Over 5,000 Instant Ramen Noodle Reviews Since 2002
On Friday, I conducted a little experiment: let’s have a look at what happens when we look at 6 months of images from instagram that have the hashtag #topramen. What I found were many comparisons of instant noodles to hair, mentions of poverty and many images of what people liked to pair with their instant noodles.
Today is Halloween and I thought I’d post something a little different. I spend a lot of time posting on instagram and perusing other people’s instant noodle related posts on there as well. I thought I would pick a standard instant noodle related hashtag and see what interesting things would pop up, then I would share my conclusions. The hashtag is #topramen.
I am very proud and happy to introduce the release of The Ramen Rater mobile app for the Apple iPhone! The app is the culmination of many months of work by myself and app developer Calvin Tam of Malaysia (you can see some of his other work here). You may have noticed a while back I posted an ad on the right side asking for folks who might be interested in developing an app with me for mobile users. Well, Calvin answered that call and devoted a great deal of time making this happen! I want to personally thank him for the time and effort expended on this app. Without further adieu, let me introduce you to The Ramen Rater for iPhone!
I noticed this morning lots of people from China visit the website! If any of you have contacts with Chinese instant noodle companies, please ask them to contact me. I would like to do a series of Chinese instant noodle review. Thank you!
Woot woot! Been following the San Francisco Giants all year long and here we are! usday’s the first game against the Kansas City Royals. It’s an even year – I think it’s gonna be another orange win!
During my trip to Malaysia, I got a notification that I had a package from Malaysia back at my apartment! It was kind of funny; when we were in Kuala Lumpur’s airport, we saw DHL jetys on the tarmac – could be the same ones that brought these my way! These are brand new Mamee Chef varieties! Let’s look inside!
Got contacted by Marvin R. a few weeks ago. He had come across some instant noodles that weren’t familiar to him and couldn’t find them anywhere on my blog. I did a little digging and was also kind of stumped. He said they were really good and decided to send me some – thanks!
Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6
Another day of adventure! Today, we flew to Langkawi and tried some of the local foods and had a great time – check it out! I should also mention – pictures in these posts are by myself, my wife Kit and our friend Thomas Tang of Sky Thomas Food Industries Sdn Bhd.
Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6
Feasting on Penang’s succulent culinary treasures continues, with a lot of prawn-tasticness! Here is the United States, we often call them shrimp, but looks like everywhere else, they’re prawns. Did you know that the translation of the Chinese word for lobster is ‘dragon prawn?’ Well, now you do. I for one will be calling them prawns from now on. Let’s check out day three!
Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6
I was planning on doing a post each day consecutively, mirroring the prior week when I was actually in Malaysia, but I hit a snag yesterday. I’d always heard of this thing called ‘jet lag’ and now I can tell you, it’s real. Shifting from timezones and different days really messed us up! We woke up at 2pm yesterday! Haven’t slept in like that since I was a punk kid! Well, we went to sleep at a realistic Pacific time zone time last night and so this morning I’m doing day two! This is a long post folks! Here we go!
Day 1 * Day 2 * Day 3 * Day 4 * Day 5 * Day 6
From September 29th to October 4th, my wife Kit and I were treated to a visit to Malaysia by the kind folks at Sky Thomas Food Industries Sdn Bhd, makers of MyKuali Penang White Curry Noodles. The purpose of the trip was not to promote for them, but to show us the foods of Penang. Here is the first day of the trip!
We have returned from our journey to Penang, Malaysia!! Our flight from Taipei, Taiwan arrived in Seattle around 7pm last night. This is a picture of where we were waiting for our shuttle to the parking light where we left our car. The flight left at 11pm Taiwan time, which is the same for Malaysia too – and then arrived the same day but 4 hours earlier! So we got back 15 hours all said and done which was kind of odd – time traveling! Over the next week starting Monday, I am going to do a new daily noodle review, and then a post highlighting everything of that day during our trip. At the end, I’ll be reviewing the new MyKuali Tom Yum instant noodle – my 1,500th review. Stay tuned!
Tonight at 11pm, we leave for the airport! I didn’t expect how our first leg to Taipei would go north then south. One thing I just realized is that body of water at the top left. When I was a kid, I had a map on the wall of my room. I would look at it and found that body of water fascinating – just the name – The Sea Of Okhotsk. It sounded so strange and so far away. I never expected I would be that close to it; really quite amazing to me.
Welcome to the 2nd annual The Ramen Rater’s top Ten Taiwanese Instant Noodles Of All Time – the 2014 edition. In the last year, I’ve tried a slew of new varieties from Taiwan that were just amazing. Really discovered some great new products that I think everyone should try! What’s special this time is that I’m actually going to be in Taiwan during a layover on my trip to Malaysia! Figured I’d put this out a week early as it’ll be quite hard to post when I’m overseas. This is a list comprised of the best of the best of the 127 different varieties of instant noodles that I’ve tried that were made in Taiwan. As a side note – I’m also going to be traveling through Singapore and then my destination of Malaysia – there will be top ten lists for those two countries coming as well as soon as I’ve reviewed enough varieties to have a wide sampling. I’ve done just over 40 from each so far. With that, let’s have a look at the best noodles I’ve tried from Taiwan!
I’ve recently seen a whole lot of misinformation being spewed lately about the instant noodle. Why do I care? Well, primarily because I’m really into instant noodles. I’ve been a fan of them since a child and been reviewing them since 2002. A kind of strange obsession, but there are definitely stranger ones out there. What gets me is information that is presented by news and social media sources often is really quite inept; lack of research and frankly poor quality journalism on their parts. So, I’ve decided to come out with an annual list of ten facts about instant noodles starting today! Ready? Well, here you go.
Meet Matt Stonie. This guy has eaten a lot of different things, stressing on the term ‘a lot.’ He’s got a ton of videos of him eating amazing quantities of food, competitive eating style. I have to take my hat off to him on this – there’s just so much instant noodle that he puts in his gut. I don’t think I could come close to doing this, nor would I attempt it – I’ll leave it to this pro.
So last year, The Ramen Rater was #5 out of 90+ entrants, thanks to your votes! This year, let’s see if we can hit #1 in the Best Of Western Washington Food Blog competition!
For this Friday’s video, here’s something I found posted by a commenter on a recent HuffPost article. I’ve found myself doing a LOT of commenting on HuffPost article as of late, usually because people either writing them or reading them and commenting are so confused about instant noodles. Anyways, this fellow posted a link to this YouTube video which chronicles his one month of eating nothing but instant noodles. It’s pretty cool and I thought folks might like to check it out.
My friend Moses over at Paldo America sent me a package!
Wow these are really big bowls! Jjajangmyen is a noodle with spicy black bean sauce and Jjamppong is a spicy seafood noodle soup! Thanks!
I was recently contacted by a fellow named Kyle over in Taiwan asking if I’d like to sample his company’s noodles. Well, of course I would! Let’s see what we have here.
I was contacted by a reader from Sweden that wanted to send me some instant noodles I hadn’t tried before! Thank you very much! Here they are!
Well I’m really excited today! My wife and I have been invited to visit MyKuali in Penang, Malaysia! Wow! Our flight’s booked and we’re getting ready for it later this month! The furthest from home here in the northwest I’ve been was the east coast in Georgia way back in 1995, and the only other country I’ve visited has been Canada. This is going to be really amazing! Thank you so much to MyKuali – this is absolutely great and I can’t wait to share pictures and words about our trip with everyone when we return! It’s still a few weeks away and we’re really excited!
Was contacted a couple week ago by a fellow who wanted to know if I wanted to try some new White Curry Noodles his company makes. Sure – and here they are!
The instant noodle originated in 1958 in Japan, but since that time, they’ve expanded in popularity all over the world, including of course, the United States. Seeing this, instant noodle companies thought it wise to start building plants here in the 1970s. Since then, many brands operate factories here in the US, mostly in southern California. This is a list of my favorite varieties produced here, encompassing my 1,461 reviews to date. With that, here’s your top ten, America!
If you like it hot, you’re in for a real treat here. These are the spiciest instant noodles you can get that I’ve reviewed from my 1,446 reviews thus far. If you can’t handle spicy foods, these definitely aren’t for you – these are serious! Many of these were so hot, I couldn’t finish the bowl – and I can handle a decent amount of heat! I used to review hot sauces! Anyways, Hope everyone is having a great summer and here are the spiciest instant noodles of all time for 2014!
If you’ve wanted a really in-depth documentary about the instant noodle, this is a great one. From past to present and beyond, this documentary follows the journey – from Momofuku Ando’s process of inventing the instant noodle, to how it’s developed in different cultures.
My contact at MyKuali told me she was sending some samples of their new Penang Hokkien Prawn Noodle over! If your follow my annual Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time lists, you’ll know that MyKuali hit #1 with their Penang White Curry Noodle this year. These two big boxes showed up yesterday…
Here’s something I’ve been waiting for – three new products from Nongshim America! Let’s see what’s inside!
A few months back, a fellow named Tomonori contacted me asking for some help with a television program in Japan. He wanted to know if he could use some of my images and get some info. I said sure – if you could send me a real Japanese ramen bowl! He was more than happy to do so and so we exchanged some info. A little later, the television program came out.
Yeah – it’s that time of year again! Cups are interesting; they usually hold a lot less water than a bowl, so the steeping process is a little different and so are the noodles. I’ve had some horrendous cups over the years, but then there are some that are really quite good. This last year has been a great one where cups are concerned! Let’s have a look at the best of the best! The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Noodle Cups Of All Time 2014 Edition!
I was recently contacted by a fellow named Justin Herd. He is the creator of a product called the OneBowl – a special bowl that will cook instant as well as other noodles in the microwave. What’s more, it will drain them. He can do the most justice to explaining the product and it’s features of course, so I recently conducted this interview with him.
Fridays are usually a slow day on the site so I thought I’d start putting up a video from YouTube on Fridays (unless of course it’s Meet The Manufacturer time!). Recently, a story came out on RocketNews24 about putting a little pudding cup in with Cup Noodles. As it turns out, this is a big new craze in Taiwan. It’s kind of like cigarettes; why would someone who had never done it before roll up leaves, set them on fire and stick them in their mouth?! Why would someone dump pudding or what is also known as cup flan in their noodles? Bizarre! These guys give it a try.
Another year, another list. With a range of zero to five stars, there are some that, well… Do quite poorly. These are my least favorite varieties I’ve ever tried – and I’ve 1,419 at the time of this posting. That’s a lot of instant noodles. Here they are, in all of their non-glory, the Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2014 Edition.
Right after the 2014 Top Ten List was pudblished, I got contacted by a person from Win Onn Foods in Malaysia. They were keen on me trying their variety of instant Penang white curry noodles, and I liked the idea of trying more iterations of them, so I said please send some. Well, the first time they tried to send me some, I received this box.
I got this colorful package a few weeks ago from a reader. She had asked if I could identify and find an instant noodle for her.
I guess I have come to the point where my crankiness has pushed me beyond the edge. What’s more, I think it’s a sign of my impending doom as someone who is getting older and coming to the point of no return: the cranky rant. Strangely enough, my love for instant noodles has influenced me to put pen to paper, or in this case, fingers to keyboard.
Bowls of noodles. They’re made all around the world and are a great option for those with access to boiling water and are ‘on the go.’ Some are basic and have very little imagination to them or perks, while others are really full meals that include meat and vegetables, seafood and other niceties. I’ve review 1,410 different noodle varieties and of those, many have been bowls. Here’s a list of the best, most memorable bowls I’ve come across is my adventure in tasting.
Got a package the other day – samples from A-Sha Dry Noodle! Curious as to what’s inside…
In China, there’s a popular program called “Bite Of China.” It’s all about cooking and cuisine. I just found out about this great video which is a parody of it called “Bite Of Dormitory,” which was made by University students and is all about instant noodles. It’s a short film and very good – you get to see a glimpse of a Chinese convenience store in China, and some pretty great footage of them making and enjoying instant noodles and the daily life of a Chinese University student. This is great stuff – definitely worth a look. It’s in Chinese of course, and would be better if you can understand Chinese, but I liked it immensely. Bravo, guys! 5.0 out of 5.0 stars! Now I wish I knew what you were putting in those noodles! If you want to see a video of the guys who made this short film getting their due respect, see here!
