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I think this is the last of the varieties that Maruchan sent for the Meet The Manufacturer series. Haven’t had this since it’s initial launch many years ago. These look very much like Maruchan Seimen, a range which is very popular in Japan. So, what’s the different? No pork. Let’s give it a go!
Another one found at Asian Family Market on 130th & Aurora . I’ve had Lan Zhou noodles before – and a few Shoo Loong Kan varieties (those were good). During my research on this variety, I’m bombarded by images of lovely beef and coriander aplenty, in really great bowls I wish I had. It makes me really want to go to China; definitely want to try Lan Zhou, the food of Henan, the food of Chongqing… Pretty much every province has their delicacies. Someday I hope. But today, I have this interesting box with a taste of China in it. Let’s give it a try.
Been lagging on doing top ten list editing – my apologies. The weather’s been really good for walking, and in May I did over 500 miles. I included a special post at the bottom about it. I also included something of a change from how I’ve been doing things as well involving AI. Anyways, this is the annual The Ramen Rater’s Global Top Ten Instant Noodle Bowls – these are my favorite varieties out of review up to #4440 which are in the bowl style. Hope you enjoy! Top Ten Cups and Bottom Ten lists should be coming soon!
Here’s another one I found at Asian Family Market the other day. This is a brand I’ve never seen before and thought ‘let’s give it a try.’ It was anice afternoon – brought our new Lab puppy Pepper with us to get her fitted for a choke chain, got some dog food and then of course to the Asian grocery. It was hopping in that area, that’s for sure.
First off, thanks to Daniel over at Exotic Noods for sending this and a few others over recently – check out his website!
A week. Last week I mean. Feeling crummy. Started Sunday and went on until Thursday. Then Friday happened and it was like I was pretty much at 100% again, which was really nice. Went out for a nice walk, then went out shopping. I definitely wanted to see what was up at Asian Family Market – the next day would be Lunar New Year. Got a few things, this being one of them. Looks interesting; let’s check it out!
Behold! I was contacted by a fellow on instagram who follows my reviews and asked if I’d tried these as he has, loved them, but couldn’t source them. I looked around and found ramentalk.us and let him know he could get them there, so he was really happy. I also contacted Ramen Talk to hopefully arrange for some samples. I’m certainly glad I did! These look really quite fascinating – they have a few varieties that I’ll be reviewing in short order as well, but this tonkotsu style sounds great – comes with lots of garnish – including a 7cm slice of chashu. On with the show!
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
Back in mid 2018, I reviewed this right after their ‘new recipe’ change for review #2910. Around that time, it seemed that US manufacturers decided to change the product names of economy pillow packs that were initially known as ‘Oriental’ flavor to Soy Sauce. The term ‘Oriental’ has come under fire in recent years, hence the change. What does Oriental mean? Basically it derives from Latin, meaning ‘of the east’ – the opposite being Occidental being ‘of the west.’ From what I’ve gathered from running the Ramen Junkie facebook group for a while as this has come up from time to time is that many things and businesses will use the term; ‘insert city name here’ Oriental Market for example, however it isn’t a term to be used for people, at least that’s what I found. I read an L.A. Times article about this very subject that I thought was very interesting – you can read it here. One particular quote from the author I found fascinating was ‘A funny thing I noticed is that my Caucasian colleagues, not my Asian colleagues, are most eager to remove Oriental from public discourse.’
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
The other day I did the competitor’s tray noodle – that was teriyaki beef as well. Been years and years since I’d reviewed either of them. They’re both economy tray varieties and they both dwell on the soup aisle. Let’s give this one a try.
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
Eventually, I’ll get through everything I want to do for the Maruchan Meet The Manufacturer series – there’s a lot of them to go through and then unite all together. I’m cobbling everything together slowly. I got this one at the Kenmore, Washington Safeway store – your standard American domestic grocery store. In these stores, there are two areas you will commonly find instant noodles. There’s the soup aisle, and the ethnic foods aisle. These are in the soup aisle. They’ve got a few varieties of trays – some Maruchan, and some by a competitor . I think I’ll have to see what other Maruchan ones they’ve got, but thought this might be a good one for the trays. Let’s check it out!
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
Here’s the second of two of these Wicked Foods varieties we found recently at the Lake City Fred Meyer grocery store. The last one was pretty slimy. Let’s see what this one has in store…
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
New clothes for the classic! Originally, it was a foam bowl with a paper lid in shrinlkwrap. Then, they reformulated for microwave and had a cardboard sleeve. Now, it’s a plastic wrap with the graphics on that. This is classic – ubiquitous with gas stations and little corner shops, many o which are run by Korean Americans. I used to live in a place that had a little grocery/deli mini mart across the way. The fellow there was Korean American and he had these in there, but with a ridiculous markup. I asked him why once. ‘Because that’s my lunch!’
Here’s something different – corn vermicelli! I’ve tried a different gauge of this paired with Ciptarasa mi goreng seasoning and it was really quite nice. This time I’ll try doing up a soup with Ciptaras onion chicken flavor. Let’s give it a go!
Here’s one we found at the Fred Meyer store in Lake City. These are made in the UK – unsure if they’re related to the Naked Noodles line of someone else’s. Either way, it’s something I’ve not seen before, so I’m reviewing it.
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
In December, we went to Party City. They had a new one opened up next to us and so we were getting stuff for our daughter Miriam’s birthday. Well, they had two candy noodle things and this was one of them. A Cup O’ Crazy. That’s pretty weird. It’s got goo, edible chopsticks, and gummy noodles. I really don’t like things like this so much but I have to review it of course. Qho knoqa; it could be masterfully crafted; like a jelly noodle with a sauce that’s made from fine ingredients and chopsticks of sweet coconut powder that melt in your mouth. But I wouldn’t count on it. Let’s commense this, the 4,509th session of my personal congress of noodling.
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
This is a review I’m rushing out as kind of a special ‘grand re-opening.’ For the past couple of months I haven’t done more than a small handful of reviews. I’ve been dieting and walking a lot – like over 500 miles in May a lot. With the kids ending their school year today and a couple of months with them at home, I’m back to attempting to do three reviews a day Monday through Friday. I thought I would push this one through because it’s brand new and I know a lot of your will be interested. There’s something else brand new here I’m very excited about which you will be seeing in a while. The finished picture here has a background I created using AI. The ability to make my own backgrounds this was is really something else – I’m stoked. Spent an hour yesterday trying different things – prompts like ‘tranditional Malaysian style wallpaper centered with dark colors’ – things like that. You’ll see them regularly in the fall as even though I’ve taken all this time off, I’m still almost 150 reviews ahead. Yesterday I make a ton of new intros and outros for Instant Noodle Recipe Time, plus a new set of music for the show. So that’s coming up. On with the review!
While we’re knee deep in 2023, I reviewed this one on January 4th – and actually it’s the first review I’ve done in 2023. Big thanks to the nice folks at A-Sha for sending this over – they said it’s available at Costco. Let’s give it a shot.
It’s a couple days after Christmas and one of the last reviews of 2022. Obviously, it’s not coming out in 2022, but that’s when I did this up. I used some things I got for Christmas, including leftovers from dinner – let’s give this one a try – I reviewed it quite a while back but figure it’s due another looksie.
This is a gluten free product we found at a local store. My wife does the gluten free thing, so making this for her today. It’s currently 23 degrees outside with a wind chill as low at 15. That’s pretty cold for these parts. I’ve got to go to the store to get some stuff, so I’ll probably be talking about how cold it is. Anyways, let’s cook this one up.
What we have here is a noodle and a seasoning combo – both by the same company. Should be pretty good – in the mood to try. Let’s check it out!
Toyomansi is a combo of soy sauce and calamansi flavors. Calamansi is a kind of citrus kind of similar to lime. This is great – rarely come across Filipino varieties and they’re some really good ones to try. Found this one at HMart with my daughter after her birthday party this year. We took her to Chuck E. Cheese – what an interesting place – very throwback. Let’s check this one out!
#4501: Mr. Noodles Spicy Tomato –
Here’s another one I found at JD’s Market in Lynnwood, Washington – and in fact, the last of them. Running low on noodles again at this point but that’s okay for now – got top tens to work on. This has been an interesting range to try. Let’s check it out.
A long time coming, this one. A reader named Cian sent me this one (thanks again!) as well as a few other Brazilian varieties. He sent the chocolate version of this which was a real score – but this one led me down a research rabbit hole, but yesterday I caught the rabbit. Beijinho is a Brazilian treat – see those little balls in the bowl? Beijinho is basically condensed milk and powdered sugar mixed with unsweetened coconut, chilled, made into balls, and then rolled in more unsweetended coconut and topped with a clove. Problem is the cloves alone were kind of spendy and all the coconut you find here is sweetened. It seemed that making it myself would be a little tricky as well as expensive. I asked in local groups and people mentioned Kitanda, a Brazilian cafe/bakery/mini store in Kirkland, Washington. First time we went, no dice – they only had the chocolate ones. The second time, however – they had what I was looking for, but sans clove and that’s what I’ll be using for garnish. So, let’s do up this 4500th review!
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
Pretty stoked – found this locally in Kirkland (no, not Costco, but the city of which is where Costco started, actually) at a coffee shop/store called Kitanda. What’s kind of a bummer though is that caldinho de feijao is a creamy black bean soup and what it appears is a standard garnish is nothing I have in my kitchen. Hmm… Well, I’ll make do with what I’ve got .
Over the past couple months, I’ve been releasing reviews that I did quite a while back – I got very, very far ahead and so have been concentrating on other things lately. Well, Once I get reviewing again, this Black Curry will be the first one I try out. Let’s check this out!
You like white curry? These folks in Malaysia give you what you want – a big pack of rice vermicelli with white curry broth! Check it out!
Another box has arrived from James of Lakeside, California – thanks! He always seems to find stuff I’ve been looking for or never knew existed – let’s check everything out!
Check this out! These subscription boxes come straight to your door and have some neat stuff inside! It’s a pretty great thing to get people who are into ramen for the holidays! Check out www.japancrate.com and use the coupon code THERAMENRATER to score a sweet discount and get some neat noodles! Here’s the latest unboxing of the March 2023 Umai Crate!
