Saturday, February 02, 2008

Maruchan Ramen - Oriental Flavor

What happens if you take away all flavorings from a broth except for Monosodium Glutamate? You slap the "Oriental Flavor" label on it and watch as the profits roll in! Although I'm not sure how high Maruchan's profit margins can be since these packs are on sale for 12 cents at Ralph's.


The broth in these noodles tastes surprisingly good. There really is no flavor here aside from umami, but umami is delicious. Still, I decided to add some Sriracha sauce since the flavor was still quite simple and needed a little more complexity.


This pack of noodles is about as basic as you can get. The noodles are pretty low quality and the broth consists of just MSG flavored soup. It doesn't taste bad at all, but it just doesn't have the complexity and flavor that I usually prefer out of my instant noodles. Still, you can't ask for much more than this for only 12 cents.

Maruchan Ramen - Oriental Flavor - 3.5/10

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oriental is miso.
from wikipedia:
Miso (みそ or 味噌) is a traditional Japanese food produced by fermenting rice, barley and/or soybeans, with salt and the fungus kōjikin (麹菌) The typical result is a thick paste used for sauces and spreads, pickling vegetables or meats, and mixing with dashi soup stock to serve as miso soup called Misoshiru (味噌汁)

Anonymous said...

Oriental is miso!? Really???
I had Oriental flavor few days ago and I thought it tasted like "Shoyu" to me...Shoyu is Soy sauce in Japanese by the way. I lived in Japan for over 20years and now I'm in the US. So, I am pretty sure it was Soy sauce taste. I looked for Maruchan's webpage but I could not find what Oriental taste is. I hope someone can tell me what Oriental flavor really is. =(

Anonymous said...

It's absolutely shoyu ramen. It has more of a soy sauce taste than just an MSG one, and it doesn't taste at all like miso, nor does it have the look of miso in the broth.

macsnafu said...

Hmmm...I usually like the Oriental flavor best, especially with the Maruchan brand. I get so tired of "chicken" this and "chicken" that.

Anonymous said...

This is under your "vegitarian" section, when really it has beef products in it. I was very sad to find that out after eating them for a year while still calling myself a vegitarian lol.

Unknown said...

I'm eating some Miso Ramen right now and it tastes just like Oriental (Miso Ramen doesn't look anything like miso soup by the way).

To me, Shoyu tastes more like Beef Ramen (and Shio is definitely Chicken.)

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know if they make the oriental flavor anymore? I can't find them in any stores

Anonymous said...

They definitely do still make "Oriental" flavor. I just bought some yesterday. You can find it online at http://www.shopfoodex.com/nissin-ramen-noodles-oriental-flavor-p-39214.html

but it's a little pricy - 59 cents a pack! I remember paying 12 cents.

Beltway Buddha said...

Alls I gotta say is the top-line note in the soup (to my taste buds, anyways) is decidedly lemongrass...then roasted meat or meats. To call this "MSG water" is ridiculous. Go try that for yourself, it is yacky. Finally, "wallymart" has it for 12 cents a pack day in day out. Either that or a twelve pack for a dollar-something. That always amuses me...walking out with this huge pack of twelve (arguable) meals for under two bucks.

Beltway Buddha said...

Alls I gotta say is the top-line note in the soup (to my taste buds, anyways) is decidedly lemongrass...then roasted meat or meats. To call this "MSG water" is ridiculous. Go try that for yourself, it is yacky. Finally, "wallymart" has it for 12 cents a pack day in day out. Either that or a twelve pack for a dollar-something. That always amuses me...walking out with this huge pack of twelve (arguable) meals for under two bucks.

Anonymous said...

As far as the mediocre Maruchan ramens go, Oriental flavor is my favorite. At the very least I throw some chopped scallions in.

Jared said...

What ingredients are not vegetarian?

Anyway, it's true that Maruchan enjoys dumping MSG into their foods. How can you blame them? It tastes pretty darn good, and it's cheap.

That being said, Maruchan's ingredient lists tend to be on the long side. In fact, I just finished a video that I put on YouTube where I read Maruchan's Yakisoba Cheddar Cheese flavor ingredients to smooth jazz. Mmm..tasty. The food or the music? You decide.

Click my name if you want to check it out.

Anonymous said...

Speaking as a well-trained chef, working in the LA area in a previously Michelin rated restaurant I have this to say:

You idiots
There's no lemongrass
There's no miso

It says IN THE INGREDIENT LIST that there's BEEF and SOY (shoyu). Anyone tasting more complex notes is kidding themselves.

As for the, "vegetarian" please learn how to spell vegetarian so you don't make the rest of your non-meat-eating kind look like neurotic, uneducated dolts.

Anonymous said...

Anger anger anger Mr. Chef...no need to be rude or make fun of others...take your snobby attitude and shove it up your "Shoyu" hole!!!!

Anonymous said...

Shoryuken!!!!!!!!!!!!