Over 5,000 Instant Ramen Noodle Reviews Since 2002
Hey it’s Monday. A windy, rainy Monday on November 4th – my mom would’ve been 89 today. This is a variety of dry noodle from A-Sha for the Momofuku restaurants. Really looking forward to this – and I’ll be adding something neat into it. Let’s give it a go!
This is the second of three and yup – will be a mukbang. I think I’m in the mood for a mukbang today – last night was Halloween and it rained – poured – and so something hot sounds good. Still raining today. Let’s give it a go.
Well this is a little different – but cool. Hot Ones is a YouTube show where celebrities go on and do an interview while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings. Gorden Ramsay practically cried and had a tantrum. Anyways, these are in a series – there’s three cups and three bowls. I’ve got the cups, so I’ll be trying them (yes, mukbang) in short order and seeing how they go. These are made in Vietnam for the US market. Let do this.
Here’s the first of a slew of A-Sha varieties. This one is a collab between Momofuku, a hoidy-toidy restaint chain and A-Sha. While made in Taiwan, this is specifically for the US market. Shall we?
James from Lakeside, California emailed me the other day on some packs he found at Grocery Outlet and sent my way. These are very very interesting in that they’re got clear stuff going on, common prison named flavors, and so on. Watch the vid and maybe check you local Grocery Outlet should you have one. Thanks again man – awesome find!
Well foks, after my 5000 and 5001st reviews, this is where I go back to the regular stuff. Well, sorta. I’ve got a few top tens I need to crank out. By the time you see this, hopefully that’ll have occurred. But I just wanna do a regular old review – nothing crazy or huge, nothing monumental – just a review. Seems like I haven’t done one in a month so that’s it I’m doing one. Found this at S*Mart – yep – shop smart shop S*Mart. Let us begin…
The second of two new fresh varieties from Myojo you’ll find in the refrigerated section. Let’s give it a try!
James is a kind of noodle whisperer; he has been sending boxes with stuff in them that 99% of the time I’ve never heard of. This box is no different – lots of neat stutff in here including a variety made in Vietnam for Poland! Thanks!! Let’s take a look.
My friend The Fat Hipster told me about Kenchan Ramen recently, so as I do when I hear about anything new in the ramen realm, I reached out. They replied and sent samples – thanks! I’ve tried everything and you can see them in this video. Thank you very much – they’re really good! Let’s check ’em out!
Here’s another one of the new Myojo bowls! Really curious about how spicy this will be. Should be good – let’s give it a try!
Here’s one I got out of the huge box Nissin sent me for National Noodle Day. I figured I’d reviewed everything in there, but nope! There’s a few! Let’s give it a god.
Here’s something new that arrived in a refrigerated pack from Myojo USA – thank you very much! It’s hard. I always want to embellish a bowl of tonkotsu with egg and chashu, fish cake, you know… But although I’m guess they’d all compliment this, I want to keep it on the plant-based side of things. This is a refrigerated section item and should be able to be found at the store in the United States. Anyways, let’s give it a try!
I’ve seen this on Amazon and elsewhere kind of recently but never in the ‘wild’ until this last weekend. Well, as I type this I mean September 28th 2024 last weekend. My lovely wife Kit took us over to S*Mart in Bellevue, Washington for a quick noodle hunt and three varieties of this range were lurking. It wasn’t really a quick hop over there – there was some insane traffic on the way home. However there was a bit of rain and a nice rainbow for the kids to enjoy on the way back while we sat in traffic. This one is made in South Korea by Samyang let’s check this out!
Here’s a new one from Myojo – sounds good and definitely in the mood – let’s give it a try!
Thanks to James from Lakeside, California for sending this along. Been years since a Shirakiku variety crossed paths with my desk. What’s more, I don’t know that I’ve seen imagery on a tonkotsu featuring a fork before. Let’s give it a whirl.
Big thanks to James from Lakeside for this one! Jjamppong is a favorite of mine and this sounds like a Nagasaki jjamppong. Let’s cook it up!
Every once in a while, I get an email from a publisher about a new book about ramen. Well, this time it was from Quarto about their new Kawaii Cafe Ramen – they also sent three more books as well! Let’s take a look at them all!
Found this at a Dollar Tree store here in Kenmore, Washington. I remember trying out the chicken variety and I don’t think I found it very appealing. We shall see how it goes.
Found this at a local Dollar Tree store here in Kenmore, Washington. This one is fascinating and odd – it says it cooks quickly, however when you see the steeping time you might be a little surprised. Let’s check it out.
My last review was a Japanese cold noodle, and now we have a Korean style cold noodle from the United States. The sweet spicy gochujang sounds kind of like bibimmyeon. Let’s give it a try – it’s summer right now as I type this, by the way.
We arrive at the last of the three fresh varieties from Yoko Street. Miso! Let’s give it a try.
A big thanks to Daniel over at www.exoticnoods.com for sending this one! I’ve been wanting to try it and mukbang it up for a while now (mukbang vid at bottom of the page), and here it is. I love tom yum. I’m curious though as the Buldak base has the heat, but it also imparts some sweetness as well. Interesting. I guess the correct route is to give it a try.
Here’s something you’ll find on the instant noodle aisle, however it is obviously not a noodle. This could be good stuff – very curious. Let’s nuke it and give it a try.
Tapatio hot sauce is really popular and I see their cups and bowls a lot at the local stores. Well, there are three new varieties that will be gracing store shelves now – check them out!
Funyuns and Maruchan got together and made a food baby. This is fascinating and very different. It came to be at the same time as the new Maruchan Chili Cheese Yakisoba which I used these for garnish with.I have seen snack and chip collabs with instant noodles before and they either work or they don’t. Prior to sampling these, I saw an article saying they were so absolutely wonder; really gushing over them. Well, I’ll try them out and give you my honest opinion. Let’s do it.
So Yoko Street sends fresh ramen to your door – here’s their website. I tried a few varieties a little while back and was enthused! Let’s try this and a couple more!
Very rarely have I found instant pho that I’ve enjoyed. Like twice. But maybe this will be a third time. We shall see.
Here’s the second of three sent by Yoko Street. I think this is the first udon I’ve tried from these folks – I could be wrong. Looks like the good stuff too – thick and chewy. Guess we’ll find out!
A bowl of beef pho from Snapdragon. Really not looking forward to this; far and few between are Snapdragon varieties that I’ve really liked. I suppose I will atempt to ‘slurp happy’ as they recommend on the packaging. Well, let’s make an attempt.
Found this at the local Grocery Outlet store – 50c. Cheap and I’m kind of poor right now so figured why not. As it turns out, this one is interesting. This is distributed by Albany Farms. Ring a bell? Albany Farms was the distributor for Panda Signature, archenemy of ravenous Maruchan fans who shop only at Walmart during the pandemic.. Well, I’ve had the chicken version of this and it was pretty abyssmal. Let’s see what the beef does.
The second of two varieties of egg white noodles. These are much thinner – really curious if they’ll do well when made dry with some Hae Bee Hiam sambal from MAlaysia? I suppose we will find out!
I don’t normally review noodles – I review noodles and seasoning. But when I caught wind of this, I thought maybe I should reach out to the company. Sure enough, they sent samples – so I’m going to give ’em a try. What’s fascinating is that these are egg white noodles. That’s pretty much it – egg whites and water. Let’s see what happens.
Well, this is interesting. Nissin USA sent me a pack of this stuff – thanks! What’s interesting is that I’ve had this before; sort of. Nissin Indonesia has a Geki range as well – here’s a link to their carbonara flavor. I think you might be putting it together pretty quick – fiery hot chicken, carbonara… Yup. Definitely popular flavors these days. Let’s give this a try – there’ll be a mukbang at the bottom.
A final big thank you to the person who sent me these – they work in a prison and didn’t want to be identified, so if you’re reading this, thank you very much! This is the last of the four prison varieties they sent. A little background – they’re clear so as to make it hard to smuggle in or hide contraband – stuff you mustn’t have in prison. This flavor is one you won’t find outside of prisons or correctional facilities; period. A special distributor deals with these for Maruchan. They definitely aren’t interested in hearing from you – I called them up once and they were very uninterested in selling or sending me samples and said try going to prison. So don’t bother them as you’d be wasting your time. Well, with that, let’s try this one.
Okay – so no, you can’t really get this outside of a rison. Why? It’s just the deal. The clear packs don’t allow contraband. Who makes these? Maruchan. Who distributes them? Folks who want nothing to do with you so don’t bother them. I got some from a person who works for a prison as an employee. No. He’s anonymous. Anyways, there’s a lot of interest in these varieties. So, I’ll review it. They’re pretty good and different.
Here’s another one you can only find… In prison. Yup – clear packaging is a giveaway. You can’t get these elsewhere – you will never see them in a grocery store. They are distributed by a company called Keefe Group – don’t call Keefe Group. They don’t want to talk to you – trust me I found out by calling them. This and three other varieties were sent by an anonymous donor – thanks again! Let’s give this a try.
First, I’d like to send big thanks to a person who works at a prison who doesn’t want to be identified. This is something some of you might know, but many will not. This is prison ramen. Notice the package has a lot of clear space? That’s to make it hard to conceal contraband people might like to bring in. Maybe not bring in per se, maybe things that were brough in and wanted to be hidden? I know a lot of you will ask where you can get this. Prison. Jail. Grocery store? No. Will the distributor sell it to me? No. They’re very clear on that – I’ve contacted them in the past and it’s definitely not going to happen. Yeah. So if you want some of these noodles, you’ll have to do something to end up in a corrections facility, or luck out and be contacted by someone that works at one and offers you some. I will say if you are really wanting this stuff check on eBay as you might be able to find it there from time to time. Anyways, let’s cook it up.
I really wanted to demo this stuff with something like, oh I dunno – Buldak Kimchi – which would’ve been fun. Unfortunately, they have so curtailed their individual pack options at HMart that there were literally only two Korean varieties. Yep. I ended up getting a pack of Meoguri at the local grocery store – pretty sad. I went with Neoguri though because it’s quite nice stuff, and I believe I saw a video of this kimchi mix being used with Neoguri – seems an apt pairing. Well, let’s give it a shot!
This stuff has been enjoyable in the past and if it’s what I think it is, it should be even better. The Choi restaurant ramen is excellent – curious to see how it goes – but for now let’s take a look at it !@
A few redditors mentioned a few chili crisps they thought should be on my Chili Crisp Roundup post and so I reached out and Barnacle Foods’ Kelp Chili Crisp was one of them. You can get it here. As of publishing this, I haven’t tried it yet, but soon it will be on that roundup post, as well as tried with different ramen! This one sounded particularly interesting as many acquaintances over the years from my hometown of Anacortes would head up to Alaksa to do commercial fishing. I also played with kelp when I was a kid on the shore – yeah we didn’t have a whole lot to do.Maybe your ramen junkie friend would like this for the holidays? Check out the vid and a big thanks to Barnacle Foods for sending it along!
