Celebrating 20 Years Of Instant Noodle Reviews
Usually, The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Taiwanese list gets posted mid September. This year it’s been pretty busy around here. Better late than never, I say. These are my absolutely favorite Taiwanese varieties I’ve tried. All ratings are on the base product – before I add anything to make them look nice. This list is current as of review #4300. Want me to review your product? Contact me! Let’s check out The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Taiwanese Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition!
Definitely excited about this one – today I got home from a ten mile walk and found a big box at my doorstep. I haven’t even edited the unboxing video yet – and here we are. This as far as I can tell, is their Pepper Sesame Lai Noodle – it also sounds like it’s the favorite of an influential lady in Taiwan. Let’s check it out!
The day before Thanksgiving I didn’t have anything ready to go for review, so I decided why not crank out a loaf of bread? I used Lai Noodle, a product from Hi-Lai Foods of Taiwan. They’d just sent a ton of great samples and so I thought it would be interesting to try. Here we go!
There’s a new variety of Hi-Lai noodles that just came out – Sesame Paste flavor. They sent samples of it, as well as the variety which is on this year’s Top Ten Taiwanese Instant Noodles Of All Time list, their original Lai Noodle. Both varieties are Vegan friendly as well! Let’s have a look.
I’ve got to give it to Taiwan. They’ve really done well with the pandemic, that’s for sure. Just another reason why I love that place; I’ve visited twice and hope I get to again soon. People there are nice, Lots of interesting things going on, and of course… the food! This list is born out of controversy – in 2013 when Taiwan wasn’t on my annual top ten, their media took notice and they got mad. So, I decided to try some ‘noodle diplomacy’ and asked companies to send some samples and they did – and they have been for years now. All sorts of neat innovations, unique styles, and more. If you have a company or a favorite variety you’d like me to review, contact me. Also, I invite everyone to join the Instant Noodles – The Ramen Rater group on Facebook – a large community of people who enjoy noodles and share their thoughts on them. Let’s check out this years shortlist of my favorites from this beautiful and fascinating place.
I was contacted in July 2020 about a new variety of noodle hailing from Taiwan. I was very interested in trying and gave the company the go ahead. Fast forward to mid September and I’m going to give it a try – they arrived last week. These sound interesting; they’re Vegan friendly and have a minced pork sachet which is made with so protein, mushrooms, white fungus, celery and other vegetables. A chewy noodle and a ‘secret sauce’ with Sichuan pepper is mentioned in the promotional sheet that accompanied these. Let’s give it a try!
