
This one was kindly sent by Mark K. – thanks! I’d never seen this before and thought wow that’s rad – so he sent some! Coconut soup with herbs… Sounds really nice – let’s cook!
Over 5,000 Instant Ramen Noodle Reviews Since 2002

This one was kindly sent by Mark K. – thanks! I’d never seen this before and thought wow that’s rad – so he sent some! Coconut soup with herbs… Sounds really nice – let’s cook!

Here’s one I found in a Project Ramen box! They’ve got quite an array of international varieties – good stuff! Use the coupon code THERAMENRATER for a www.projectramen.com.

Big thanks to James from Lakeside, CA for this one. Man, I wish I had a duck to cook up and put in here, or at least some scratch to go buy some duck, which would be infinitely easier. But alas, I don’t. When I visited MAMA in 2015 over in Thailand, I had duck a few times. Duck is great; I mean great. Anyways, let’s cook thisup and give it a try!

This is a special one. I’m doing a collab with a bar in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood called Time Warp, and this is the variety I’ve picked for July 2024 for their menu. This is the pack version and they’ve got the cup version – for some reason, nobody’s got any cups around here of this one which is a bummer, but it’s very similar. So, let’s cook it up!

Found this one at S*Mart yesterday. I remember a very short time ago a person asked me if I’d review this one again. It’d been a great while, So I just thought I’d look and see how long it had been. The last time I reviewed this is when it was review #35! The date on it is June of 2009! My God! I haven’t reviewed this since The Beforetime. The Beforetime was the time before I met my wife Kit; when the universe was darkness. As I remember, I made the decision that IO wanted to move my website from being like this and transcribing the posts to the blogger platform. Then, I decided to migrate the site over to WordPress.com. I think that this is when I did that – back in 2009. This review could have been done between 2002 and 2009, most likely around 2004 is my guess. But today I’ll try this one again – definitely with much more experience. Let’s give it a try.

Yes, made in Thailand but most definitely packaging for export to the United States. I reviewed this waaaaaaay back – September 2010. I’m guessing a few changes have occurred in the last 13+ years. Let’s give it a try as I see people trying this from time to time.

This one was brought over and mailed to me – thank you! Very nice and excited to try it! I’m going to guess this will be a beef and Sichuan pepper kind of affair, but who knows – it’s a Thai brand so it should have a special spin on it. Let’s give it a try!

Here’s the first of two new varieties from MAMA of Thailand that they were kind enough to send – thank you very much! Truffle! I’m really curious about this one. Truffles I’ve always thought a musty, old book kind of flavor – and I like the scent of old books and that transmitted as flavor is truly fascinating to me. I’m curious how strong this will be. Only one way to find out!

Big thanks to the folks at MAMA for sending a couple of neat new varieties! These sound really great and gonna give em a try soon!

Oh man I’m back – like really back. It’s been over a month of not reviewing. I’ve a ton of varieties to review. It’s tough though; it’s July 1st today. It’s so $#@!@%%$@#$ nice outside – I want to enjoy now that it’s not raining… But I’m back – can’t stay away from reviewing. Yellow curry! Let’s do this!

Here we are at the end of the line of three varieties from Thailand – chicken flavor. What’s Khao Soi though? I looked it up on Wikipedia –

Here’s the second of the three varieties from Thailand commemorating MAMA and their 50th Anniversary. Black pepper pork sounds quite nice – Let’s give it a try!


Wanted to start this post by wishing Miles a happy 7th birthday! Spider Miles aka the Cheez-It king! Hope you have a happy one! He’s not ever awake yet as it’s barely 7am – got a lot of surprises in store! No instant noodle cooking for me today, buddy! Time to bake a cake! Wahooo!!! Still can’t believe he’s going into second grade!

Well folks, it’s been a hot summer’s day here in Gallagher’s Corners… Oh wait scratch that. I’m in Kenmore, Washington… Regardless, it hit 94 degrees today and we live in an apartment with an air conditioner, but at 11pm it’s still 80 degrees. Nasty.

I think I was able to try the non-export version of this when I was in Thailand at the MAMA rice noodle factory. I was part of an Iron Chef judging competition where a contestant from Iron Chef Thailand was there and she made all the varieties from this range.

When I saw these came out, I emailed my contact at Thai President Foods about them. I have been planning to do a special definitive guide to their tom yum. I honestly thought that was what was in here, but nope! Oops! But hey – these are super special and I can’t wait to give them a try! What was really nice is when I mentioned it, they said that they would send some of the tom yum people buy over there for the definitive guide! Thank you! You’ll see that unboxing sometime soon, but for now, let’s check out these special varieties!

For a long time, I’ve thought I didn’t like chicken and abalone flavor. Then something happened – I had some really good varieties. I’m hopeful this is one of them. I visited these folks in 2015 and wow – Thailand is an amazing place. I got to visit the rice noodle factory there and it was really amazing. I highly recommend visiting Thailand if you want a headchange; it’s so bright and colorful – the smiles are endless. Not only that, the 7-Eleven stores have the most wonderful array of instant noodles you’ve ever seen. Let’s check this one out that I found locally.

Yesterday, I tried making bread with Mom’s Dry Noodle brand instant noodles from Taiwan. I figured I’d continue the theme with MAMA – maternal instant noodle time over here I suppose. But anyways, this one is a completely different kind of deal. Let’s give it a go and see what kind of results we end up with.

It might sounds a little devilish, but aren’t the tastiest things usually babies? Baby clams, veal, lamb… The List goes on and on. Correct me if I’m wrong though; aren’t baby clams just small clams and not actually infantile clams? Less nefarious than the other stuff, don’t you think? Well, either way, 210kcal for the cup ain’t too shabby! Let’s try this one out!

Here’s one MAMA of Thailand sent recently – thanks! I’ve tried the pack version of this before, but not the cup, so, ladies and gentlemen- this warrants a mukbang! You can find it at the bottom! Let the spiciness commence!

MAMA of Thailand recently sent a big box of noodles – thank you! Lots of neat new varieties to sample including this one. I like curry and crab so I think this will be pretty good. Let’s check it out!

This yeah has just been rough – for everyone I know. After the hardest part of it for me – the passing of my mother – I took a week off from walking after doing 1,000,000 steps on my Fitbit in June and dove in to working on top ten lists. I did four of them, all current as of review 3545. This list hasn’t been updated since 2017. I’ll be rolling out lists here and there for the next couple of months and maybe do this again a little ways down the road. Here’s The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Rice Noodles Of All Time 2020 Edition.

So in a prior Unboxing Time With The Ramen Rater, MAMA Noodles sent a couple masks. They turned out to the be the most comfortable ones I’ve found yet and so I asked if they might have some more I could use and spread around and they did! Thank you!

The spicy fire trend reaches everywhere – here’s one from MAMA of Thailand now! It’s nice to see honestly; people really seem to like it hot and that’s something for years that wasn’t really offered. Something ‘hot and spicy’ was often anything but. Let’s see if this one packs a punch!

I was contacted by a contact over at Thai President Foods about a new variety – and here it is! Salted egg. This may be an unfamiliar flavor to westerners, so here’s a little about it from Wikipedia –

It’s pretty hard not to be a fan of instant noodles without knowing about MAMA noodles. They have a wide variety of products Most widely known are their tum yum varieties – I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people tell me that they grew up on the ‘silver MAMA cups.’ Well, here’s something new from their Oriental Kitchen line.

Here’s a new variety sent by the nice folks over at Thai Foods in Thailand – thank you! I’m really excited – my son Miles and I haven’t done a spicy noodle challenge with anything from Thailand thus far and I think this might be the one we’ll try. For those of you who haven’t tried before, tom yum is a spicy, citrussy and tasty flavor from Thailand usually in a soup form, but here is a dry noodle. Let’s give it a try!

Here’s a box that came last week – been a lot of videos lately! In the past week aside from the new Live Cooking videos, I’ve recorded over ten new vids! Recording is quick, editing takes a lot of time! Let’s open this neat box from Thailand and have a look at what’s within!

Instant noodle cups – so portable, so ubiquitous. They’re everywhere! People seem to really like them for lunch. I’ve found that people also like to take them when backpacking or camping – all you need is hot water and once done, you can flatten them so it’s easy to pack out your trash. These convenient meals have come a long way since their inception – many flavors and countries of origin. This list is a compilation of my favorite instant noodle cups from the over 2,500 instant noodle reviews I’ve done to date.

Now for the third year, I’m coming out with the latest Top Ten Instant Rice Noodles list. Rice noodles have some benefits as opposed to their fried wheat counterparts. First, they’re virtually fat-free. Also, they’re not fried. Rice noodles are gluten-free by nature, although the ingredients in the sachets that come with these varieties might not be. People ask me for a gluten-free list often, but that would be rather difficult as I’d have to pore over every ingredient list on every review to do this. Well, let’s have a look at these great rice noodle varieties – the best instant rice noodles varieties of the almost 2,500 reviews to date!

Here’s yet another from a reader named Colin from the east coast. He’s always surprised me a little insofar as being able to send me varieties I hadn’t reviewed yet. I mean, this totally would have been one I would’ve passed over as previously reviewed, but I can’t find it anywhere. As far as walking by it at local stores, I’ve done so countless times. Anyways, let’s crack i open and have a look!

I thought the first thing to do would be to look this up on Wikipedia. I found an entry for nam tok and here’s some of what it said:

I’ve always been curious about the clear soups; where are they enjoyed and who enjoys them and with what? Well, let’s find out what it’s like!

Here’s the third of the more European varieties in this series. Chicken! Let’s check it out!

Here’s the seond of the pho bowls – chicken! Let’s give it a try!

Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add everything to the bowl and add boiling water to the fil lline. cover for 4 minutes. Stir and enjoy!

This sounds interesting! I don’t think I’ve heard of rice vermicelli in gravy before. It looks like it will be beef gravy from the picture. Guess we’ll see! Let’s have a looksie…

Today, we bid a fond farewell to the President Rice instant series with this Bihun Goreng. This product is probably self-explanatory to many, but I’ll give a little more to those who are unfamiliar. Mee goreng is a noodle that is boiled, drained and then seasoned and garnished. Bihun goreng is basically the same, however done with rice vermicelli. Let’s give it a try – and my thanks to President Rice Products for making this Meet The Manufacturer happen!

A few days back I reviewed the flat noodle version of this one. What will this one be like? Let’s find out!

It’s been a while since I’ve done any re-reviews and there will be a couple in this Meet The Manufacturer. This is from a long time ago – last time I had this bowl was in review #304 which I posted February 20th, 2011. Yep – very old review and should be interesting to see how I like it now as opposed to back then. I know it’ll look nicer than back then – I used to drop two fried eggs in with EVERYTHING and a lot of the time it looked like a hideous trainwreck. Let’s revisit this one!

Here’s another from the line that looks to be for export to northern Europe. Vegetables! Let’s give it a try!