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Here’s one of the new Maruchan Bowls that they recently sent samples of. The only Maruchan bowls I’ve had before were only made in Japan – like the Midori No Tanuki and the Akai Kitsune Udon, both of which are in the Top Ten Instant Noodle Bowls list. Today I’m having the chicken variety.
Wow how cool – samples from Maruchan! first ever!
I saw something about the new Maruchan Bowls on their website and asked my contact about them. Well, they sent me this neat box!
Merry Christmas Eve! Thought today I would go a little festive with my review. What does Jalapeno Cheddar instant yakisoba have to do with Christmas? Well, I don’t know but it just seemed like the right thing to do. You’ll see – trust me you’ll see. This is one I was looking for for a long time and my lovely wife Kit found it at the Grocery Outlet! Rad!
Found these at Walmart yesterday – or wait that was today… We decided to go shopping at 1am – figured we’d beat the crowds… Well, we did beat the crowds but they were restocking – pretty amazing all the pallets they load there at night! Wow… Anyways, creamy chicken sounded good. Here’s the original review and I’ll do a really in-depth re-review soon!
A couple of weeks ago I was looking for articles to add to The Ramen Rater Noodle News and found an article with a YouTube video attached. Apparently, a recent college graduate had made something that involves cooking instant noodles and it would start selling at Walmart. I thought I’d see if I could contact the guy and get a sample of the product to review. Well, he sent a couple and here we go! Chris Johnson is the inventor of the Rapid Ramen Cooker. It promises speedy delivery of your instant noodles via the microwave! Before the review, here’s an interview I did with him recently via email.
An absolute surprise yesterday! Found this and two other Maruchan Yakisoba varieties I’ve been hunting for for quite a long time! Let’s give it a try!
Got this mailer today from the mailman…
This is a new product I found out about from a news story (link). I thought ‘wow this is awesome!’ After looking, I found the guy who invented and is marketing the product, Chris Johnson. He graciously offered to send samples and do an interview! Well, here are the samples and I will be trying them out with a few brands and doing an interview pretty soon. Thanks for these, Chris! Looking forward to hearing more about them! By the way, you can check out his website at www.rapidramen.com!
Thought I’d try this one again – it’s pretty sad – I have nothing new to review! Looking forward to some new varieties coming soon though hopefully! A couple from the UK have informed me that they’re sending a treasure trove of interesting varieties! Can’t wait! In the meantime, here’s the elusive Cucharealo – haven’t seen it for sale anywhere yet. Good stuff! Here’s the original review here.
Instantaneous Lunch? Nope – three minutes. But if you’re too impatient for that, I suppose one could eat it raw. I prefer the cooked version myself!
After this one, I think I have only four new ones to review! Egad! Hoping the mailman brings some new things to review soon! So here’s a cup of noodles for breakfast…
Strange how lately Walmart has become a treasure trove for Maruchan products – found six I hadn’t reviewed there recently! Anyways, here’s the chicken lower sodium pack.
I have fallen ill with some kind of head cold it seems and I thought something spicy would be good. My lovely wife Kit was kind enough make me some noodles for breakfast – she’s so good to me! Thought I’d have these – they’re available in the US now, but this is a Re-Review of the pack that is sold in Korea. The version sold in the US will be being reviewed soon! Here’s the link to the original review I did during Paldo’s Meet The Manufacturer.
Of the re-reviews I’ve done recently, I would say this is one of the most recent. Here’s the link for it’s first review, #858. Cakalang is also known as Skipjack tuna.
You’re probably wonder ‘gee, he sure reviews that Jinjja Jinjja quite a lot – what gives?’ Well, they sent me a lot of it and since I really like it, I want to enjoy it before it expires. Well, actually it expired in September, but I’m just about out of it. Here’s the last full review of it.
I reviewed this one a little while back – was review #787. Use this link to see everything about it. By the way, emart has informed me that they have a new product that just launched – should be here soon! Can’t wait to review it!
Ah! The elusive 35% less sodium pack! A lot of you have asked about lower sodium instant noodles – here’s one. Each pack has two servings at 510mg sodium each instead of 790mg of sodium (look at the back of the package below for details). Found it recently at Walmart actually. Its funny how many Asian grocery stores I know of and hit up for new noodles to review from time to time, but I still find new items at the biggest grocery store around. I’m hoping to be doing a Meet The Manufacturer with Maruchan sometime soon too! That’s going to be great! Anyways, let’s see how this one is…
Here’s another one of Maruchan’s Instant Lunches – who would think that I wouldn’t have reviewed it until now… Weird! But here’s the shrimp instant cup!
When I recently redid The Big List, I noticed some things. One of them was that I have never reviewed this one, nor it’s Beef or Shrimp fellow Instant Lunches! Talk about an oversight on my part… I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do a Meet The Manufacturer with Maruchan soon – thanks to everyone who has asked me to do one, it’s just I’ve never been able to successfully get in touch with them. Well, here we go with a close up and personal with Maruchan’s Instant Lunch: Chicken Flavor.
Here’s another one we picked up over at KS Mart in Lynnwood, WA the other day on our regular kimchi supply run. How fitting – kimchi noodle! Let’s hit it!
I’d thought I’d had everyone’s bowl noodles by now but lo and behold, a shrimp flavor by Paldo. So let’s give it a try!
Here’s one of the last couple packs that my friend from Jakarta, Indonesia sent. ABC is well known for their sweet soy sauce. This looks really interesting though – spicy and tomato! Let’s try it.
More mushroom noodles. They certainly looks nice from the pictures on the package – hao hao about we give ’em a try? Ugh…
So today I have two mushroom flavored instant noodles I’ll be doing. First off will be this Unif/Tung-I mushroom pack. What’s interesting about this one is that Unif Tung-I is usually from Taiwan, but this one’s from Vietnam. Anyways, let’s try this one and see how it is.
If you’re new to The Ramen Rater’s Show Your Noodles, you can email me a picture of some noodles you’ve made, include your name and location and I’ll post it on the Show Your Noodles roundup! Fancy or functional, it doesn’t matter. I mean, you could do literally anything you want with some instant noodles – use your imagination! Want to be part of the next Show Your Noodles? Just email me at hans@theramenrater.com. Let me know you first name, last initial, and city/state or country! My wife does the judging – here we go!
This is the last of the samples I got from Yamachan Ramen! Must admit I’m sad to see them go! Very tasty fare and it’s been a lot of fun! This one’s shoyu. Let’s give it a try.
Here’s something different. Sara Udon means plate noodles – what you have is a crispy noodle that is thin. You put them on the plate and crush gently, then add the sauce and during the meal, the noodles go from crisp to soft. It’s a texture sensation! Well, let’s check it out!
Tonkotsu-Shoyu… This one looks really interesting!
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge).
So Lifehacker came out with an article about The Ramen Rater a couple weeks ago and I noticed something about Yamachan Ramen in the comments on it. I contacted them and they were very interested in doing a Meet The Manufacturer. Very shortly, I received this box in the mail…
Welcome one and all to another Meet The Manufacturer! This time it’s San Jose, CA based Yamachan Ramen!They make fresh ramen products – here’s the interview I did with them.
So yesterday I tried the mild miso and today I’m hitting up the rich. This one says it’s ‘Sapporo miso’ – curious to see what its like.
Here’s another one of the fresh ramen samples from Yamachan. I’ve not been a big fan of miso in the past, but I’m open to this – looks fancy.
This is something a little different. This is two servings of fresh ramen in a pack. They’re made in San Jose and this looks to be something gourmet. Let’s check it out!
Been a while, but here we go with the 19th edition of The Ramen Rater Noodle News!
I search the ‘net for interesting news and view on instant noodles and beyond. Oldest articles start at the top. Here you go!
Here’s one of the last couple of packs sent by my friend from Jakarta, Indonesia. Thanks again – these have been a real treat to review! This one’s one of SuperMi’s well-know fusions. Goreng and Ayam Bawang; a sdry noodle with a flavor of a soup noodle! Pretty cool. Ready to eat!
Decided to do up a video of the nice Golden Pot that was sent to me by Mr. Shin, President of Nongshim Holdings – very kind thank you! Thought it fitting to try it out with some Shin Ramyun Black. Check out the video!
Here’s the last of the instant noodles my sister brought me from Canada earlier this year. Big ol’ seafood cup – let’s give it a go.
While at the KS Mart in Lynnwood, Washington, I saw this and had to give it a try. Wasn’t sure what (if any) noodles would be within, although I know one thing: topokki (or ttebokki) are really neat – they’re like enormous noodle chunks. Korean food is awesome stuff. Here’s what Wikipedia says about how it arrived in its current form:
So here’s the last of the top Ramen Short Cuts varieties that Nissin Foods USA sent me. Thanks again! Lime chili flavor eh? Sounds interesting. Its kind of funny; I got an email from someone at a company called Citrojugo the other day. Citrojugo is a company in Mexico that makes lime juice. I think they saw one of my reviews mentioned ‘jeruk nipis,’ which is ‘lime juice’ in Indonesian. Well, Citrojugo was curious if my company would be interested in it for my products. I told them that I only review products related to instant noodles, but that I could probably try their stuff and work it into a review of another product, such as marinated chicken with their lime juice. Well, they immediately dispatched a liter of clarified preserved lime juice. Serious stuff! I open it up and stuck my nose in the Nalgene containment vessel and got a real nosefull of powerful lime! I’ll be mentioning more about their stuff in upcoming reviews – haven’t marinated chicken with it yet but will be soon and it should be quite amazing!
Realized I haven’t reviewed the new version of the Shin Bowl. A lot of people have asked if I noted any difference from the old version (non-microwaveable) and the new one. Well, I guess we shall see!
This one was sent by a friend in Jakarta, Indonesia – thank you! What a day – so around 11am, people started flooding into the site! LifeHacker ran a story about The Ramen Rater and literally thousand of people have checked out the blog. Well, here’s one from Indonesia – Soto Koya Pedass. Pedas means spicy, so I guess Pedass means really spicy or it could be a nod to Turturro in The Big Lebowski. I have a feeling it just means really spicy. I’ve seen this kind of thing before – extra letters = extra emphasis, at least in Indonesian. Well, let’s dig in to this one!
