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

Maruchan Ramen - Chicken Flavor

Maruchan is not afraid of saturating their soups with Monosodium Glutamate, better known as MSG. This chemical has been subject to much controversy which I won't get into now. All Maruchan noodles do have the unmistakable taste of Umami, which I like to call the 5th taste.

It's extremely difficult to describe what umami tastes like. I guess it's sort of like the difficulty in explaining the taste of sweet or salty. This broth tastes strongly of umami, although there is a bit of chicken flavor that tastes like it came from a bouillon cube. I won't complain about the Maruchan noodles here because I have done plenty of that already in previous posts.

The flavor of this broth is quite pleasant from the MSG, but I still felt that it lacked interestingness. So, I added a big dose of Sriracha sauce to liven up the flavor. Sriracha sauce goes very well with umami flavored broths; that's why you often see it at Vietnamese restaurants where the broth is naturally laden with MSG. I wouldn't particularly recommend this pack of ramen, but it is cheap and inoffensive if that is what you are looking for.

Maruchan Ramen - Chicken Flavor - 3.5/10

Maruchan Ramen - Beef Flavor

You can't beat the price of cheap American ramen. This particular pack cost me 12 cents at Ralph's. At first, I thought that Maruchan had put a picture of a raw egg yolk on the front of their package. Upon closer inspection, however, it actually looks like some kind of pickled radish.


Most Americans are familiar with the Maruchan brand. It tends to show up in vending machines due to the convenience of their Instant Lunch line and low cost. When I ate these noodles, I was disappointed by the poor quality in the noodles themselves. They tasted mealy and lacked the springiness and crunchiness that is usually present in instant noodles. They were limp and heavy and had very little flavor.


The broth in these noodles was decent. It tasted like a beef and onion broth. However, I couldn't get around the fact that the noodles themselves were so low quality. I recommend to pay a little bit more and get better quality instant noodles. These noodles are completely different than the ones found in the Instant Lunch cups and I actually prefer the Instant Lunch noodles to these.

Maruchan Ramen - Beef Flavor - 2.5/10

San Francisco Curly Pasta Noodle Soup - Extra Hot

I was really surprised to discover these noodles were made in the USA. I have never seen them before despite having been to countless American grocery stores and Asian markets. Finally, I found them in a Korean supermarket and decided to give them a try. Here's the website for SF Curly Pasta if you'd like to check them out, they've got some cool pictures of their ramen factory.

Although these are American made noodles, they still have the description printed in 4 languages (English, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese). Maybe they plan on exporting this package to other countries. Since I picked these up in the Korean supermarket and there is a picture of two chilies on the front, I expected these to be quite spicy. Sure enough, they were cough-inducingly spicy! The flavor of the broth really reminded me of Korean instant noodles.

True to their name, the noodles themselves are very curly. Instant noodles are purposely curly so that they can be packed tightly together, but these took curliness to a new level! I suspect that the curliness appeals to Americans who would have an easier time eating these noodles with a fork. For an Asian person eating noodles with chopsticks, the curliness doesn't make a difference in ease of eating. I enjoyed the curliness in my mouth as well, since I tended to get more flavor in each bite.

This noodle soup was powerfully spicy with nice hints of onion and mushroom. I rather enjoyed it, but to be honest, it is one in a sea of very similar spicy Korean instant noodles. Oh wait, this one wasn't even Korean, it's American!

San Francisco Curly Pasta Noodle Soup - Extra Hot - 6.5/10

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