Nissin: Spicy Seafood Flavor w/Chili Pepper
Stars: **
This wasn’t too bad at all, just not much really
special about it. As far as spiciness, nothing to sweat.

The post #24: Nissin Demae Ramen Spicy Seafood Flavor appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

I figured this’d be a good gamble. Seafood flavor ramen usually isn’t my thing, but what the heck, let’s be adventurous!

Three packets? Luxuriant! I’m used to Nissin holding back on the sachets but not in this one! Was very curious to see how this stuff would taste…

I’m giving this one a 4 out of 5 stars (click image to enlarge). That’s a pretty impressive rating and here’s why: it has some character. Yes, this stuff really surprised me. It kind of reminded me of a nice butter garlic sauce on some whitefish. But a little tiny bits version in the broth and it wasn’t overly fishy tasting; I was impressed! If you can’t find it at your local Asian market (or there isn’t one local to you), you can find it for sale here.

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Today’s walk to the Asian supermarket was a lot of fun. Was nice to be able to chat with my lady on the phone whilst perusing the noodle aisle of 99 Ranch Market. I gave her the choice of which I should get – Miso, Seafood or Prawn flavor Nissin Demae ramen. I had a feeling she’d go for the prawn flavor…

A lonely single packet of soup base came with this one. I must admit though, the shiny purple packet went quite interestingly with the pink packaging…

Here’s the soup base awaiting the noodles and liquid. I cooked the noodles extra long this time. I thought maybe if the noodles were a bit more engorged and soft, it might taste and consist more like udon.


It worked (click images to enlarge). These noodles were a little fatter and very good. They plumped up nicely. The broth came out nicely too. It does remind me very much of prawn – and I really like prawn! Not overbearing, not too salty; a light ‘of the sea’ hint as well. A let down on the packet lack, but really when it comes down to it, its great because of its simplicity. I give this one 3.25 out of 5 stars. Get it here.

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Seeing things like this make me want to break out into a musical number like Peter does on Family Guy. Nothing more lovely than a huge mountain of instant noodles. I really enjoy seeing such things. Today, I got an extra ingredient for dinner, but I’m also going to toss it in the instant noodles too so we’ll see if it works.

Look at that Indomie mountain just beyond the Mama noodles! I really enjoy seeing this almost every day! Who would’ve thought I’d end up living next to the best Asian supermarket next to Uwajimaya in Washington state?

Alright alright let’s get down to it. Today is Nissin Demae Ramen Seafood flavor day. Put it on your freaking calendar. I’m running out of varieties of Nissin noodles to hit up at 99 Ranch Market… Pretty stoked; almost all of em have been reviewed.I think after this there’s miso and spicy seafood and original and that’s all.

One single packet in this one.

But it was a very full packet – it was a decent little pile of powdered flavor!

My extra store item was green onions! Here are three of them ready to be processed…

Here’s the daily money shot – steaming noodles in the afternoon sunlight.

Finished (click image to enlarge). As with the Prawn flavor of yesterday, I cooked this stuff a little bit longer as to make the noodles plump a bit more. The onions lent a nice extra freshness to the bowl of noodles, which I am afraid would’ve been rather boring without them. All in all, not the greatest but not too bad; its got potential. Perhaps add some tuna or shrimp? Onions for sure. I’m going to be nice and give this one a 2.5 out of 5 stars. It really wasn’t all that impressively flavored. No sea tangle of seaweed – I think that’d have been a nice touch.. I feel very satisfied with my face.

The post #78: Nissin Demae Ramen Seafood Flavor Instant Noodle appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So here’s something I’ve had in the cupboard for a while and been kind of waiting for just the right time to try. Assorted clams – hmm. An assortment of clams. It just sounds really strange. I guess we’ll see what we got here.

Okay so two packets – flavor and flakes. But flakes of what – clam possibly?

The soup base was just a light colored powder. Nothing too interesting.

The flakes needed to be added on top – they definitely needed some time in hot water. I usually do this when the package feels like the contents are a little harder, say like a piece of corn in your standard cup noodle would be. Anyways, didn’t see any clammy stuff here. It looked like a little festive combo of dried veggies – onion, nori and carrot.

So since we were watching a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode with a lot of Klingons in it and Kal Gug Su sounds like a command a Klingon captain would shout to rally his troops. Who better than Chancellor Gowron of the Klingon high council to  present this bowl of noodles? So my thoughts: noodles were wide and fo a slightly chewier consistency, kinda udon like. The veggies re-hydrated and were nice, although very thin. Finally, the broth and flavor: not too bad at all. It was pretty mild; a little salty and a chicken-color broth. As far as clamminess, I wasn’t feeling any ‘of the sea’ or any bits o’ clam. The only notes I sensed was after eating this bowl of noodles, my breath tasted like clams kind of and I didn’t find that really at all appealing. I give this one 1.8 out of 5 stars… Nothing unique I could find here. Would’ve liked to see a little more of something here.

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So here we go with some Wai Wai. This stuff is made in Thailand and the noodles can be eaten straight out of the bag like a bag of chips. This was a much smaller package than usually seen here on ramenrater.com. In fact, the directions call for a mere 1 1/3 cups of water [320cc] instead of the usual 2 to 2 1/2 cups.

These aren’t small packets and I was really surprised to see such large packets in a small package of instant noodles.

First is a pile of white salt consistency powder, then the contents of the green packet then the liquid packet.

So here’s the final product (click image to enlarge). Not a lot of food here and quickly ingested. 1710mg of sodium though for  one to ponder though.

Then there’s all this grease! As for a review… The noodles were very light and thin – I liked them. The were reminiscent of the Unif / Tung-I variety. As for the broth, wow. Very flavorful. There was an extremely strong citrus element and I’m going to guess that’s from the white powder packet. The crazy amount of grease was a little hard to take… The spiciness was very nice and overall rounded things out. I liked the flavor of the broth. On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, I’ll give this one a 2.75. It was tasty but I feel a little nauseated by the grease and anticipate a run to the bathroom soon. This isn’t any diss on the freshness of the product by the way or its ingredients being of poor quality. It simply was a lot in a small package.

The post #87: Wai Wai Tom Yum Shrimp Cream Soup Flavour Instant Noodles appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So this was a neat little presentation. Came with its own bowl and lid – looks to be reusable as well.

Three packets – one with a fishy smell and had veggies in it and maybe shrimp bits, a dry powder packets and a red chili goop packet.

So my review (click image to enlarge): other than the packaging, this isn’t great at all. The noodles are weak – mushy and of little character. The flavor is nice and citrussy, but missing something and way too salty. I like the packaging, but it doesn’t make up for the product. 2 out of 5 stars. Get it here.

The post #92: Fashion Food Tom Yum Seafood Creamy Flavour Instant Noodles appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So today I thought I’d try some more of these interesting Vietnamese noodles. Yesterday’s review was very enjoyable – especially with the little thing about ‘spicery’ on the packet. So here we go with Sour Shrimp Flavor. Yup – another really long named instant noodle pack. I’m kind of liking it.

Again we have the packet of packets. This time there was no statement saying it is up to all of us to spice things up the way we choose. Apparently I think this means add everything or else…

Four packets – very interesting! So starting at the top left going clockwise we have Chilli pack, soup sachet, sauce and condiment. The four horsemen of the noodle bowl perhaps?

A nice, colorful and interesting set of flavorings for the noodles and broth.

So here we are with the final product. Noodles are of acceptable resilience; not real firm but not great. The broth is very lemony… Rather salty.  The sour, lemon and chili powder all combined with the salt and oil combine in a way that is both good and bad. Good and it is interesting mix, but bad since these flavors could be found in a nice bowl of something more authentic in a more separate but joined way. It’s like the bottom of a bowl of Vietnamese gumbo – I’d rather taste the before-stuff. I guess on the bright side this very much gives me an interest in trying some Vietnamese food. I have enjoyed pho, so maybe tom yum soup should be next. I give this 2.5 out of 5 stars; not bad but not causing tremors in my soul. Average.

The post #97: Saigon Ve Wong Kung-Fu Mi Tom Chua Sour Shrimp Flavor Instant Noodles Vietnam Flavor appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

A lot of people have been commenting on my old reviews of Korean noodles. So After going to a couple big Korean supermarkets, I’m going to be trying a lot more Korean instant noodles. This one looks straightforward: spicy seafood.

Two packets – veggies and powder… And a square of… kelp? Hmm that’s different!

Here are the veggies – they needed to be cooked in the pot with the kelp.

A mountain of powder awaiting the scalding hot soup and noodles…

So here’s the finished product.I ate the kelp straight away. It wasn’t very flavorful; I imagine the soup sucked out the flavor and that was its main purpose. Kind of a leathery vegetable skin like texture. I figure its some extra fiber in my diet… The broth is salty but nice and full of other flavors. Lots of veggies – especially seaweed. The noodles are chewy and thick. A nice punch of spicy rounds it out. I like it but really couldn’t enjoy it regularly. This is a once in a while type of ramen and not a daily game. I’m giving this one 3.25 out of 5.0 stars. It’s interesting, tastes good and kept me wanting more. However, I must admit the saltiness wore on me. Get it here.

The post #111: Ottogi Odongtong Myon Seafood Spicy Flavor Asian Style Instant Noodle appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So I’m going to make a special dinner tonight for my lady and I – we’re gonig to have Nissin Chicken Top Ramen and Nissin Demae Ramen concurrently and review and compare both. Well, I thought hey why not have a small pack of this filipino ramen noodle stuff, I mean, I’m a little hungry so why not.

The noodles were humongous! I was very surprised!

The single gleaming silver packet was monolithic in stature and held a lot of powder.

A whole lot… I couldn’t help but wet my finger and dip it into it and have a taste…

So this is a hallway. I often walk out into this hallway or come home from somewhere with my lady and we both look at each other with this sort of disgusted ‘what the hell’ expression. This is due to a smell. A smell that I think comes from…

THIS (click image to enlarge)! As soon as I put the soup and noodle in and gave a stir, I felt a sort of retching feeling come over me. Then guess what? I went into the hallway and couldn’t smell the funky smell. Why? Because I think my nose was already full of it! Of course, I’m eating it. It’s like a lemon filet of sole with cream corn and Pine Sol melange that kicks you right in the sensory perceptors. Oh god.. . Okay so the noodles were interesting… Aside from that, too salty. Very Funyuns tasting. Ecch… Seafood taste but the wrong taste – the seafood that you don’t want thats left at ythe end of the day at the seafood counter at the bottom of the melted ice… To top it off the last little sips of broth were slightly gelatinous. 0.5 out of 5.0 stars and those 0.5 stars are for bizarreness and the fact that at least the noodles were interesting, what little of them there was. Wow. I mean really.  Someone around here really like it though.

The post #538: Lucky Me! Instant Lomi (Seafood Vegetable) Instant Noodles Artificial Seafood Flavor appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

Some noodles from Thailand today. I’ve reviewed some noodles that are by Mama and Tom Yum but not the creamy.

Chili powder, dry seasoning sachet and seasing paste/oil.

I just can’t get over how nasty some of the seasoning pastes look in the bowl.

So here’s the finished product (click image to enlarge). Noodles were good but it was quite spicy, not creamy and really didn’t taste at all like shrimp that I could detect. Get it here.

I’m also going to say this is the greasiest looking stuff yet. The cream and the red stuff was repulsing each other like crazy – it looked really neat but was kind of well gross. I’m tossing this a 2.0 out of 5.0 stars.

The post #136: Mama Shrimp Creamy Tom Yum Flavour Oriental Style Instant Noodles appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

Got this package at a very weird little asian grocery. Very weird. The place was dirty, in extreme disarray and after we left we saw a cop pop in. Most of the signs were in sharpie on cardboard and on the way in instead of a mat or carpet, cardboard was used. Very ghetto. But I haven’t seen this stuff elsewhere so hooray!

Paste and dry…

The paste was thick and was nice to see that the veggies included the mystery circles I like to think are pieces of dehydrated mini radish.

The finished product (click image to enlarge). The noodles were really lame; spongy and almost soggy and dilapidated. The broth was a little hot with a seafood finish and kind of thick. The vegetable were a little out of the ordinary with a lot of peppers going on. All said and done I wasn’t very impressed and the most interesting thing here was the packaging; I really liked that. I’m giving it a generous 2.5 out of 5.0 stars.

The post #141: Six Fortune Seafood Flavor Instant Noodles appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So been really wanting to try this one! Okinawa soba! We needed to spend a little more for the parking validation at Uwajimaya so this looked good! It’s a 5 pack – haven’t see anywhere selling individuals.

Here is an individual pack of noodles…

Two packets – powder and chili flakes.

So the powder contains some fish extract and was quite good – mackerel, salmon, bonito, tuna… Was quite a crowd of fish.

So here’s the finished product (click image to enlarge). I found the noodles to be absolutely superb – chewy and flat. The broth was complex and had a great smell and taste. 3.75 out of 5.0 stars. Very good! Get it here.

The post #148: Myojo Okinawa Soba Japanese Style Noodles With Soup Base appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

Wow okay so for the 150th review here on ramenrater.com I thought I’d go for something really different. This is a big ass bowl noodle with fresh noodles! Should be interesting!

8.67 ounces. Jeez that’s a lot more than is realistically needed.

Three packets: noodles (it would’ve been horrible if they hadn’t labeled it because I would have never figured that out), soup base (the dark packet) and the veggies in the silver packet. It felt like a little brick was inside there…

When I opened the soup base I almost got whiplash – the fish odor was intense. The directions said to put it and the noodles in the bowl and fill up to the line with hot water and then microwave for 3 minutes. I did so and stirred and was greeted by these enormous noodles swimming in a deep red broth. The next step was to add the vegetables. So that little silver packet did have a strange little cubelike thing in it! I dropped it in the soup and watched it dissolve and then gave it all a final stir…

Here’s what you get (click image to enlarge). Wow – was not at all what I expected. It’s actually pretty good. The noodles are huge – nothing in the western diet really compares to Udon noodles. If you leave some spaghetti noodles in a bath of water overnight they still won’t swell up to the thickness of Udon and won’t be a chewy and nice. These were “fresh” as they call them, so they’re a mark above a noodle block you’d find in other instant packs or bowls. The broth is thick and rich; it is truly hot and spicy. It also has a definite seafood flavor – not sure what kind of seafood, but it’s in the ‘of the sea’ category for sure. Finally, the vegetables were a big surprise. I’ve never seen veggies supplied in this way – they’re always loose except for one instance. This little cake or sponge of veggies was a lot of fun and worked great and re-hydrated with a couple stirs. Overall, this has been quite the adventure for the palate as well as  a lot of fun to make. I’m giving this bowl a 4.25 out of 5.0 stars. Very unique and flavorful.

The post #150: Chorip Dong Jjampong Hot & Spicy Seafood Udon Japanese Style Noodle Soup appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So we begin a short look at noodle cups. I don’t think I’ve actually had a cup  in a long time so this will be some fun stuff. We start with some Sapporo Ichiban shrimp flavor.

Click image to enlarge. As you can see, its like a bowl noodle and has the little peel back to line thing going on…

One single packet. I decided to microwave this stuff to see how it’d go.

Well, here’s the final result (click image to enlarge). The directions said to microwave for four minutes. It wasn’t that big of a mess to clean up – a lot of it exploded in the microwave… I think perhaps two or three may have been better… Overall I’m greatly surprised by my disappointment. The noodles are mushy, the broth isn’t that great and the veggies are unhappy. I found them to be unpleasing. I’m giving this cup noodle 1.75 out of 5.0 stars. Get it here.

The post #153: Sapporo Ichiban Shrimp Flavor Oriental Noodle Soup appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

Okay so its a Seafood Party! Who will we invite? Perhaps eel, piranha and manta ray?

Nope – cuttlefish, anchovy powder, artificial pork flavoring and shrimp extract – party up!!!

Click image to enlarge. Oh wow – I swore I took a picture of the flavorings and veggies in the bowl! Crap. Well, here’s a lovely picture of the finished product! Noodles are okay. broth is a slight bit spicy and kind of fishy (it is a seafood party) and the veggies are interesting. I’m okay with the seafood party, but wasn’t thrilled that it took place in my mouth. I’m giving it a 2.25 out of 5.0 stars; it just seemed rather lackluster and although it was a purported seafood party, I think it could’ve invited some more dried seafood friends. Get it here.

The post #169: Samyang Seafood Party Seafood Flavor Noodle Soup appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So here we go with some Udon for breakfast. I’m going to really modify this one.

Powder and flake.

See? Powder and flake. Lots of veggies here – very nice!

So here’s the unadulterated stuff (click image to enlarge). The noodles are nice and chewy, the broth is salty and basic and the veggies are plentiful. At this point, it’s a 3.75 out of 5.0 – really good! Now let’s add some things…

A couple fried eggs….

A forkful of kizami shoga….

A couple blobbies of Jufran Hot Banana sauce on the yolks…

Finally, some fried shallot to finish.

This is epic and enjoyable! I like it quite a bit and would give this a 4.5 out of 5.0 stars. So I’m going to split the difference and give this bowl of noodles a 4.125 out of 5.0 stars! Get it here.

The post #171: Samyang Japanese Seafood Flavor Udon appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

Okay so here’s an interesting one. I saw that it was made and distributed by  Walong Marketing so wasn’t sure if Boss Noodle was the brand. But as far as I can tell, these are branded under the Boss Noodle name by Walong so I’m okay with that. During the research I also found Boss Noodle also brought up Big Boss Noodles (swimming devices) and Boss Noodle (anime).

So this looks cheap and I suspect some weirdness here. Styrofoam yeah! So was pleased to find two packets – powder and oil. Was however disappointed to find that veggies were absent.

Click image to enlarge. It’s got some Tom Yumminess going on. Spicy, citrussy. The noodles are for lack of a better term, sad. The broth though kind of makes up for it and so I’m going to give this one an average score of 2.5 out of 5.0 stars. I didn’t like how my fork kept grabbing the Styrofoam on the bottom of the bowl – not sure if I ended jup slurping down any tiny bits of it. I need to learn how to use chopsticks I suppose!

The post #193: Boss Noodle Shrimp (Tom Yum) Flavour appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So here’s the last Bowl Noodle I have on hand, Spicy Shrimp Flavor. I’m hunting for the Seafood and the Lobster flavors currently. I think that’s all of them…

As with every other one of this series, only one packet.

Veggies and oterwise are with the noodles in the bottom of the bowl. Deep red powder – could be spicy as the name infers!

So here’s the final product before…

Click image to enlarge. Two fried eggs. So this wasn’t too bad but I was a little bummed on the not-so-shrimpy taste. Kind of meh. 2.5 out of 5.0 stars. Get it here.

The post #204: Nongshim Bowl Noodle Soup Spicy Shrimp Flavor appeared first on The Ramen Rater.

So we were at 99 Ranch yesterday and Kit picked this one for me! Let’s give it a try!

One packet of flavor – just like the other one.

Powder seasoning…

Click image to enlarge. So here we go. Very tasty stuff – the noodles are nice and big and fresh and chewy and the broth is very good – I don’t know what abalone tastes like but this is very tasty. 3.75 out of 5.0 stars! Get it here.

The post #229: Myojo Udon Chicken & Abalone Flavor appeared first on The Ramen Rater.