Asda Smart Price - Prawn Flavour Instant Noodles

It's not a very good sign when your instant noodle packaging is semi-transparent and you can see the flavor sachet through the outside wrapper. Nevertheless, I took my chances with this one. This is part of Asda's Smart Price range. Similar to Tesco Value or Sainsbury's Basics lines, the Asda Smart Price range is a low cost line of products. The packaging is restricted to one or two colors to reduce cost as much as possible.

These noodles were disappointingly limp and tasteless. The noodles themselves were quite gooey and starchy and didn't have the springiness illustrated on the packaging. There was barely any flavoring at all, especially not prawn flavoring. It tasted like a weak salt broth.


These noodles were terrible, but luckily my expectations were already very low. They didn't taste bad, but there was just no taste or texture to them. I will definitely not be getting these again.

Asda Smart Price - Prawn Flavour Instant Noodles - 0.5/10

Nong Shim - Seafood Ramyun

Seafood-flavored instant noodles are notorious for being disgusting due to overwhelming seafood flavor. However, since seafood broths are such an important part of Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese cuisine, the seafood-flavored instant noodles are an essential part of a ramen manufacturer's lineup.

The noodle brick came in the convenient circular shape. Inconveniently, however, the noodles had been broken into a few pieces during transit. My first thought upon sipping the broth was that these noodles did not really taste like seafood at all. Instead, the spiciness was quite powerful and overwhelmed the seafood taste at first. This is a pretty common seafood strategy among Korean noodle-makers since most of the seafood noodle soups in Korean cuisine are quite spicy anyway.


After a few more sips, I started to taste the seafood identity of this broth. It was just a basic fish flavor but went quite well with the noodles. I probably wouldn't get these noodles again because I prefer the basic "hot and spicy" flavor without the seafood taste. There is nothing wrong with the seafood flavor here, it just seems a little unnecessary to me.

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Nong Shim - Seafood Ramyun - 6.0/10

Nong Shim - Kal Gook Soo

These noodles are meant to imitate the same dish as Samyang Food's KalGugSu Noodle Soup. The original dish is served with thin, flat noodles and has a shellfish based broth. I have had a lot of poor experiences with seafood flavored instant noodles, but in general, the Korean noodle manufacturers seem to have done a pretty good job. The key, in my opinion, is to stay away from shrimp and crab and stick to shellfish flavorings like clam and mussels. It also helps if they make the broth spicy, like Nong Shim's Neoguri Seafood & Spicy noodles.

I must say that the smell from these noodles is quite strong. Even before I added boiling water, the smell of clams began emanating from the powder I poured on the noodles. After adding water, I felt like I was at a fishing pier. The broth smelled and tasted like salty clam broth. The flavor was pretty good and the disgusting factor was acceptably low. There were some floating yellow tofu strips that I thought were unnecessary.


The noodles included are different from Nong Shim's typical noodles. They are wide and flat and I found that they tended to stick together more than the usual round noodles. Despite being flat, they needed longer to cook in order to fully separate and soften. Overall, they were acceptable but there was nothing remarkable about their taste. These noodles are OK if you are craving some clam-flavored broth, but my advice is just to steer clear of seafood flavored instant noodles.

Nong Shim - Kal Gook Soo - 5.5/10

Sapporo Ichiban - Shrimp Flavor

I think Sapporo Ichiban's neon pink packaging is meant to evoke the image of succulent cooked shrimp. But wait a minute, aren't shrimp more of an orangey-red color than pink? But no matter, this color helps to clearly distinguish this flavor versus the brown, green, red, or orange packets.

Sapporo Ichiban has gained a strong foothold in the US and it's easy to see why. The flavors are good but still extremely conservative. The American version of the packaging has been designed not to scare away the consumer; it resembles the Top Ramen packaging quite closely. There are no "weird" things like seaweed, textured vegetable protein, tofu, or kimchi involved.

I felt that the shrimp flavor here was almost nonexistent. I guess it is better than the aquarium water flavored seafood noodles that I have had before, but this one really tasted like beef instead of shrimp. Sapporo Ichiban broths always taste good because they include a healthy dose of salt and MSG (should that be unhealthy?). The noodles themselves are crunchy and have a slight onion taste to them. This was a very plain pack of noodles that was very similar to original flavor and beef flavor. For the unadventurous, these are your noodles!

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Sapporo Ichiban - Shrimp Flavor - 5.0/10

Indomie Instant Noodles - Shrimp Flavor

I am usually not a fan of seafood flavored ramen. They often come out tasting like aquarium water. However, seafood soups are a staple of Chinese and Korean cuisine and so the neverending array of artificial seafood flavored instant noodles continues. This pack is from IndoMie and is called the Rasa Kaldu Udang flavor. Conveniently, they also translated the name into English (something that they don't always do on their packaging).


Indomie's most popular offering by far is their Mi Goreng. This is for good reason, since the flavors are extremely well executed, with 4 or 5 unique spice packets, depending on your variant. The shrimp flavor, on the other hand, only has two spice packets, one for chili powder and one for the shrimp flavoring. Unlike the Mi Goreng, the shrimp flavor instant noodles are served in a broth.


The Indomie noodles are plain and typical instant noodles. They aren't particularly flavorful since they are usually served with an intense sauce in the Mi Goreng. Here, the shrimp flavor is nice and subtle. It definitely tastes artificial, almost like the manufactured shrimp flavor in Maruchan's shrimp noodles. I was appreciative that there was no aquarium water taste, but overall unimpressed because I have so often seen Indomie do incredible things with their flavor combinations. I don't think their noodle soups are very good, so I would recommend to stick to their dry noodle products like Mi Goreng and Mi Goreng Rasa Baso Sapi.

Indomie Instant Noodles - Shrimp Flavor - 3.5/10

Nissin Demae - Spicy Seafood Flavor

I usually consider the spicy seafood ramen flavors as the specialty of the Korean manufacturers. However, I was excited to see an offering from the Japanese ramen giant Nissin and more than willing to sample it.


One problem that often plagues seafood ramen is the overwhelming pungent fishy flavor. To counteract this, ramen makers often make the seafood based soup very spicy so that the broth is multidimensional. In this case, the broth was extremely garlicky and had a slight creamy nature that seemed to thicken it slightly. The spiciness was definitely strong but was almost deceptive. This is the kind of broth which you will be happily slurping away and then suddenly break out into a coughing fit from the spiciness.


Not surprisingly, the noodles themselves are Nissin's typical noodles. Nothing special, but far better than the stuff that comes in the styrofoam cups. I liked that they decided to complicate the seafood flavor with garlic and spiciness. Altogether, I think that Nissin pulled off this flavor quite well. Still, it's not anything special in the wide range of spicy seafood noodles in the pantheon of ramen.

Nissin Demae - Spicy Seafood Flavor - 6.5/10

Samyang Foods - KalGugSu Noodle Soup

I am not too familiar with what KalGugSu is supposed to be, but I believe it is a Korean dish made with a shellfish broth and chewy noodles. The picture on the front of this pack seems to corroborate my hypothesis. These noodles are made by Samyang Foods, one of the giants of Korean instant noodles along with Nong Shim and Paldo.

Unlike all other Korean noodles that I've had, KalGugSu's noodles are wide and flat. They are also chewier and maintain their chewiness even when cooked for a long time. The other surprise here is that this pack is not hot and spicy, like almost all other Korean noodles.

For once, I was not completely disgusted by the seafood tasting broth. The taste is quite clammy, but it is done in a savory way that actually tastes like clam. The bits of seaweed and carrot in the broth were helpful as well. I still prefer the hot and spicy types of Korean noodles but this is a nice change of pace. Both the texture of the noodles and the flavor of the broth are very different than the usual fare.

Samyang Foods - KalGugSu Noodle Soup - 6.0/10

Cup Noodles - Salsa Picante Shrimp Flavor

After sampling Maruchan's Lime Chili Flavor With Shrimp, I decided to experiment with Cup Noodles analogous flavor. The packaging is remarkably similar to the Maruchan brand and I would have a tough time telling them apart if I wasn't impeccably trained to recognize the packaging of instant noodles.

Although Nissin is a Japanese company, the Cup Noodles line found in the US are designed and manufactured within the US. The true imports from Japan are found under the brand name Nissin Demae. The Nissin Cup Noodles are similar in a lot of ways to the Maruchan Instant Lunch line. They come in a styrofoam cup and are filled with cheap inferior quality noodles. But they are really easy to make as all you need to do is add boiling water and wait a few minutes. So, for the uber-lazy, they are really quite convenient.


In a lot of ways, these noodles were similar to Maruchan's. The noodles themselves have little taste and are annoyingly thin. Overall, the flavor was not nearly as good as Maruchan's. The lime flavor was there, but tasted more like vinegar than citrus. So although they look like twins, the Maruchan version is far superior. With all that said, if you have an opportunity to avoid American made ramen, by all means take it!

Cup Noodles - Salsa Picante Shrimp Flavor - 4.5/10
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Maruchan Instant Lunch - Lime Chili Flavor With Shrimp

Amazingly, the Ramen Lovers blog has not reviewed a single American instant noodle up to this point. So at Ralph's last week, I decided to pick up the most disgusting sounding flavor of Maruchan just to prove once and for all the utter crappiness of American ramen. This particular one is Lime Chili Flavor With Shrimp.

Maruchan's headquarters is just a stone's throw away from my office in Irvine, CA. Surprisingly, Maruchan has become immensely popular in Mexico, which may partially explain their headquarters' location in Southern California. This particular flavor may be designed to appeal to Mexican tastes, as it contains Lime and Habanero chili, both of which are commonly found in Mexican cuisine (and not in Asian cuisine).


The Instant Lunch line of noodles comes with their own styrofoam cup, so all you need to do is fold back the lid and pour some boiling water in. The biggest strike against the Maruchan brand is the cheap inferior noodles they use, and this one is no exception. They are extremely thin and completely flavorless. I guess Maruchan doesn't realize that good noodles can actually enhance the experience.


I was shocked by how good the broth turned out. They certainly lived up to their billing, being extremely hot and spicy, yet with a strong flavor of lime as well. The dehydrated shrimp were a nice touch, instead of being disgusting as I had expected. As with most Maruchan instant noodles, there is a pleasantly high amount of vegetables. Overall, these had a very good flavor, but I wish the noodles themselves matched up to the surprisingly flavorful and potent broth.

Maruchan Instant Lunch - Lime Chili Flavor With Shrimp - 6.5/10

Nissin Demae XO Sauce Seafood Flavor

As this ramen blog has established, the Nissin Demae ramen line is typically mediocre with cardboard-like noodles and very little flavor. Nevertheless, I decided to the XO Sauce Seafood Flavor out of curiosity. What is XO sauce?



The ramen comes with three packets - a soup base, "oil", and a brown paste. The soup base has some dehydrated green onions that plump up nicely in the soup.



The noodles were definitely the typical Nissin Demae noodles - I could identify these in a blind taste test I think. The broth tasted quite strongly of the artificial seafood flavor common to instant ramen and the oil provded a nice creaminess to the meal. However, I'm still not sure what XO sauce is - it tasted somewhat garlicky. Nevertheless, this is probably my favorite of the Nissin Demae ramens that I've tried so far.

Mi Hai Cua - Crab Flavour

Here's one that I picked mostly for the weirdness factor. The Mi Hai Cua brand is imported from Singapore and this particular packet is crab flavoured. The picture on the cover is not particularly appetizing, showing two uncooked blue crabs (they turn red after they've been cooked). Despite previous bad experiences with Unif-100 and Kung-Fu shrimp flavored ramen, I was willing to give this one a shot, mostly just to see what it was like.

Well, the good news is that the seafood flavour wasn't very pervasive. However, the bad news was that the seafood flavour was pretty much nonexistent. I won't say that these noodles were bland, but they certainly lacked distinction. Actually, it reminded me a lot of the other two Shrimp Flavored ramen that I have had before, although this one didn't have as much fishiness as those.


Overall, it was not something that I would throw away, but it was definitely not something I would buy again either. The flavor was certainly not bad, there was just really no flavor besides MSG and salt in here. My advice is to stay away from all seafood related flavors unless they are hot and spicy as well!

Mi Hai Cua - Crab Flavour - 2.5/10

President Unif-100 - Furong Shrimp Flavor Noodles

I'm not sure why I bought this pack of noodles except maybe just pure curiosity. Although I love shrimps, I'm not usually a fan of shrimp in ramen form...because quite frankly, shrimps (unlike chili peppers) do not translate well to a powdered soup flavoring.

The name of these noodles was "Furong Shrimp Flavor Noodles". I have no idea what Furong means and a Google search only turned up a Chinese cult-celebrity named Furong Jiejie who is apparently their equivalent William Hung. Maybe those two should get together! Supposedly, Furong refers to a flower that has been used to describe young beauty, but still I don't know how this relates to shrimp or noodles!


As you can see, I added some grilled chicken to the mix to add some non-harmful nutritional value to this meal. After tasting these noodles, I suspect that "Shrimp Flavor" is something that ramen manufacturers use to describe something that has no real flavor besides salt and a hint of fish paste. In other words, it didn't taste like shrimp at all. Then again, I'm not sure if I would have wanted to eat something that was pervasively shrimpy. I was pleasantly surprised by the high amount of seaweed and scallions, but that couldn't make up for the fact that this stuff didn't have a particularly nice flavor that certainly didn't match what it was advertised as.

In conclusion, don't vote for President Unif-100! Well, maybe the other flavors are good, I don't know...

President Unif-100 - Furong Shrimp Flavor Noodles - 3.0/10

Neoguri Udon Seafood & Spicy

Like most Korean instant noodles, this offering from Nong Shim (the makers of the popular Shin Ramyun) is hefty, weighing in at a hefty 120g. The noodles come conveniently in a circular shaped brick, rather than the usual square brick. This is convenient if you follow the 'quick-n-easy' cooking technique, like I usually do:

1. Microwave bowl of water for 3 or 4 minutes.
2. Toss in the noodles and spices, cover, and wait for a few minutes.
3. Enjoy!
   

These noodles are Udon, which means they are thicker and chewier than other noodles. Nong Shim's strategy with their instant noodles seems to be to combine relatively bland noodles with extremely flavorful broth. This works pretty well, especially since they excel with their broth flavorings.

Wow! Look at the sheer volume of noodles in that thing. To quote the Pepto-Bismol guy, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." Actually, the Nutrition Facts on the back of the Neoguri package shows that this is supposed to be two servings. But the vast majority of people will not be sharing, I'm sure!

There were a lot of seaweed flakes in the soup, which was nice. There were miscellaneous other things, like carrot, onion, mushroom, and strange fish-cake things, but the vast majority of the dried vegetable packet was seaweed, which is fine. The soup tasted like a spicy seaweed broth, which was quite flavorful and delicious. I think it's not quite as spicy as the Nong Shim Hot & Spicy, but it's close. The nice thing is that it's not an oily spiciness; this means the heat will not annoyingly linger on your tongue.

Strangely, I noticed that the veggies and the spices tended to sink underneath the noodles rather than float on top like they usually do. In fact, upon reaching the end, I found a large pile of seaweed and some strange fish-cake things. Just be aware to carefully mix the concoction so that everything is well distributed.

The flavor and volume of these instant noodles was quite good. Although I prefer the plain Hot & Spicy to the Seafood & Spicy flavor, they are similar and the seafood flavor is subtle and not bad. Another offering from Nong Shim that packs a punch and really delivers.

Neoguri Udon Seafood & Spicy - 8.0/10

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Kung-Fu (Shrimp Flavor)

First of all, let me start off by saying that the bowl of ramen pictured on the packaging does not look very appetizing at all. There are two gigantic shrimps with the heads still on, which is the style that they are generally served in Asia. But the shrimps in the pictured bowl are absolutely puny. At least they could have put some appetizing shrimp in the picture! The font and color scheme is outdated and looks like something from the 1940's.

I was equally unimpressed by the contents of the package. The block of noodles was rather small. Two seasoning packets were included, a small one with the flavor powder and a surprisingly large packet containing flavored oil.


Upon opening the seasoning packet, I was pleasantly greeted with the aroma of shrimp. The block softened and broke apart rather easily in the soup, which is not always the case. However, I definitely consider it a positive when the noodles can disintegrate from their block form in a reasonable amount of time. The oil package was absolutely huge! I have no idea why, because it's not like it was spicy oil or even particularly flavorful. It tasted like a combination of sesame oil and olive oil and didn't taste particularly good.

Somehow, when I started eating the ramen, the entire shrimp flavor was missing. I know I had smelled it when I had put in the seasoning packet, but it was completely overwhelmed by the oil. The noodles themselves were passable, but still not as good as some other brands.

Those brown spots in the picture are shadows, not fried red onions. This is a shame, because this ramen could definitely have used something to add some flavor besides oil! I am not a frequent shrimp flavor eater, and I can only hope that other shrimp flavored ramen doesn't taste this bad!

Kung-Fu (Shrimp Flavor): 2.0 / 10