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Alright so today it’s a Vegetarian variety. To be honest, I used to enjoy a lot of condensed soup and this was my favorite flavor. So, I suppose it has a bit to live up to as far as the name. Let’s have a look inside this cup and see what lurks within!
Okay now I’m seeing a pattern. The cups exclaim that they have rich broth while the packaged versions contain insanely rich broth. All I can say is in the last two, I liked the broth. Now to the topic of miso – here’s a little from Wikipedia –
It’s usually the same thing every time – a knock at the door and a semi-confused looking guy handing me a package. We have some Lunar New Year stuff on our front door and so I’m guessing they’re expecting someone Asian to answer their knocking. Surprise! Big white guy. Anyways, let’s see what neat things are inside this box!
To start things off, we have a tomato variety from Meimen. Just as a reminder, all of the Meimen products are Vegan.
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve had a version of Neoguri to review. Actually, wait – not that extremely long – they came out with the Neoguri dry stir noodle one recently. So this is one I got up in Canada a couple of months ago.
Here’s another vegetarian one from Maitri – this one being an instant noodle with broth. As I have to remind people, I won’t be coming out with a top ten vegetarian list. I wish I could, but it’s just a point of so much contention I should go a little into it.
Note – so I originally reviewed thios one using the ‘dry’ method. This time after some outcry, I’ll be reviewing it made with the instructions for a soupy noodle. One should note however that the ‘dry’ method is the one that’s listed before the soup version.
Here’s another one sent by Colin from Massachusetts – thanks again! So this is a Hong Kong variety. Let’s see if I can find something on Wikipedia about Ho Fan –
This is the third of the rice vermicelli (bihun) varieties that MyKuali has come out with in cups. I was very surprised yesterday – happily so. They now have them at the 99 Ranch store near me – all of their pack range, the rice vermicelli bowls and the cup versions as well. Pretty surprised to see them actually – but it’s a good thing since it seems Malaysian flavors are really making a big punch into the outer world.
It’s that time of year again! Actually, this is the first time the list is coming out in July although at the tail end of July. I usually have the lists come out on the Monday closest to the date it came out the prior year. So this list is a compilation of absolutely hottest and spiciest varieties I’ve had out of the 2,500+ varieties I’ve tried thus far. Something you think belongs on this spiciest of lists? Let me know – I’ll give it a try. Let’s get started!
So today it’s the fifth annual The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time. On my other lists, I exclude varieties that no longer are on the market. On this list, everything’s fair game for the bottom ten. As I say in the video presentation, if you like some of these, there’s nothing wrong with you – I just find these detestable personally. These are my least favorite varieties of the over 2400 varieties posted to date. Without gurther ado, the bottom ten.
I looked upon all the samples sent by Tat Hui for this Meet The Manufacturer. Indeed, it occurred to me to go right for the curry, the laksa… But I thought to begin with, I would go right for the standard.
Got this bowl quite a while back – I’ve got lots of new varieties and still trying to clear out the ones that are close to expiration! So let’s ask Wikipedia about wonton noodles –
Been awhile since I’ve had something Vietnamese… This one sounds tasty – sour crab! This bowl has a lot of things inside, so let’s get to it!
This is another one sent by Colin from the east coast – thanks again! So pork bone broth is hugely popular in Japan and this sounds like a soy and pork variety to me. Let’s check out this premium variety!
Been a while since I’ve had a Kamfen bowl… Scallop and lobster wonton favor? Definitely Hong Kong. It’s a seriously rainy day today and we’re going to have a power outage I predict. Ahhh. It’s not like we live in the middle of nowhere; we’re in the city! Weird. Noodle time!
This one sounds really good. I really like tom yum and this looks like it’ll be good – I’ve liked most of the Fuku products I’ve tried so far and hoping this will be a continuation of that trend! Let’s dig in!
It’s been a while since I’ve done any re-reviews and there will be a couple in this Meet The Manufacturer. This is from a long time ago – last time I had this bowl was in review #304 which I posted February 20th, 2011. Yep – very old review and should be interesting to see how I like it now as opposed to back then. I know it’ll look nicer than back then – I used to drop two fried eggs in with EVERYTHING and a lot of the time it looked like a hideous trainwreck. Let’s revisit this one!
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Here’s another one sent by a reader named Colin – thanks again! Today, I thought I’d cook up something for my wife Kit. Her actual name is Christine, but I’ve called her Kit for years. She’s always been a big fan of mushrooms – in fact, it’s because of her that I’ve started to like them. Oddly, here’s a Maruchan instant noodle I’ve not reviewed yet. I didn’t even know it still existed til Colin sent it over. Let’s have a look at this one.
Here’s a special one sent by Apple Daily news of Hong Kong. They asked if I’d do a comparison between this, the Thai version and the Vietnamese version of the Fuku Superior Soup for a special news story. Now these are both made in different places, but they’re for the Hong Kong market. anyways I figured hey – why not? This sounds interesting – let’s take a look!
This is the second of two – they’re both sold in Hong Kong, yet made in different places – Thailand and Vietnam. This is the one manufactured in Vietnam. I was sent this along with quite a few other to review as part of a special feature for Apple Daily HK. So, let’s crack this one open and see what we have here.
CarJEN has come up with something new! This one has not only a dry mee goreng, but a companion soup that you can enjoy alongside it. I’ve seen this before, but never in Malaysian varieties. There’s a popular Taiwanese instant that has a noodle and a soup separate kind of thing going too. Very curious about this one indeed. Let’s see how this all works!
Here’s something new – found this at the Uwajimaya in Renton, Washington. It’s funny; we go a little out of our normal sphere of shopping and boom – all sorts of new things! Actually, found quite a few new Maruchan varieties – a Chipotle Instant Lunch as well as three new Bowl varieties – Miso, Sukiyaki and Tonkotsu! Those will be coming up for review soon. Until them, let’s check out this neat little cup.
Another one from Colin – thanks again! So Pulmuone is considered a ‘healthful’ brand in South Korea. As you can see, these are non-fried noodles. Let’s look within and see what else we find.
MyKuali has been tinkering with upgrading their recipes during the last year or two. One thing they told be when I visited in 2014 was that the hawkers are always fine-tuning their recipes, and that they planned on doing the same thing. When I asked what the difference is with this new iteration, I was told that an aspect of the shrimp powder has been altered to give it an even more authentic taste. I found tha the Hokkien Mee I had in Penang a couple years back was very close to what I got from the MyKuali Hokkien Mee. Let’s see how this one tastes.
Hey check it out – Nissin Cup Noodles got a big facelift.
Here’s how they used to look – cardboard outer packaging is now gone. Less packaging and different materials have been used to make them more environmentally friendly. Also, they’re now microwavable! Yes, I’m sure many of you microwaved them before, but you weren’t supposed to. The new cups also have a little extra room so you can add veggies and meats or whatever you want to oomph up your noodles! Let’s check this new cup out!
Here’s the last I have of the new packaged varieties of MyKuali products. Before, this was called Hokkien Prawn, but now it appears they’ve gone to a more streamlines title and packaging. Prawn Mee as it’s known in Southeast Asia is a spicy and prawn filled extravaganze of flavor and wonder. If you like prawn, this is definitely something you should enjoy! Let’s look within!
I got some new samples from Nissin USA a few weeks ago (thank you!) of some varieties of Nissin’s Raoh from Japan that are now available in the USA. Raoh (meaning King( is a premium line. At this point, you can only get them on Amazon. Not sure if that will change though. So Umami. This is something interesting – first, let’s have a look at what wikipedia has to say about umami –
I’ve been a huge fan of curry over the years. I’ve made all sorts of sauces and soups and this is one of my favorites – works great with leftover turkey and some easily found ingredients – check it out and if you try it, let me know what you think!
Recently, I got a box from MyKuali with a lot of products I’d reviewed before with new packaging as well as a couple of completely brand new products. This is one of the totally new ones, MyKuali’s first bowl offering. It’s also their first rice vermicelli (also known as bihun) variety. Let’s pop open a bowl and look inside!
Here’s one I got in the package sent by Javier over at Box From Japan – thanks! Box From Japan is a monthly subscription service that delivers different varieties of instant noodles to your door each month – fancy stuff like this one! Definitely worth checking out. Also, thanks go to Shinichi S. for help in translation! So let’s ask Wikipedia about Tonjiru:
I’ve been asked by quite a few people in the last few months to re-review this one. It sounds like a lot of you really enjoy this one! One thing to note is that I’ve also been asked repeatedly about instant varieties that are vegetarian. Most instant noodles made in the USA will contain meat and/or seafood. Why? Well, it’s pretty hard to import chicken and beef into the United States. Standards for agricultural products are pretty strict, so the logic here is that if a foreign company builds a plant here, they don’t have to deal with these restrictions since they’re in the country, using US meat products in what they produce. Knowing this, if you stroll down the aisle of an Asian grocery store, you’ll see quite a few chicken, beef and other flavors which usually are imported and do not contain any beef, chicken or pork. So just a little tip from me – look and see where it’s made on the pack – it might have fish, but should be meat free. These noodles are made in Garden Grove, California. Southern California is the spot where most instant noodle companies that open up plants congregate – easy access to big seaports and centralized distribution has a lot (if not everything) to do with this. Anyways, let’s check out this much requested re-review of Sapporo Ichiban chicken noodles!
It’s been so long since I’ve reviewed a new Bowl Noodle! I remeber a few years ago I was hunting high and low for certain varieties, many long gone. I remember the beef anfd ginger flavor was pretty good! Then they switched over to these microwaveable versions instead of the foam bowls – and I like them better! Curious how this one will be.
Today I opened up my big hamper of noodles and this one popped into view. To be honest, I don’t know exactly when I got this one – Canada trip I think. Definitely has an interesting name – Korean Salt & Rib Soup. The closest thing I can think of that they might be referring to would be galbitang, which is a South Korean soup with short ribs and made with ox bone broth. Sounds interesting – let’s see what we have here.
The other day we headed south to check out Ikea. I’d never been there before – wow pretty crazy place! I even tried the meatballs – not bad. Nearby Ikea is Seafood City, a big grocery store that sells mostly Filipino stuff. I have only been there once before and found lots of great instant noodles I’d not reviewed before. Sadly, I only found one – and this is it. Actually, my wife Kit found it! Thanks, Kit! I like the name; it looks like Panama and my spellcheck is insisting is should be spelled Panama, but it’s Pamana. One thing to note – so by the time this is posted, we”ll have moved. I’m quite a few reviews ahead which is nice. No time today to do the pics of sachet contents (actually I packed my little bowls already). Let’s see what’s inside!
Here’s another one that Annie T. over at MyKuali sent me! Thank you very much! Curry seems to be a regular flavor over in Malaysia – and with good reason. Malaysian curry noodles are out of this world good! I’ve always liked curry, but curry from Southeast Asia are just superb. Let’s see how this one fares.
I’ve been asked about these low calorie noodles for a long time. Miracle Noodle is more widely known for it’s Shirataki Miracle Noodle. Those are made from yams. These are Kanten Miracle Noodles. So let’s see Wikipedia has to say about them:
I’ve been really lucky – the FedEx guy has been coming to my patio for ages when I have a package but he’s retired! This is the last box he brought me.
