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

Maggi - Tom Yam Flavour

From the makers of the ubiquitous Maggi sauce comes these noodles. Even though Maggi is owned by Nestlé, these noodles are imported from Malaysia. I had very high hopes for these, considering they came from a reputable brand and Tom Yam flavour seemed like a good idea at the time.

As a disclaimer, I have never had Tom Yam soup before, but I have heard great things about it from friends. Wikipedia describes it as a "hot and sour soup flavored with fish sauce". Hmm, maybe that should have been my first warning sign. Sour and fish flavored things usually don't come off well in instant noodles. The additives to these noodles consisted of a powder pack and a sauce pack filled with a dark brown thick sauce.


Looks innocent enough from the picture, right? But what you don't see is the pungent and noxious sour taste of this broth. These noodles are hot and spicy but are also disgustingly sour. To make matters worse, there is a strong fishy taste on top of everything. Maybe I just don't like Tom Yam soup, but I think these noodles are just plain bad. Maggi should stick to making sauces!

Maggi - Tom Yam Flavour - 0.0/10

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.

Ve Wong Noodle - Vegetarian Flavor

"Vegetarian Flavor" and "Instant Noodles" are not words that should go together, but I bravely picked this one up from the local 99 Ranch Market anyway. It's made by Ve Wong, which is a noodle company based in Taiwan.

As you might expect, the powder packet contained a fair amount of dried seaweed and carrots which magically plumped up when water was added. The weird thing that there were some TVP chunks as well. TVP stands for "textured vegetable protein" and is used as a cheap meat substitute. But why would they be including it in something that was meant to be vegetarian flavored anyways??

The only way I can think of to describe these noodles is that it is a spinach soup. In other words, not very good. I wasn't expecting much from these noodles, and they certainly didn't deliver much. But at least it didn't repulse me like some shrimp or crab flavored noodles. From now on I will be sticking to noodles that taste like meat, hot & spicy, miso, udon, etc...

Ve Wong Noodle - Vegetarian Flavor - 3.0/10

Nissin Demae Miso Flavor

Sometimes you're just not in the mood to set your mouth on fire or consume an entire 120g ramen. In those times, Nissin Demae is a good reliable brand that will provide a tasty meal in a manageable portion.



The miso flavor comes with two spice packets. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two, since they are both brown powders. Nevertheless, the result is fragrant and flavorful. It doesn't taste anything like miso - but since when were ramen flavors supposed to taste like how they are advertised?

The picture on the front of this ramen shows veggies and meats. The miso flavor would definitely be a great base upon which to add toppings. The packets lack dried veggies, such as green onions or carrot flakes, that provide needed color and texture to many other ramens. But on the whole, this is a thoroughly solid ramen that should be a staple in every Ramen Lover's pantry.

Nong Shim - Chapagetti

Here's a flavor that's pretty different than the standard instant noodles that you find. It is based on a common Chinese and Korean dish called Chajang Myun. This dish is traditionally served with ground beef or pork and a slightly sweet sauce made with black bean paste. I am not really a fan of this dish, but I was curious as to what the instant noodle version would taste like.

"Chapagetti" is certainly an interesting name for these noodles. I guess they are trying to say that it is a blend of Chajang and Spaghetti...? These noodles have a little different cooking instructions than what you usually see since they are not supposed to be served with soup. You must boil the noodles in water and then drain them and add tablespoons of water and add the sauce packets to create the sauce.


These noodles came in the convenient circular brick form, although this convenience was largely lost since the cooking method required independent boiling. The circular brick is really only helpful when you can cook the noodles in the bowl and not have to drain them.

Strangely, the sauce came in pellet form but dissolved easily enough in the water to form a very dark sauce. The flavor was surprisingly mild. It definitely tasted like the right kind of flavor, it's just not as strong as I am used to getting when this dish is homemade or served in a restaurant. I won't be buying this again because it just wasn't that good. Nong Shim is a quality brand, but don't go for this one!

Nong Shim - Chapagetti - 5.0/10

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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

Samyang Ramen

I have been trying a lot of Samyang's offerings recently, specifically Sogoki Myun, Sutah Ramen, Kimchi Ramen, and Pojangmacha U-Dong. But this one has the special privilege of being named after the company: Samyang Foods.

The packaging reminded me of a box of Tide detergent but I didn't let that stop me from trying it. No surprises on the inside...like almost every other Korean ramen in the world, there is a big block of noodles with a spice packet and a dried vegetable packet.


The steam from the broth fogged up my camera lens! But let me tell you, this was quite a tasty ramen with plenty of heat yet plenty of flavor as well. I especially liked the shitake mushrooms included in the veggie packet. You don't see that very often for some reason yet they add a lot of potent bursts of flavor to the whole package. This is quite similar to Samyang's Sogoki Myun, Sutah Ramen and Kimchi Ramen but comes together a little bit better. Very satisfying and deserving of the Samyang name!

Samyang Ramen - 9.0/10

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Myojo Chukazanimai - Soy Sauce Flavor

Well, this one was quite different from anything I've ever tried before. I suspect this is what Japanese instant ramen is really intended to be, but I can't say for sure since I've never been to Japan. But I suspect Nissin is a bastardized and mass produced version of what the Japanese consider instant ramen.

The packaging here is noticably different than the usual instant noodles. The Myojo Chukazanimai comes in a thin and flat package. As I opened it, I was definitely expecting something different than the usual experience. The biggest difference between this one and other instant ramen is in the noodle quality. Myojo Chukazanimai's noodles were much chewier and flavorful then the usual fare. In fact, they reminded me quite a lot of the fresh ramen I have had at various restaurants...which is a good thing, of course.

The soup had strong flavors of soy sauce and onion. There was a slight hint of sesame oil as well. I felt like the soup's flavor was too strong, but I know a lot of ramen restaurants serve soup that is just as strong as this stuff. This was the closest approximation I have ever had to the fresh ramen that is served in a restaurant. So if you like that kind, you will probably like this kind too!

Myojo Chukazanimai - Soy Sauce Flavor - 6.0/10

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Unif-100 - Shallot Beef Flavor Noodles

Even though I've been previously burned by President Unif-100 noodles, I managed to forgive them for that travesty. After all, it's very difficult to pull off a Shrimp flavor that doesn't taste like aquarium water. Shallot beef flavor, on the other hand, should be a much easier flavor to design. Just add some salt and beef flavoring and you're set.

No real surprises with this ramen. It's a little bit spicy to cover the fact that there isn't much flavor there besides salt. The flavor packets consist of a powder packet, a packet of scallions and cabbage, and a flavored oil packet.


Overall, this was a decent soup but I prefer the competitors such as Ve Wong's Peppered Beef Flavor which is rather similar to this one but tastes a little better. My biggest beef (pun intended) is that the Unif-100 noodles just aren't very tasty. This will be a flaw that will affect them across all their product lines.

Unif-100 - Shallot Beef Flavor Noodles - 6.5/10

Sogoki Myun - Beef Flavor

The packaging of this reminded me very much of the Kimchi Ramen I had a few weeks ago, which was also made by Samyang Foods. I guess you could say they are part of the same family of large Korean instant noodles with relatively basic flavors.

These noodles turned out to be much spicier than I had anticipated. It's not quite up to the heat level of Shin Ramyun, but it definitely has more kick than you might expect from the packaging, which gives no hint that it might be spicy inside. I guess these Korean packages don't need to indicate spiciness, since pretty much all Korean instant noodles are spicy. The exception is the Chajung Myun varieties.


Couldn't really taste any beef flavor because the heat from the broth overwhelmed the taste. Overall, these were decent simple noodles that didn't do very much to distinguish themselves in my mind positively or negatively.

Sogoki Myun - Beef Flavor - 7.0/10

Ve Wong Noodle - Pork & Chicken Flavor

I am much more familiar with Ve Wong's Peppered Beef Flavor, but I couldn't resist picking this up when 99 Ranch Market had a Buy One, Get One Free sale.

As you might expect, the noodles in this pack are identical to those in the Peppered Beef Flavor. The Ve Wong noodles come with a good quantity of seaweed, cabbage, and carrot which add some nice variety and texture to the noodles.


I wonder what genius at Ve Wong decided to combine pork and chicken into the same flavor. Well, it kind of works, in that the soup is very savory and definitely meat-flavored, although the meat's identity is a little bit obscure. The noodles are pretty tasty and are pretty thin and soft, as is typical of Taiwanese instant noodles. Overall, these noodles are worth a try if you are into a savory meat flavor without any spiciness.

Ve Wong Noodle - Pork & Chicken Flavor - 6.5/10

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Mama Pad Thai - Stir Fried Flavor

These 70g miniscule noodles are so small they would only be suitable for feeding a small child or large pet. Despite this drawback, I went ahead and tried them, intrigued by the prospect of Pad Thai in a bag. As you might or might not expect, these are imported from Thailand.

Mama Pad Thai had a different cooking method than anything I've ever seen before. They want you to pour boiling water into the bowl with the noodles and then drain the noodles after 3 minutes and add the spices. In concept it is somewhat similar to Indomie Mi Goreng's cooking method.

As you can tell from the picture, these are rice noodles rather than the usual wheat noodles found in instant noodles. I added a fried egg since I am not a small child or large pet and require a little more substance to a meal.

The taste was quite good! A little bit similar to Mi Goreng, the Mama Pad Thai is very sweet and quite spicy. It was surprisingly sweet, but it also had a good savoriness to the noodles. There is a good taste of shallots if you enjoy that taste. If anything, the flavor was a little bit too strong for the amount of noodles they provided. My suggestion would be to increase the amount of noodles and tone down on the sweetness a little bit.

Mama Pad Thai - Stir Fried Flavor - 8.0/10

IndoMie - Mi Goreng Rasa Baso Sapi

I had previously lamented the fact that IndoMie's offerings are only 85g and are rather inadequate, especially with the increased effort of having to open up to 5 flavor packets. So I was happy to find the "Jumbo" version of one of IndoMie's Mi Goreng Rasa Baso Sapi, which comes in at 120g. The translation of the name is "Beef Fried Noodles".

IndoMie's noodles generally have cooking instructions slightly different than typical instant noodles. You are supposed to cook the noodles and dump all the seasoning packets onto a plate. Then, you drain the noodles and transfer them to the plate and mix everything together. It seems like a cool idea to have 5 flavoring packets (seasoning powder, seasoning oil, sweet soy sauce, chili powder, and fried onion), but it turns into a giant pain when it is actually time to open them all, especially since they are attached to each other.

Overall, the taste was quite similar to the IndoMie Mi Goreng that I tried before. The noodles are rather oily and the taste is dominated by the sweet soy sauce and the fried red onion. The flavor is quite good and unique and I'm glad that IndoMie has a reasonable size instead of their tiny 85g package.

IndoMie - Mi Goreng Rasa Baso Sapi - 8.5/10

Pojangmacha - U-Dong

Ever wonder what happens when you take the spiciness out of instant Korean noodles? That's what I set out to discover when I tried these noodles.

Upon opening the package, I was mildly displeased that the noodles didn't resemble Udon noodles at all and were instead the normal noodles that you find in Korean instant noodle packages. Udon noodles are supposed to be much thicker and chewier, but these were the same noodles you might find in Shin Ramyun. I was also shocked to discover what looked like a piece of burnt and melted plastic. I soon realized that it was just a dried piece of seaweed, though. I've never seen that before in instant noodles and was mildly intrigued by it.

Well, this turned out to be a rather bland and uninteresting ramen. There's little flavor to the broth besides salt and MSG. The seaweed turned out to be overly chewy and bad-tasting. Overall, it was an unremarkable experience which was saved only by the fact that I added chicken to liven things up a bit. I think the Korean instant noodle soup manufacturers should stick to what they know best: spicy spicy spicy!

Pojangmacha - U-Dong - 5.0/10

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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

Samyang Foods - Kimchi Ramen

I had a pretty good idea what this ramen was going to taste like before I opened it. That's because it falls into the category of Korean ramens which tend to share several two characteristics: they are spicy and contain a lot of noodles.

Interestingly, this ramen advertised itself as being Kimchi flavored, instead of just Hot & Spicy as usual. Luckily, I consider myself an expert on Kimchi, so I am fully qualified to determine whether or not the flavor is truly Kimchi, or if it is just sneaky false advertising. For those unfamiliar with Kimchi, it is a Korean side dish consisting of spicy fermented cabbage. Sounds kind of gross but it is actually quite good. Interesting to see how it would taste in ramen form.


Well, it turned out to fall a little short of my lofty expectations. It didn't really have the distinctive tang and bite of real Kimchi. Instead, it seemed just like every other Korean ramen that I have ever had: it was spicy and contained lots of noodles. That's just fine with me, since I happen to enjoy Korean noodles. Still a little disappointing that it didn't quite live up to the big Kimchi printed across the front!

Samyang Foods - Kimchi Ramen - 7.0/10

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Tung-I Ramen Noodle - Chinese Onion Flavor

I bought these noodles because I had a faint memory of enjoying them as a child. Chinese onion refers to fried red onions, which are a common ingredient in Chinese cooking and can be used in a similar way to garlic.

These noodles were very fragrant after I started cooking them. The flavoring basically consists of salt and fried red onion, so you better like the taste of these onions if you are going to be eating this ramen.


Overall, I quite liked these ramen, although my opinion of them has changed since my childhood. I wish they had a little more spice to them, either a pepper flavor or some spiciness. Now, I realize that I really should have added my Sriracha sauce to this to make it perfect, but the thought didn't occur to me at the time. I'll have to buy them again in order to do this!

Tung-I Ramen Noodle - Chinese Onion Flavor - 7.5/10

Paldo Korean Broad Noodle

Sometimes you open a package of ramen and you know it's going to be a winner. Other times you open a package of ramen and you know it's going to be a dud. And then, there are those rare surprises when you think it's a dud but it ends up being a winner.

Paldo Korean Broad Noodle is one of those rare surprises. It weighs in as the biggest ramen yet, 123 grams, but it's worth every bite.


The noodles come with a single flavoring packet, which looks like a slimy brown liquid roughly resembling soy sauce. The package did not identify a specific flavor like beef or seafood. So with low expectations, I squeezed out the liquid into the noodles and set it aside while I prepared the egg and vegetables, assuming it would be some generic weak soy sauce flavor.

Lo and behold, a few minutes later I turned back and the brown gunk had become a flavorful red broth with little hot oil bubbles around the edges!


Better yet, the taste of the ramen blew me away. While calling the noodles "broad" is a bit of an overstatement, they are slightly bigger than typical ramen noodles and have a nice heft and chewy texture. They also absorbed the aroma of the broth, which itself was slightly spicy, garlicky, and unique. The ingredient list identifies the unique taste as a "red pepper sauce," something not often found in instant ramen. The taste was intense but not overwhelming, spicy but not inedible (like certain other Korean ramens).

I usually don't drink most of the broth in ramen because of the sodium and preservatives. But this time, it was "good till the last drop!"

Six Fortune Instant Beef Noodle - Stay Away!

Six Fortune Instant Beef Noodle is a 120g Korean ramen that comes with two packets - a veggie packet and a seasoning packet. If you couldn't tell from the title of this post, this was one of the worst ramens I have ever eaten and one of the few I have actually regretted eating later.

The broth tasted extremely bland and nothing at all like beef. The veggie packet had scallion flakes and these weird spongy brown things, which I had no idea what they were but added nothing to the overall ramen experience. The noodle texture was too stiff, not chewy, and did not absorb what little flavor was in the soup. In summary, avoid eating this ramen!