Ottagi Jjajang Noodle (Black Bean Flavor)

Country of Origin: Korea
Bought at Choi's Oriental Foods in Hunstville, AL

This one already gets points for packaging, not only because it looks cool but I love noodles I get that have no or very few words of English on the package. I had to read the ingredients on the back to find out what flavor this was. I've seen black bean flavor ramen before but never tried it, but I like black bean salsa and soup so maybe these will be pretty good. Here goes!

Three packs of stuff! Soup base pack which smells like it has paprika in it, veggie pack which has actual dried black beans in it, and a seasoning oil pack. I also like the thicker than normal noodles! Noodles like this usually have a very nice texture.

I decided to cook these in a pot just to change things up. The directions say to cook the veggies with the noodles, so I heeded their advice.

Here's what I ended up with. Looks pretty tasty. I was right about the texture of the noodles, awesome texture and obviously good quality. Everything else is kind of... ok. It's not bad by any means and does have a distinct flavor of black beans and soy sauce, but doesn't taste like a whole lot else. So if you are a fan of black beans you may like these, otherwise I would definitely steer clear. 6/10.

Teumsae Ramen / I'm Not Dead!!

First thangs first. I'm not dead! I haven't updated the site in a while but I've still been ramenatin' it up, but mostly been working and going to school. The semester just ended so I've got some free time before the next one starts. I'll make an effort to make more posts! In fact, here's one right nah!

Country of origin: Korea
Bought at Super Oriental Market

Ok, so Teumsae is kind of a big deal in Korea (I'm assuming South). It's a big chain of ramen restaurants, and they have a line of home foods as well (a la Taco Bell, White Castle, etc) and this is the basic ramen of that lineup. There's not a single word of English on the package other than Since 1981 at the top, but there is a smug looking Korean chef on there. That tells me pretty much everything I need to know. It does however have an English ingredient list on the back, and from what I can tell it looks like this is a spicy beef flavor. One of the first ingredients is red pepper extract, and there's beef flavor extract and beef bone extract (bone extract?) among other semi questionable things. Enough jibba jabba, here we go!

Pretty standard deal here. It's a 120g Samyang size noodle block with a veggie pack and a seasoning pack and there is definitely a lot of both to be had in this package. They don't skimp on anything. Seasoning smells strongly of paprika and pepper, while veggies are green onions (of course), red pepper flakes and seaweed. A little too much seaweed for my taste, but let's cook it up and see how it goes.

WTF is up with Blogger's photo uploader? Get it together, y'all!
Anyway, I'm gonna be honest. This one's good, but it's not great. It is very spicy, and when I say very spicy, it may very well be the spiciest ramen I've ever eaten. Spicier than Shin Ramyun even! So in that respect it does not disappoint. Sometimes it's good to have your nose run while you eat, you know for your sinuses and stuff. Along with the spiciness, though, is something that is hard to describe. I want to say it's a fishy taste but I'm not sure. It's kind of a strange after taste that's not bad per say, but gives you a "what the hell did I eat?" kinda feeling. Basically these are very hot so if you like spicy ramen give em a try, but keep in mind it has a slightly funky taste. I'm giving these a 7/10 for the spiciness.

Interesting article...

What's the deal with ramen noodles? This article from The Straight Dope website contains a lot of cool information about how ramen is made and some of its history. Worth a quick read.
Check it out!

HERE

Indomie Special Fried Curly Noodles

Country of Origin: Indonesia
Bought at Super Oriental Market

"Curly noodles? What the hell?" you may be thinking. Well think about it for a minute. They are curly, and they are noodles. It's just what ramen noodles are called in some parts of the world. These particular ones are part of Indomie's special noodles that come in special packaging and are supposed to be better than the standard stuff. Let's see how they stack up.

This is supposed to be like Mi Goreng on steroids. It's got essentially the same spices, soy sauce, chili sauce, white and brown goop, and some veggies. If you compare this noodle block to other Indomie blocks you'll see a difference in the way the noodles look.

That looks a-pretty tasty! This stuff is really, really good. It came out a little bit too salty but the quality and awesome texture of the noodles makes up for it. It tastes very similar to the regular Indomie Mi Goreng so you'll know some of what to expect, just with better noodles. Can't go wrong with this one. 9/10.

Nongshim Kal Guk Soo Korean Style Noodle Soup

Country of origin: Korea
Bought at Choi's Oriental Foods in Huntsville, AL

This one may win an award for best noodle name. KAL GUK SOO!! That's just damn fun to say. I wish I could get excited about these in some other way but I've already tried them as I write this review... you'll see what I mean in a minute.

So here's the sorta funky looking noodle block and two packs of stuff. I don't like it when I see this style of noodle in a pack of ramen because I tend to associate it with low quality ramen like the Payless Pancit Shanghai or the Vifon Pho Bo. I am reminded, however, that I am the Ramenator and must prevail for the ramen munchers everywhere.

So I cook it up. It took about 5 minutes in the microwave for the noodles to get tender enough to where I'd even consider eating them. Not a good sign. Then I pull it out the microwave and smell what I'm about to ingest and am hit in the face with the smell of stank-fish. I had to hyphenate that to get an accurate amount of stank across. Have you ever smelled stanky fish? Then you know what these smell like. And guess what? They taste like stank fish, too. Yuck and double yuck. Don't get these. Shame on you, Nongshim. You make so many delicious varieties of noodles but this one slipped by your quality control. There may be some out there somewhere that enjoy these. God help you. These are nasty as hell. 0/10.

Samyang LeebaikYang Ramen

Country of Origin: Korea
Bought at Choi's Oriental Foods in Huntsville, AL


I was in Huntsville a couple weeks ago for my very sweet aunt Charlsie's funeral (RIP) and had some time before the funeral so I found some noodle joints on the internet and headed to the nearest one. Choi's is a nice store, not huge but has a lot of stuff crammed in there. I picked up a sacka noodles while I was there and this is one of the ones that I got. I had never seen this one before, I think it may be new. It's made by Samyang so I'm expecting it to be good.

Everything on the package other than what you could see in the first pic is in Korean, including everything on the packs. The green one is a veggie pack and the read one is seasoning that kinda looks and smells like paprika and pepper. The noodles are kinda thick, not as much as the Neoguri that I reviewed recently but a little thicker than standard noodles. Me likey.

So here ya go. Looks pretty standard. When you let this one sit for a few minutes the noodles soak up a lot of the soup and it makes it taste about 20 times better! It kinda tastes beefy, but doesn't taste like the regular Samyang ramen... as in not as good. It is ok though, nothing special, but not great. It does have more vegetables than most ramens do, though it's mostly green onions and carrots. I'd get the regular old Samyang beef ramen over this stuff any day. I'm giving this one a 6/10.

Indomie Soto Mie Flavor

Country of Origin: Indonesia
Bought at Super Oriental Market

It's been a little while since the last update. I started going back to school so less time for ramen. Not to say I probably won't be eating more of it since that's what you do when you're in college. Anyway, here's an Indomie noodle I haven't tried yet and theirs are usually pretty dang good so of course my hopes are high. Here goes!

Pretty standard Indomie package. Chili powder, spices, and BUMBU sauce!! The secret's in the bumbu. I have no idea what soto mie is or what it may taste like but only one way to find out!

OK, so looks pretty standard for Indomie noodles. Upon the first taste I was attacked by a barrage of salt and lime, so I've dubbed this the Margarita of noodles. Just add tequila!
Seriously, though, these are quite possibly the saltiest noodles I've ever eaten. They taste kinda like the Kalamansi flavor Pancit Canton I tried a while back, but these are just flat out not as good... in fact there is just too much salt in these to the point where it makes them not good at all. The Lucky Me noodles would beat these hands down any day of the week. Less salt would make these passable, but I have to say I'm kinda disappointed in Indomie for these. 3/10.