I picked up a few types of instant ramen cups at places like No Frills and T & T in Edmonton recently. They were pretty good, but the Nongshim Oolong Men cup noodles seem to provide great value at their current price point, which is less than a dollar a cup.
Nongshim Seafood Oolong Men Cup NoodleThis cup noodle is from a Korea manufacturer, but made in the United States. There are a variety of flavours, but I tried the Chicken, beef, and seafood flavours. By far, my favourite was the seafood flavour, with the chicken, then beef running far behind. I find that the North American versions of beef and chicken taste like North American versions of beef and chicken and I don't like the instant flavours of this too much. The seafood on the other hand was very good for my palate.
These noodles come in squat, very attractive noodle cups made of double sided card stock. The double walls are nice as it makes it cool to hold. The flavour is fairly rich and seafoody, so if you don't like shellfish / fishy broths then don't buy this. There noodles had a nice texture and consistency. I would buy these noodles again.
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Very attractive picture on the side. |
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Nutritional information. |
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Lots of topping for your ramen on the inside. There is a big satchet of soup powder (contains shrimp, cuttlefish, mussel, oyster, anchovy, etc.), green onion, seaweed, some fish cake type slices, and lots of little cylinders of textured protein of some sort - soy maybe. |
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With the soup powder added. |
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Noodles cooked in boiled water for 3 minutes and the toppings all re-hydrated nicely. |
Acecook Shoyu Bowl RamenThese were fairly typical Japanese instant ramen bowls that were manufactured in Japan. Nothing fancy, but on the larger side for portions. I found the soup too salty for my taste and checking the ingredients shows that there is about 1/3 more salt than some of the other brands I like.
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Nice packaging and the cup is made of styrofoam. These bowls were obviously made for export as there was english everywhere! |
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Nutritional information and ingredients. |
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Deep red! Why is soy sauce often represented by the colour red. It is kind of like why is the word Blue so common in anime and manga titles? |
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There is a powdered soup packet with freeze dried corn and green onions, and an oil packet with soy flavour. |
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All the ingredients poured in. |
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It rehydrated nicely and there were little naruto (fish cake discs) too! Tasted pretty good. I liked this better than the Tonkotsu. |
Acecook Tonkotsu Bowl RamenThese bowl of noodles were made in Japan for export again. There was a big soup packet, but I felt it didn't give enough of the rich creaminess you would expect out of a tonkotsu broth. It was also saltier than some instant soup stocks I've had. I did not drink this soup, but it flavoured the noodles pretty good. The noodles were of a good texture like in the Shoyu.
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Very nice packaging. |
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It's gold! Good tonkotsu kind of colour. |
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Ingredients in English again. |
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Soup base and noodles. You add the dried soup powder/ingredients, the fill the bowl up to the line with boiling water. |
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You can tell there were lots of topping for the soup from the rehydrated ingredients. There were green onions, seaweed, some tempura-like nuggets and lots of sesame seeds. |
That's all for now. Everyone have a great fall!