Indomie Mi Goreng BBQ Chicken Flavor

Country of origin: Indonesia
Bought at: Super Oriental Market in Homewood, AL
Price: 69¢
BBQ chicken flavored instant noodles… what’s not to love? I mean, just think of the possibilities. These are made by a company called Indomie, in Indonesia as the name suggests. According to Wikipedia their parent company is the world’s largest instant noodle manufacturer. Indomie noodles come in a large variety of flavors and I’m sure I will be trying more of theirs because these were quite delicious.
Check out the wrapper. Not only does it give hints of the tastiness enclosed within but a bright yellow starburst on the package proudly proclaims that there are not one, not three, but FIVE frakin’ sachets of stuff in this bag. I think that may be some kind of ramen record. I can’t wait to open this one up!

Whoa! They didn’t lie! Five packs of stuff. There’s a pack of soy sauce, chili sauce, seasoning oil, seasoning powder, and a pack of fried onions! So much to take in…
Like the Pad Thai noodles I reviewed a couple days ago, this one is also not a soup, as is the case with most Indomie noodles. Cook the noodles, drain the water, and mix with all the stuff except the fried onions which are garnished on top of the completed masterpiece that is BBQ chicken noodles.

Overall, these are some of the best instant noodles I have ever had. There’s a variety of flavors and they all mix well. The soy sauce, the chili sauce, and the variety of spices all come together to make a tasty bowl o’ noodles. Definitely get these if you can find ‘em. I hear they are very popular so you should be able to find them wherever fine instant noodles are sold.
9/10

MAMA Pad Thai Noodles

  

Country of origin: Thailand
Bought at: Super Oriental Market in Homewood, AL
Price: 59¢
Let me start off by saying I had a REQUEST to review these noodles. A friggin’ request! How awesome is that? Maybe I’m finally making a name for myself in the instant noodle world…
Let me next say that I don’t know a whole lot about Thai food. I like what I’ve had at the few local Thai restaurants there are in Birmingham, my favorite being Taste of Thailand on Lorna Rd. in Hoover. I’m a big fan of curry, rice noodles and spicy food, however, so this may just be right up my alley. Instant Pad Thai noodles! What’ll they think of next?
Enough jibba jabba. Let’s crack this packa noodles open!

 So we’ve got a very neat looking block of rice noodles and three, count ‘em, three sachets (oooh fancy word). The little pack has a small amount of some fairly spicy seasoning and the pink one has a large quantity of a mild seasoning, similar to a soup base. There is also a pack of seasoning oil which smelled very strongly of lime and oil. This is one of those situations where it is very important to read the directions AND follow them. This isn’t a soup, it’s a bowl of noodles. The directions say to cook the noodles and then drain off the water, then add the spices. So that’s what we’re gonna do. Here’s the noodles ready to cook:

The noodles seem like they are good quality. They have a very pleasant texture that I’ve come to associate with rice noodles.  I cooked ‘em up quick in the microwave, drained the water and mixed everything together. Here’s the finished product:

Looks like a pretty tasty bowl o’ noodles. So was it? Decidedly yes. The lime taste is very strong at first but after that first taste of it you get used to it and after that it is very good. There is quite the array of spices going on here and it is a little bit spicy, but not very much. That’s really my only complaint. I would have liked it to be a little bit hotter but I suppose the low heat makes it appeal to a wider audience. Keep in mind this is not just like going to a Thai restaurant or even cooking a real Thai recipe at home. It takes three minutes to make and costs a little over 50 cents.  For the time and money, fans of Thai noodles will not be disappointed. Overall, this one gets a strong 8/10.

Nongshim Shin Ramyun

Country of origin: Made in USA now, originally in Korea.
Bought at: Tokyo Asian Food in Hoover, AL
Price: 99¢
This is a very popular soup in Korea. It’s made in South Korea and evidently people in the hopelessly backwards dictatorship of North Korea like it so much they illegally smuggle it into their country. Don’t believe me? Check out THIS article. Believe me now?
So let’s see what all the fuss is all about and open this bad boy up.

It’s round! They make it that way so it’ll fit all nice n’ snug in your cooking pot of choice. You get a soup base pack and a very festive looking pack of veggies too. It’s got mushrooms and crushed red pepper among others.

However, when your cooking pot of choice is a microwave bowl it’s a little big. I had to break this bigass noodle block up but I do that anyway when microwaving ramen. The noodles themselves are thicker than standard Top Ramen noodles. Time to cook it up!

If you look at the directions on the package (which in my opinion is always a smart thing to do) you’ll see under the microwave directions that this needs to be microwaved for SEVEN minutes! That’s a long time considering most ramen cooks in three minutes. I microwaved it for five minutes and checked on it and all seemed good so I went the full seven minutes. Here’s what I ended up with.

Doesn’t look like a soup, does it? More like a bowl o’ noodles. There was some soup in the bottom of the bowl but not much. The noodles weren’t dry, but had a pleasant consistency and the chunks of mushroom and other veggies are nice. Oh, and when they say “spicy” on the package they aren’t kidding. This is one of the spiciest ramens I’ve ever had, so don’t get this one if you don’t like spicy stuff. This is also one of the more filling ramens I’ve eaten, probably due to the sheer quantity of noodles. Definitely more than a standard size ramen pack.
Overall, Shin Ramyun is pretty dang good to me. Not worth smuggling, but then again I don’t live in North Korea… there’s something to be thankful for.
8/10
***AFTER THOUGHT***: I saw this stuff in freakin’ Wal-Mart the other day! How cool is that? Those crafty Koreans…

Ve Wong Sesame Chicken Ramen

Country of origin: Taiwan
Bought at: Super Oriental Market in Homewood, AL
Price: 99¢
Sounds good, right? I thought so, too. I love Chinese food, Americanized or otherwise, and sesame chicken has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember. Plus, it comes in one of the shiniest packages I’ve ever seen. So what’s not to like? I grabbed this one off the shelf faster than you can say “artificial sesame chicken flavor!”
So let’s see what we got here….

 

Pretty standard block o’ noodles with a soup base pack and a pack of seasoning oil. The soup base was a nondescript white powder and the oil was very greasy and had a very strong smell of cooked chicken. I spilled some of it on myself and it was like trying to get motor oil off my hand. So with the knowledge that many things that have undesirable textures can often taste good, we press on and cook the noodles per instructions on the package.

 The finished product. Looks pretty standard, kind of like chicken Top Ramen. Except that when you take a close look you can see a lot of grease sitting on top of the soup. This ramen wins the prize for the greasiest bowl of ramen I’ve ever encountered, as in greasier than actually eating sesame chicken. That being said, it does have a very strong chicken taste and you can definitely tell you are eating chicken flavored ramen, but the problem is it doesn’t taste like much else. It’s not overly salty which is good, but it suffers from a lack of any kind of spices and the grease factor kind of kills it for me. So, how was it?
Overall, I give it a 6/10. It wasn’t terrible, but not great and way too greasy for ramen. Sounds way better than it actually tastes.

Bienvenidos to Ramenator!

So I decided to start a blog. About ramen noodles. Why, you ask? Cause they’re a truly amazing feat of human ingenuity. The sheer fact that you can open a small package and 3 minutes later have something delicious is obviously one of our greatest achievements as the human race. That being said, I’m happy to welcome you to my new blog the Ramenator!
It will be about more than JUST ramen, however, as man cannot live on this miracle in a plastic wrapper alone. I’ll also post other stuff that people who are into ramen as much as I am might be interested in, as well as other Asian foods and recipes. I love to cook and will be doing it a lot and will be sure to post relevant events and stuff on here. So now that I’ve got that out of the way, check out all the different bitchin’ types of ramen I picked up at my local Asian supermarket the other day!

 
I’m going to review them all as time permits. Sometimes when you buy ramen other than your standard Top Ramen or Maruchan fare it’s hard to know what you are actually getting. I don’t speak Chinese or Japanese or any other language for that matter so I’ll be taking some shots in the dark as well. I’m going to have fun with this blog and I hope someone will read it and enjoy it as much as I will!

Movin' on in...

I got tired of my blog.com site being so slow so I decided to give Blogger a try. I'm going to move everything from the old site over here so bear with me while I get it all set up.