Category: Baijia

The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition

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The Ramen Rater's Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition

Quite a few years ago, July 8th, 2013 to be precise, I came out with my first The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time. I got the idea from a guy who worked at one of the world’s leading instant noodle companies. He asked ‘you have top tens, why not a bottom ten?’ I weighed the idea carefully. I could really piss off a great deal of people with my list. But what the hell – I do that already with my top tens – people are always disagreeing, and that’s fine. Ten years later, it’s time for my tenth installment of The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles list. These are the worst (in my personal opinion) varieties I’ve ever had – mind you this is out of 4,400 reviews. Definitely not a list anyone wants to be on. What companies like I’m sure is when a product falls off the list and a new one gains my ire. This time it’s a horror show theme, done up with AI. Well, let’s check them all out – and remember, if you like some of these, that’s fine with me – just don’t expect me to eat them with you. ...see full post

#4251: Sichuan Baijia Chengdu Sweet & Spicy Noodle – China

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#4251: Sichuan Baijia Chengdu Sweet & Spicy Noodle - China

Went through my bins and found everything I’d not reviewed. Guess what? Only four things. Yep – I’ve all but caught up! Which is good because more should be here tomorrow with more on the way. I’ve been on a roll lately – really found my groove again. Here’s how my day goes (if anyone cares). Get up, get stuff ready for kids, get stuff ready for reviewing. Review. Get my boy on the bus. Have some oatmeal and peanut butter with my daughter. Edit images and video for the reviews I did. Do some walking back and forth in the apartment. Get my daughter ready. Get her on the bus. Walk ten miles. Get home and get my daughter off the bus. Then my son off the bus. Then start taking pictures of the stuff I’ll review the next day and get those posts ready.  Then we get the kids dinner done, put em to bed, have our dinner, try not to fall asleep/wake up on the couch and then start the whole thing over. Today is a little different. Today is a new tradition I started a couple of weeks ago. It’s B-roll Sunday. What’s that you probably don’t ask? Well, I go out walking with my rucksack on my back with my monopod, the phone I use to shoot Instant Noodle Recipe Time, and a battery brick in search of benches that have decent views and shoot ten or more minutes of video to do time lapse videos. Today I walked to Seattle – and should have some good intros and outros in store for this and the next couple of episodes of the show. But enought about me and this behind the scenes look at things you probably aren’t interested in. Let’s try this one from China. ...see full post

#4141: Sichuan Baijia Lanzhou Artificial Beef Flavor Noodle – China

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#4141: Sichuan Baijia Lanzhou Artificial Beef Flavor Noodle - China

I think I recently did another version of this a little while back – that’s usually means it’s been months. Anyways, pretty crazy here now what with Omicron – so I’ve gotten two emails from the kiddos school district saying be prepared if things get worse they’ll be back home with their school tablets again. That would be incredibly unfortunate; they get so much out of socializing. Then again I don’t want my kids getting sick. My son’s fully vaccinated and my daughter got her first one a day after her 5th birthday just before Christmas. ...see full post

#3860: Baijia Mian-Yang Rice Noodle Artificial Beef Flavor – China

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#3860: Baijia Mian-Yang Rice Noodle Artificial Beef Flavor - China

I don’t I’ve mentioned lately how absolutely wonderful my wife is. I should just do a standalone post every week saying that and extolling the reasons why, but here’s one thing she did that was absolutely wonderful. We had a car accident in mid January (as I write this it’s early March) and we’ve had a loaner as it gets fixed. Yeah – early March. Since mid January, I haven’t been in a car. We’ve got two kids, two car seats, and one just won’t get in there right and so someone has to stay at home and since I don’t drive, that’s me. Well, the local grocery store I walk to had some sad mung bean sprouts and it’s Sunday – a week without mung bean sprouts is a sad ordeal for me. She drove to the 99 Rach Market out of town, got my veggies and then proceeded to send me individual photos of different instant noodles in hopes of finding some I’ve not reviewed. I’m super low on varieties I’ve not tried which is serious no bueno. She did find a few though and this is one of them. So I say thank you to my kind and wonderful wife. Let’s have a look at this rice noodle variety! ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2020 Edition

The Ramen Rater's Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2020 Edition

Here we go again. It always surprises me that I have to put out a new list of these every year. I guess the redeeming fact is that some varieties get to be pushed out of the list, which I’m sure they’re happy about. Anyways, these are my least favorite instant noodle varieties from over 3500 reviews. This list is current as of review #3545. Let’s check out The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2020 Edition. ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2019 Edition

It’s that time again – time to run down the worst varieties I’ve ever had. That’s no small task either – this list is current as of review #3180. These are the ten worst ones, in my opinion, leaving a lasting negative impression on my taste buds. With that, I again give you what you want. ...see full post

#3159: Sichuan Baijia Big Boss Hot & Sour Sweet Potato Vermicelli – China

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#3159: Sichuan Baijia Boss Hot & Sour Sweet Potato Vermicelli - China

Found this one up in Canada at Foodyworld and it looks really neat! The kids are really interested in this one but I’m sure it’s definitely off the charts spicy for them. I’m always curious when I see a cartoon or comic character on a product. Definitely looks interesting, that’s for sure! Let’s crack it open! ...see full post

#3093: Sichuan Baijia Green Curry Shrimp Flavor Instant Vermicelli – China

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#3093: Sichuan Baijia Green Curry Shrimp Flavor Instant Vermicelli - China

Here’s one I found up in Canada – can’t remember where. Green curry is one of my favorite flavors, however not one that I think I’ve ever seen coming out of China. Sichuan Baijia has been coming out with more and more different varieties – and different little cartoon characters on their packaging. Let’s give this one a try and see how it fares. ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2017 Edition

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The Ramen Rater's Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2017 Edition

So today it’s the fifth annual The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time. On my other lists, I exclude varieties that no longer are on the market. On this list, everything’s fair game for the bottom ten. As I say in the video presentation, if you like some of these, there’s nothing wrong with you – I just find these detestable personally. These are my least favorite varieties of the over 2400 varieties posted to date. Without gurther ado, the bottom ten. ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Chinese Instant Noodles Of All Time 2017 Edition

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The Ramen Rater's Top Ten Chinese Instant Noodles Of All Time 2017 Edition

恭喜发财 and Happy Lunar New Year to all! I had a look at my lists I hadn’t updated in a while and saw it was in January of 2014 last I did a top ten Chinese list. Why so long? Well, I like to have done quite a few reviews in a year when it comes to country lists for that specific country. If I’d done only two and there weren’t any big changes, I’ll kind of let it go until the next year. This one seemed ripe and ready for a new version. Of the almost 150 reviews I’ve done of Chinese instant noodles, these are my favorites. I should mention that if you are an instant noodle in mainland China and interested in having me review your products, please contact me to set up a review series. With that, let’s have a look at The Ramen Rater’s top Ten Chinese Instant Noodles Of All Time 2017 Edition.  ...see full post

#2292: Sichuan Baijia Chongqing Noodles Spicy Hot Flavor

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This is the third of this line of new products from Sichuan Baijia that I’ve tried recently and what’s neat is that there are bowls too so I’m going to have to try those soon too. The others have definitely been spicy hot but this one says spicy hot. I think this may be a contender! Yesterday’s review of the cheese buldak bokkummyun fire noodle challenge noodle was super hot! Let’s give this a looksie and see how hot it is! ...see full post

#2271: Sichuan Baijia Chongqing Noodles Burning Dry Noodles

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Leave to my wife Kit to notice things I don’t. This is art of a series of three varieties that they got in at 99 Ranch Market in Edmonds, Washington that I’d not seen before – but she did! I asked her which of the three to review first and here’s what she picked. Burning! Here’s a little snippet from Wikipedia – ...see full post

#2008: Sichuan Baijia Hot Spicy Flavor Instant Vermicelli

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I’m pretty sure this is the first Baijia bowl I’ve reviewed. For the longest time, I was extremely leery of these; I have a couple Baijia products I really disliked. However, after some time, I found that my tastes have really changed (especially after tring different things overseas and reviewing hundreds of instant noodles) and now I’m keen on giving them a new look. Well, let’s check this one out! ...see full post

#1948: Sichuan Baijia Artificial Pickled Cabbage Fish Flavor Instant Vermicelli

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I’ve been checking out a few of these Baijia varieties recently, and they’ve been interesting. When I first started reviewing, I generally found the flavors and varieties to be pretty horrid, but after a few years , I’m starting to come around. Pickled cabbage and fish, eh? Well, let’s have a look. ...see full post

#1924: Sichuan Baijia Broad Noodle Artificial Beef Flavor

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So the last one of these broad noodles I tried I made incorrectly (yeah, it happens once in a blue moon) and I’ll re-review it soon. See, the first one was a broth free variant and I just assumed that the rest would be. Well, it looks like the one I tired first was the exception to the rule. Anyways, let’s have a look at this beef flavored variety from Sichuan Baijia. ...see full post

ERROR – RE-REVIEW NECESSARY – #1863: Sichuan Baijia Broad Noodle Pickled Vegetable Artificial Beef Flavor

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NOTE: I assumed that all of the Sichuan Baijia Broad Noodle series were supposed to be drained. This was apparently was NOT supposed to be drained, hence the review score of 0 stars. It will be re-reviewed soon! Thanks to Bundi R. for bringing this to my attention. ...see full post

#1825: Sichuan Baijia Broad Noodle Chili Oil Flavor

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It’s always awesome when I go to the store with my poor vision and my wife sees something and asks me if I’ve tried it. Sure enough, this was one of those occasions. I recently had the Sichuan Baijia Artificial Spicy Fei Chang a couple of weeks ago – it had been on my bottom ten list for years and really kind of one of the main reasons I wasn’t reviewing Baijia stuff so much. After not trying it in 5 years, I found that my tastebuds had done a bit of a metamorphosis. Where I found this more traditional Chinese flavor horrible before, I found it much more to my liking. So now at the store, I’m looking at Baijia in a different way. Today, I’ll try something I’ve not seen before – a broad noodle. I’ve seen broad noodles before, but not this broad – you’ll see what I mean. I want to thank Bobby Y. for helping me decipher the cooking instructions – hope the Blue Jays did good in the ALCS and won the World Series! ...see full post

1801: Sichuan Baijia Spicy Artificial Fei-Chang Flavor Instant Vermicelli (New Version)

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To those of you have followed my blogs and my Bottom Ten lists for a while, you know what this is. To those who haven’t, let me introduce you to this one. In my original review, I was really put off by this one. I thought it had some kind of ‘dirt and urine’ odor to it. But this is a new version. First, what’s fei chang? Here’s something I found on a blog called Food And Drink Chengdu: ...see full post

#1655: Sichuan Baijia Artificial Pickled Vegetable Beef Flavor

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So yesterday we went to the new Asian Food Center on 130th and Aurora southwest of here. Was hoping to find a lot of new varieties I hadn’t tried yet and found a couple – and this is one of them. I haven’t had much luck at all with Baijia products in the past – I think it’s just a taste that doesn’t translate well for me. However, I never met an instant noodle I hadn’t tried before that I didn’t want to. So with that, let’s have a look at this Sichuan Baijia variety. ...see full post

The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time

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So after sampling so many varieties of instant noodles over the years, of course there have been some that I didn’t like. There also were some that are so memorable for how awful they were. After people asked what my least favorites were a few times, I thought I should just make a list of them. I should point out that these are on the list because I couldn’t stand them. I’m pretty sure they are all still in production, and the only reason they would be is that people somewhere find them enjoyable. So who knows – you might have a completely different opinion on these than me, but I found them to be absolutely the worst of the worst. With that, here’s The Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time, 2013 Edition. ...see full post

#860: Baijia Artificial Pickled Cabbage Fish Flavor Instant Sweet Potato Thread

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In the past reviews of Baijia products, I haven’t been really stoked. I have been told by those keen on Sichuan cuisine that this is good stuff, but I think I’m not one of those who are keen on Sichuan cuisine. Regardless, I shall try this with an open mind. Let’s have a go at this one. ...see full post