years ago today, we first talked to each other. We were both getting through the murky end of horrible relationships and found each other on an online dating website. She lived to far away – me in northern Washington, she in Northern California. That night we spoke on the phone for a whole 6 hours and all I wanted to do was to talk to her again. It was amazing; we found each other right when we most needed each other. Five years later, I’d like to announce that we’re expecting our first child together! We found out two weeks ago! We’re very excited and can’t wait to start this new adventure. To my wife – I love you and am supremely happy knowing you are in my life everyday. Happy Holidays to all! ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s MyKuali Penang White Curry Pizza

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! ...see full post

Friday Video: The Instagram Instant Noodle Research Study

Today is Halloween and I thought I’d post something a little different. I spend a lot of time posting on instagram and perusing other people’s instant noodle related posts on there as well. I thought I would pick a standard instant noodle related hashtag and see what interesting things would pop up, then I would share my conclusions. The hashtag is #topramen. ...see full post

The Ramen Rater For Apple iPhone

I am very proud and happy to introduce the release of The Ramen Rater mobile app for the Apple iPhone! The app is the culmination of many months of work by myself and app developer Calvin Tam of Malaysia (you can see some of his other work here). You may have noticed a while back I posted an ad on the right side asking for folks who might be interested in developing an app with me for mobile users. Well, Calvin answered that call and devoted a great deal of time making this happen! I want to personally thank him for the time and effort expended on this app. Without further adieu, let me introduce you to The Ramen Rater for iPhone! ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Trip To Malaysia: Day 4 – The Isle Of Langkawi

Day 1 * Day 2Day 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. ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Trip To Malaysia: Day 3 – Prawn-slaught!

Day 1 * Day 2Day 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! ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Trip To Malaysia: Day 2 – Factory & Hawker 101

Day 1 * Day 2Day 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! ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Trip To Malaysia: Day 1 – Departure & Arrival

Day 1 * Day 2Day 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! ...see full post

Return From Penang, Malaysia!

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! ...see full post