02.09.2006
I eat lots of instant-noodles. Not just because they are dirt cheap, but I happen to like this kind of food.
The few last weeks I've gone trough a huge variety of instant noodles, and I'm standing here in front of you, at my acclaimed internet site, to present you the results of my findings.
Below are the noodles tested in the order they were eaten.
Ninja Noodles
These are not the noodles you are looking for. No really, you are not looking for these noodles.
First impression:
Amusing name, amusing packeging. Unlike any reputable noodles ever known to man.
Actual impression:
I found this new brand in my regular noodle-shopping haven, and suspected the worst. However these were cheap, even by noodle standards, so I happened to pick them up and decided to try them out.
Get this: They sucked, bigtime. I don't know what dishonourable men figured they could call this noodles and sell them to people, but they did. Weak taste, boring spices. Heck, they even felt wrong when eating them.
Worst. Noodles. Ever. Avoid at all costs.
These ones comes in packs of five. You try one, and throw the rest in the garbage. Honest to God, these are truly worthless. The only relatinship these noodles have with ninjas, is that ninjas probably would hunt down and kill whoever attempts to serve them this crap.
There are also other varieties of this particular brand, with the same style of packeging and naming. I haven't tried those, but I can't imagine any of those being edible either.
Yum Yum brand noodles, beef-flavour
First impression:
No idea. I've eaten these noodles as long as I can remember eating noodles. By far my all-time favorite, at least when it comes to the beef-flavored ones.
Actual impression:
Unlike many other brands of beef-flavoured noodles these come with all the oil, flavoring and spices in one big bunch of greasy mass. This is in my books pretty good. That means you get lots of oiling and fat into the mix unlike other brands which only provides you with a few bags of spice.
Prepared correctly, with the correct amount of water, the noodles themselves are good, the spicing is perfect, the taste is rich and you get a pretty decent soup as a bonus.
Definitely a winner. As the name implies, these are actually pretty yummie.
Yum Yum brand noodles, duck flavour
First impression:
Flavoured oils, always good. And when you've added the spices to the water and are waiting for the noodles to cook, the mix looks dark. This is promising.
Actual impression:
When you start of eating these noodles, you may not find them immidiatly super-appealing, but when you've had a few mouthfulls, you start to feel the spice, in a good way. Just makes you keep eating.
So, while not being the strongest on actual the taste, these noodles come with a decent set of spices, which makes the overall result pretty good.
So, like, pretty good noodles. Not superb, but pretty good.
Tung-I ramen brand, beef flavour
First impression:
Looks like genuine stuff chinese people would eat.
Actual impression:
Already before you've cooked these noodles, you can see that the noodles themselves are pre-spiced in some way or another. These are definitely worthy of attention. One pack also contains more noodles than most other brands I've seen which makes it more of a meal than a quick snack.
While the taste is pretty different from the Yum Yum brand noodles and I can't really say the thought about beef ever crossed my mind, these are pretty good and probably on par with the Yum Yum noodles.
The spicing is rich, albeit in a non-beefy way and the noodles themselves are excellent. The consistency of these noodles was pretty much unmatched, and they were just sticky enough to be perfect for chopstick eating.
I like these. I'll add it to my regular list.
Tung-I ramen brand, chicken flavour
First impression:
Looks ok, until I open the package and find NO flavoured oil
Actual impression:
Kinda disappointing given the good impression I got from the beef flavour. As I mentioned, no actual flavoured oils. There were also too little spices. The consitency was the same, so that was OK.
However, never did I sit down and think "Yes, this tastes chicken" or "Mmm... Chicken noodles".
All in all, kinda boring.
Yum yum brand, chicken flavour
First impression:
Again, the lack of appropriate spices.
Actual impression:
This one did actually have flavoured oil, so my hopes were higher for this one. Sadly, this one also seemed to suffer from somewhat weak spices, that dispite one the bags being labeled with a huge, red chilli. Also here If I were to guess what flavour it was, I wouldn't have been able to guess chicken.
Barely better than the Tung-I ramen pack, but not by much. Still boring.
Tung-I Ramen brand, beef flavoured with chilli
First impression:
Yikes! Lots of chilli paste. Nice!
Actual impression:
The ordinary beef flavoured noodles from Tung-I ramen has one of the bigger bags of spices I have seen in instant noodles. This one supplies the regular spices with a equally huge bag of chilli-paste. Yummy!
The soup is literally red. It's like the basic beef noodles with lots of added chilli. Also a few small bits of "beef" here and there. Nothing to complain about. In fact, these noodles are awesome.
Tasty and strong, not to mention good looking. A definite favorite.
Vejia brand, beef flvaoured
First impression:
Looks like the Tung-I Ramen brand packeging and size-wise. Hopes are up.
Actual impression:
No flavoured oils. Only spices. Make that weak spices.
These noodles did not taste like beef. These noodles did in fact not taste much at all. Despite having thick, rich noodles, the total package is simply to weak.
These noodles are boring. Not directly bad, but definitely not good either. Just plain boring.
Lucky me! brand, Kalamansi (Shrimp?) flavour
First impression:
Something about the packeging makes me doubt that these are good noodles. Now, let's see if I'm right.
Actual impression:
One bag of spices, and two with flavoured oils. Not bad. That is, until you try to open them. I had to slit 'em open with a knife. There's nothing instant about needing tools to get things done.
Also the one of the bags with flavoured oils squirted all over the place when I tried to get it into the mix. Major point in disfavour.
When done, these noodles had a yellowish look. the same kind of look like rice cooked with yellow curry has. Interesting.
All in all these noodles were also kind of boring. Not your regular plain boring noodles, but boring in a distinct way. The lime flavouring adds a unique touch to these, but still it doesn't really taste exciting. To be honest I think the lime taste is somewhat out of place.
Not too bad, but for being shrimp noodles, the big pack of spices and flavoured oils, I honestly expected a more tasty meal than this.
Not really bad, but a bit odd. I'm not buying these again.
Mr. Lee
Do I even need to mention Mr. Lee, even more buy it and eat it? Mr. Lee is crap, and thus I'll just mention it here so no-one will be thinking that I didn't know about them.
Conclusion
Tung-I ramen brand trumphs all on the beef front. If you like chilli, these are the only ones that should be considered. Yum yum brand comes at a good second. Rest aren't really worth buying.
As for chicken flavour, Yum yum wins, with Tung-I Ramen on a close second. Neither are really superb but if you like chicken, these are the ones you should get.
The duck-flavoured noodles from Yum yum was OK, but I don't think it will make my regular list anytime soon.
The rest not mentioned here? Either boring, bad or simply not really worth mentioning.
In short: Tung-I Ramen and Yum yum seems to be among the better instant-noodles on the market. At least among the brands I can find here.