
I’ve been asked many, many times to go try restaurant ramen by my readers. Well, Merry Christmas! As Gurney Halleck once said in the novel Dune, “Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work.”
Over 5,000 Instant Ramen Noodle Reviews Since 2002

I’ve been asked many, many times to go try restaurant ramen by my readers. Well, Merry Christmas! As Gurney Halleck once said in the novel Dune, “Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work.”
It’s been quite a year! I just wanted to send a big thank you to all my readers, folks who’ve sent in noodles, companies I’ve worked with and for all the help everyone has been on translating and everything else. Every day is such an enjoyable one because of you! From my family to yours, Happy Holidays!

Today, we say goodbye to the Olagafood Meet The Manufacturer series. Overall, it’s been a fun and tasty experience! I want to thank Davin over at Olagafood again for everything – also want to thank Jonathan at Waroeng Jajanan for supplying garnish and insight into this series! Much appreciated!

Here’s another vegetarian one from Maitri – this one being an instant noodle with broth. As I have to remind people, I won’t be coming out with a top ten vegetarian list. I wish I could, but it’s just a point of so much contention I should go a little into it.

I reviewed a Maitri Soto variety earlier in this series, and since Jonathan at Waroeng Jajanan gave me some Soto Betawi, I thought I ought to review the non-vegetarian version to take advantage of the niceties therein. Here’s a little about Soto from Wikipedia –

So you’re probably going to say ‘so what gives – this is the second Alhami Chicken Curry one you’re reviewing. Key differences I see from the packaging are the work flavor and the word flavour. To me, this denotes two different markets that these will be in most likely. The second is this one’s shiny back and the other isn’t. Shiny backs are tough to scan as you’ll see below. Well, let’s get to it – it’s chicken curry time!

Maitri is Olagafood’s vegetarian product line. So far, I’ve been pretty impressed; the flavors are quite good and it’s been a lot of fun reviewing them. This one is a vegetarian mie goreng – here’s a little about mie goreng from Wikipedia –

Curry has and always shall be one of my favorite flavors in this universe. Today it’s kari ayam – chicken curry. Let’s have a look and a taste!

A little while back, a fellow from Yum Yum of Thailand contacted me. A friend had done a news story on German television about instant noodles (yes, they love instant noodle in Germany, too!) and he gave them my info to see if they’d like to do something with me. After a while, I’m happy to announce I received a really big box of different varieties! So today on Unboxing Time With The Ramen Rater, we’ve got Yum Yum samples.

Today, it is beef. Beef is a flavor that’s very prevalent in instant noodle ranges from many countries, save a few. Very curious what this one will be like. Let’s find out!
So I did this review the morning that my daughter Miriam was born one year ago today. Happy Birthday, Miri! I thought I’s repost it with a little update.

Here’s another one of the noodle snack varieties – today it’s a barbeque flavored one. These are pretty neat – you get a long strip of these little packages. Let have a look at this and give the barbeque flavor a try!

Well hello there – extra hot! I like it spicy that’s for sure. Not a lot of varieties I’ve seen that are extra hot and also vegetarian. At least not having both variables mentioned on the packaging. I think this is interesting.

Whenever I see the word ‘corn’ on anything Southeast Asia, I always think of when I was at the airport in Penang, Malaysia. There was a little snack stall in there and it mentioned ‘corn in a cup.’ I thought this was the most fantastic thing; what could that possibly be? Our host looked at me like I was high and said plainly ‘it’s corn – in a cup.’

I really like prawns – especially the big ones. Mantis prawns are really big – had those in Malaysia. The river prawns in Thailand are spectacular and prepared right they’re just as succulent as can be. I don’t know much about prawns in Indonesia. Let’s ask Wikipedia –

Well, well, well, I do love me some curry. Especially when it mentions that it’s hot! Maitri is the range that Olagafood makes that has all vegetarian-friendly options. Here’s a little about this flavor in Indonesia from Wikipedia –

What have we here? A new company doing subscription boxes, that’s what!

Not only does Olagafood make the vegetarian Maitri and the Alhami varieties, they also make snack noodles. Snack noodles are an interesting thing that’s found everywhere in Southeast Asia. Literally, they’re seasoned instant noodles which are crunchy and tasty, usually sold in small packets – often (like this one) in a strip of them connected by perforations. Here’s a little about Sambal Balada from Wikipedia – and some other sambals!

Another line from Olagafood is Maitri. All of these are vegetarian. Today we have some soto – let’s hit up Wikipedia about it –

Today we get this Meet The Manufacturer series started! It’s been a long time since doing one with an Indonesian company – in fact, I rarely get any new Indonesian varieties across my desk. We start with one of the most recognized dishes from Indonesia, Mi Goreng. Here’s a little about it from Wikipedia –
Here’s the second of two boxes of samples for this new Meet The Manufacturer. Let’s check out Unboxing Time With The Ramen Rater!

Two packages came today – full of samples! Let’s do an Unboxing Time With The Ramen Rater and see what’s inside!

Interview With Olagafood * Product Samples From Olagafood (1 of 2) * Product Samples From Olagafood (2 of 2) * Alhami Mi Instan Mi Goreng Spesial * Maitri Vegetarian Rasa Soto * Mikka Noodle Snack Sambal Balado Chilli Sauce Flavour * Maitri Vegetarian Hot Curry Flavor * Alhami Instant Noodle Prawn Flavour * Mikka Noodle Snack Roasted Corn Flavour * Maitri Vegetarian Extra Hot Mie Goreng * Mikka Noodle Snack Barbeque Flavour * Alhami Instant Noodle Beef Flavour * Alhami Instant Noodles Chicken Curry Flavor * Maitri Vegetarian Mie Goreng * Alhami Instant Noodle Chicken Curry Flavor * Alhami Instant Noodle Soto Flavor * Maitri Instant Noodle Vegetarian Soup Flavor * Alhami Instant Noodle Chicken Flavor

Well, the little cheese guy has gone from a place of meekness to one of anger. Let me show you.


Today we have an interesting little cup of noodles from South Korea – a little spicy one. This has been on my top ten spicy list for a while now and it’s some mean stuff.

Here’s one that came by way of Javier over at Box From Japan. With Box From Japan, you can get different subscription boxes – whether it be ramen or candy. Sometimes they have other special boxes – they have a Pikachu box, for example. Definitely worth a look!

I remember the first time I heard about Ching’s Secret – I was very curious about this whole concept of Chinese food in India. As it turns out ‘Desi Chinese’ is kind of like American Chinese food insofar as Chinese bringing their food to a foreign country and adapting it to the tastes of the locals in order to sell more of it. This is a four pack and I would now like to make a formal complaint.

Alright, so here we go! I’ve been curious about these since they showed up in the mail.
The box is interesting – kind of looks like a tissue box in a way but definitely nothing like that inside. There are four packages inside and they are accompanied by four sachets. Let’s take a look at this unique variety from Taiwan!

A review copy! Books are awesome! Let’s take a look!

The first time I’d heard about Budae Jigae instant noodles was when I read an article in my nes feed about this brand making one. So what is budae jjigae? Let’s have a look at this from Wikipedia –

Today, it’s yet another of the KOKA varieties leftover from the Meet The Manufacturer from earlier this year! I must say that the fact that instant noodle products have long shelf lives is really a nice thing!

Here’s another one from Zenpop.JP. Zenpop offers a lot of diverse Japanese boxes – lots of assorted things like ramen and also stationary among other things. Here’s what they have to say about this variety –

I know, I know. ‘You can’t even eat this!’ I hear it already. Well, actually,m you could. I don’t think plastic has much nutritional value, but you could eat it.

Here’s one I got up in Canada in 2017. It’s pretty awesome – a quick drive and we’re in another country! Some might say ‘that’s Canada – it’s not so different.’ Well, it is. It’s full of nice people and interesting things. I like it.

The package says ‘yummy just got yummier.’ I can’t argue with that; I like yummy and more yummy is a paramount concern. Indeed, the proliferation of yummy is something that should be on everyone’s agenda. I mean, who doesn’t like yummy; the term passing through the mouth evokes a feeling of childhood giddiness and reckless abandon for anything else that’s a concern of the day. It’s a pure admission of surrender to the palate.

There are a few varieties in this Hot Heads series and I now have all of them. The first I reviewed was the one that’s the hottest – the green chilli. My wife Kit ordered me one from Amazon as we couldn’t find it locally. Well this summer we took a trip to northern California and found a couple great Indian grocery stores – and they had all of them. Sweet! Here’s a little about what peri peri means from Wikipedia –

Here’s one of the new straight noodle varieties from Nissin – miso. So miso is one of the main varieties of ramen – here’s some info on it from Wikipedia –

I’ve tried the pack version of this and it was some of the best I’ve had. I really like that the South Korean companies have now adopted the wider thick noodle in a lot of products. These have a little extra character and are very good. So Jjajang usually begins the word jjajangmyeon – basically a noodle with black bean sauce. Let’s see how the bowl version of this product fares.

Here’s one of those ‘dilemma’ noodles. I don’t know what the heck it is called and the bar code yields absolutely no results which are annoying. Luckily, I do have the resource of my readers and asked on the Facebook page for The Ramen Rater. A few people got they were tonkotsu, which is very helpful, although usually, ones like this are some kind of tonkotsu – like a little more detailed. But people were of the belief this was just their standard tonkotsu. Thanks for the info! Let’s dig in

Here’s another one from ZenPop. Zenpop offers a wide variety of Japanese product boxes to your door – lots of stationary and ramen as well – check em out! Here’s what they had to say about this curry udon –