I found this one up in Canada at a place called Hen Long Market. Did find a whole lot there, but this was definitely a score. They’re made in Vietnam – however they’re for Poland! Poland! European noodles! Yeah – I’m sure you can tell that makes me happy. Always wish I can find more stuff from/for Europe.
A mild garlic noodle soup. This definitely has possibilities. But they could be anything – extremely garlicky or not very. A thin, bland soup or a nice rounded bowl. Well, only one way to find out.
Vifon Garlic Flavour Instant Noodle Soup – Poland
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add everything to a bowl and add 400ml boiling water. Cover for 3 minutes. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
A dry base sachet.
Powder and herbs.
A seasoned oil sachet.
Some little bits in there along with the seasoned oil.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, spring onion and hard boiled egg. The noodles came out very poorly after 3 minutes, but a bit more and they were more done. The broth was so-so; it had garlic flavor to it, but it smelled tastier than it was. Overall disappointing. 2.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8934561244639.
We found this one at a place called Hen Long Market up in Surrey, BC on a trip a few months back. Thanks to my friend Ken for telling me about this place! So this one’s from Vietnam and I don’t often have come across Vietnamese varieties like this one. Usually, I see the same thing again and again and this one is definitely different. Let’s have a look at this minced pork variety!
Vifon Hoang Gia Instant Noodles With Minced Pork – Vietnam
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Contains pork. To prepare, add everything bit large metallic sachet to a bowl and add 400ml boiling water. Cover for 3 minutes. Stir. Add in large sachet. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
The dry base sachet.
A light powder.
The vegetables sachet.
Bits of green onion and carrot.
A large retort pouch.
Stewed minced pork.
Finished (click to enlarge). Really bummed out by this one. First off, the noodles didn’t hydrate all that well in t he 3 minutes called for. After doing plating and pictures, they still didn’t seem right. The broth was salty and a kind of pork flavor to it. The saving grace of this one (why it didn’t get a lower score) was the meat sachet which has nice quality minced pork. 0.25 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8934561250067.
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!
The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Rice Noodles Of All Time 2017 Edition
The instant rice noodles came out of the microwave slightly underdone, but that was easy to look past as by the time I sat down to eat this, they were very good. Light chew, thin gauge. The broth was very, very good – a nice oiliness and crab taste with lots of crab in there and vegetable. Original review
#9: KOKA Silk Spicy Marinara Instant Rice Fettuccine – Singapore
The instant rice noodles – fettuccine – came out remarkably well. Indeed it is perfectly hydrated. I make a couple cross-cuts with a pair of kitchen scissors to make them easier to work with a fork. The broth is very tasty with a fresh taste of tomato and a bit of spiciness. Moreover, the broth definitely has a seafood feel to it – almost has a slight lemony hint to it. The vegetables hydrated very well and were complimentary. Also,m the shrimp that are included taste good and are of a decent quantity. Original review
#8: Nissin Seafood Flavour Rice Vermicelli – Hong Kong
The noodles were slightly thick and chewier than many – and it worked well here; a little heartier. The broth was very good – a milky seafood and butter kind of taste which was absolutely delicious. The included bits included scrambled egg, spring onion, mushroom and seafood which all hydrated perfectly. Well done! – Original review
#7: Mamee Chef Gold Recipe Bihun Kari Seribu Rasa – Malaysia
The Mamee Chef Gold Recipe on the 2015 Edition of the Top Ten Instant Noodles list, but with bihun! The noodles have a slight dryness to them, but the best part is how the broth is so rich and flavorful; it’s like a bowl of Malaysian love. Original review
#6: Ah Lai Penang Favourite White Curry Rice Vermicelli – Malaysia
I found I liked this vermicelli version of their white curry better than their wheat noodle variety! I don’t think that’s happened before; it’s kind of been a love/hate relationship I’ve had with rice based noodles for years. However, the rich flavor of the broth embraces the noodles and enrobes them in curry happiness. Original review
#5: MeeKuali Bihun Sup Rempah Perisa Daging – Malaysia
The vermicelli came out really good. This and cooked nicely. I made a couple of cross cuts with a pair of kitchen scissors to make the vermicelli more manageable. The broth is great . It’s got a great beef flavor and definitely full of spices. Moreover, it has the thickness I like. The shallots pull it together well – crisp and tasty. Original review
The noodle was great – a little thicker than the other rice noodle varieties from Tseng. A little heartier which worked well here. The broth was a luxuriant sea of deep orange with a good coconut body. The flavor was not extremely strong in this one, but it was satisfying and quite good. Impressed at this being a Laksa coming from Taiwan. Original review
The noodles are very good – broad in nature and light in chewiness. The broth is really quite good – it has a spicy, lemongrass flavor with a nice shrimp hit, plus a sweetness as well that I wasn’t expecting. The little shrimp are in there as well, which hydrated quite nicely. Very pleased indeed! Original review
#2: MyKuali Penang Red Tom Yum Goong Rice Vermicelli Soup – Malaysia
The vermicelli came out nice – not too chewy and very plentiful. I used a pair of kitchen scissors to make 3 cross cuts in order to make them more manageable with a fork. The broth is a sea of flavor. So it has a strong lemongrass presence coupled with a serious spiciness. The shrimp taste is strong here and the broth is thick – really thick. The included garnish was excellent and hydrated perfectly. Original review
The bihun as hydrated really well for something steeped. The broth is mind blowing. If you like a thick and serious onslaught of prawny sweetness and heat, this is absolutely for you. It’s so rich and strong and tasty! To top it all off, fried onion bits that are the best I’ve ever had in any instant product – other than the wheat noodle package version of this product. Amazing! Original review
Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Contains crab. To prepare, add everything to the bowl – all sachets and stewed crab pouch – and 400ml of water. Microwave for 3 minutes at 800W. Stir and enjoy!
Finished (click to enlarge). Added Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts and coriander. The rice noodles came out of the microwave slightly underdone, but that was easy to look past as by the time I sat down to eat this, they were very good. Light chew, thin gauge. The broth was very, very good – a nice oiliness and crab taste with lots of crab in there and vegetable. Excellent! 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 851683004393.
With my son Andy over here, it’s usually a good bet that he will like some chicken noodles with some nice garnish. His favorites include fish cake and cheese – which don’t always go with everything. I’d usually choose something like that combo for spicy Korean seafood ramyun. He did indeed get his cheese after the final picture of the noodles were taken today, and so all things are good in the world. Let’s check out this variety from Vietnam!
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add package contents to a bowl and add 400ml boiling water. Cover for 3 minutes. Stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
The soup base sachet.
A slightly granular powder with a chicken scent.
The vegetables sachet.
Small bits of greenery.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added coriander and Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts. The noodles hydrated well and had a comfort food kind of texture – soft and warm. They also hydrated very well. The broth was quite good – nice chicken taste and bits of vegetable were throughout. 3.5 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 851683004195.
This one came by way of Michael over at EastLand Foods – thanks! I haven’t reviewed a Vietnamese instant noodle in ages it seems like – let’s see what we have here!
Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, put everything in the bowl and add 2 cups boiling water. Cover and let steep 3 minutes. Stir and enjoy!
Finished. Added beef, white onion and mushroom. The noodles hydrated pretty well, but had a slightly spongy texture I wasn’t super keen on. Quantity was alright though. The broth definitely had a decent beef flavor, but still was a little on the thinner side and due to that, wasn’t completely convincing. The vegetables hydrated nicely. 3.25 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 851683004515.
Once in a blue moon I find an instant noodle in my hamper of which I have absolutely NO CLUE WHERE IT CAME FROM. I mean, yeah – I know it’s made in Vietnam and that it’s a chicken curry variant, but I have no idea how it got into my hamper. Where did I get it? Hmmm… Well, it needs to be reviewed so here I am. Let’s check it out!
Details from the side panel (click image to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add all sachets into up. Add 350ml water and microwave for 3 minutes. Stir and enjoy!
Detail of the lid (click image to enlarge).
An included fork!
The noodle block.
The powder soup base sachet.
Has a chicken scent.
A seasoned oil sachet.
Orange!
A vegetable sachet.
Wee little bits and pieces.
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added baked chicken with Lindberg-Snider Porterhouse & Roast Seasoning, tau pok, mung bean sprouts and coriander. The noodles were thin and could have used a little more time – they were a little under hydrated. The broth had a lightly spicy curry chicken flavor. It was very thin however and felt a little like less water would have done it justice. 3.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8934561000662.
The first thing you’re going to say is ‘porridge isn’t ramen.’ Well aware of that, dude. Then again, these often show up on the instant noodle aisle of an Asian grocery and as such, I thought it could use some attention. This is a Vietnamese seafood porridge, much like what they call congee in China. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Vietnamese rice porridge:
In Vietnam, rice congee, called cháo (Vietnamese: cháo), is sometimes cooked with pandan leaves or Asian mung bean. In its simplest form (plain rice porridge, known as cháo hoa), it is a food for times of famine and hardship to stretch the rice ration. Or, as is especially common among Buddhist monks, nuns and lay people, it can be a simple breakfast food eaten with pickled vegetables or fermented tofu (chao).
Despite its humble ubiquity among the poor, it is also popular as a main entrée when cooked with a variety of meats. For example, cháo gà is cooked with chicken, garlic, and ginger. The rice porridge is cooked in the broth in which a whole chicken had been boiled, and once the chicken is cooked, the meat is sliced and layered on a bed of shredded, raw cabbage, sliced scallions, and drizzled with a vinegar-based sauce, to be eaten as a side dish to the porridge. Other combinations include cháo vịt (duck porridge), which is cooked in the same fashion as the chicken porridge, but with duck. Cháo lòng heo is made with lòng heo (a variety of offal from pork or duck with sliced portions of congealed pork blood). Cháo is typically served with quẩy on the side.
Cháo bầu is a congee containing pig kidney (bầu dục lợn). A specialty of the Hóc Môn district in Ho Chi Minh City, it is typically eaten in rural areas of southern Vietnam. Well-known cháo bầu vendors include Cánh Đồng Hoang, Cô Ba Nữ, and Sáu Quẻn.[17]
It is also common to eat cháo during an illness, as it is believed the porridge is easy to digest while being fortifying. For such purposes, the cháo is sometimes cooked with roasted white rice, giving the porridge broth a more nuanced body and a subtle, nutty flavor. In some parts of Vietnam, local customs call for making cháo as offerings for the “wandering souls” during the Buddhist Vu Lan summer feast.
On our flight back from Taiwan last month, we had some choices as to what to eat as an in-flight meal. The last thing I had was pork porridge, basically congee. What it had as a condiment or topping was a package of fish floss. Fish floss is basically dried fish which is pulverized with a little salt and sugar. It’s pretty much a powdered thing. Anyways, Kit didn’t want to try hers and so I ended up with her package of it. I’ve been trying to find some reason to use it before it expired and this looks like it will work nicely; seafood porridge, fish floss. Sounds right, yeah? Let’s have a look at this one from Vietnam.
An import sticker from the back of the package (click image to enlarge). Contains seafood.
Here’s the back of the package (click image to enlarge). To prepare, add contents of package to bowl as well as sachet contents. Add 350ml boiling water and cover for 3 minutes. Stir well and enjoy! These are the instructions given, but in the icons of how to prepare, it shows a sachet with bits of matter exiting from it, making me thing perhaps one could add the vegetable sachet at the end, however they wouldn’t hydrate as well as when steeped.
The uncooked porridge; basically looks like flaked rice.
The soup base sachet.
Definitely has a seafood scent.
An oil sachet.
Has an onion scent.
The vegetables sachet.
Looks to be green onion.
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added fish floss, coriander and mung bean sprout. The porridge is like a thin oatmeal – I heard a woman asking a chef if she could have thicker congee and the chef mentioned it just depends on the amount of water you add. I went with the prescribed 350ml on the package. The flavor is nice – a tasty seafood flavor. The vegetable bits hydrated well and included coriander which had an exceptionally good flavor. 3.25 out of 5.0 stars.EAN bar code 8934561210566.
Here’s Vifon’s bowl version of their fish flavored porridge.
Here’s one with an interesting name. ‘Ngon-ngon?’ What could that mean? So I plugged ‘ngon-ngon’ into Google translate and it came up with ‘delicious’. I thought it interesting that only one ‘ngon’ came up with ‘tasty.’ I thought then, well hey – what about a trifecta of ‘ngon?’ Well, ‘ngon ngon ngon’ comes up with ‘delicious delicious.’ Anyways, it sounds like these Vifon minced pork tom yum noodles should be delicious. I hope they are! Let’s have a look.
Here’s detail of the side panels (click image to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check to make sure. To prepare, open container and take everything but the noodles out. Add sachet contents and boiling water to fill line. Re-cover and steep for 3 minutes. Stir and enjoy!
Here’s detail of the lid (click image to enlarge).
An included fork!
The noodle block.
The soup base sachet.
A granular mix with bits of herbs.
An oil sachet.
Thick and bright orange!
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added sauteed mince pork and sweet onion, lime, coriander from my wife”s patio garden and Texas Pete Sriracha Cha! chilli sauce. The noodles are a little crumbly and rather thin. The broth has a good tom yum flavor – nice heat and citrus along with a pork kind of flavor going on. 3.5 out of 5.0 stars.EAN code 8934561240273.
Here’s one I got up in Canada in July of last year. Looks like a very basic chicken noodle cup. This one’s from Vietnam, and they usually put some interesting things inside. Let’s have a look!
Here are details from the two stickers that were on the side of this one (click image to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. Not often is there one sticker, but two is pretty rare on a cup.
Here’s the complete side panels (click image to enlarge). Note that the nutrition facts on this label and the ones on the sticker are very different. To prepare, add 350ml boiling water and all sachet contents. Steep 3 minutes. Enjoy!
Detail of the lid (click image to enlarge).
An included fork!
The noodle block.
Powder soup base sachet.
Powdery!
Vegetables sachet.
Looks like corn, carrot and cabbage.
Seasoned oil sachet.
Has an onion scent.
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added grilled chicken, corn, carrots and cabbage. The noodles were very much under par; they were crumbly and just didn’t work for me. Further through eating it, they ended up getting a little softer, but they never seemed done enough. The broth was on the lighter side and had an ‘off’ kind of thing going on. The veggies hydrated in a mediocre fashion. 1.25 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 8934561000716.
I thought this one interesting; it says hot and sour chicken, but those are shrimp on there too. I decided I’d walk to the store and try something new. Fish balls! I’ve had them in hot pot before, but thought I’d get some golden fish balls with shrimp for this one. Let’s check it out!
The distributor sticker (click image to enlarge). Contains shrimp and chicken.
The back of the package (click image to enlarge). To prepare, boil 400ml water. Put all contents of pack into a bowl. Add water and cover for 3 minutes. Stir and you’re ready to eat.
The noodle block.
A little bag of sachets.
Soup base sachet.
A very light powder.
A seasoned oil sachet.
Little crunchy bits.
Finally, the vegetable sachet.
Mostly green onion.
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added chicken, green onions and Golden Fish Balls With Shrimp Eggs. The noodles were disappointing; very crumbly and even with extra time seemed a little underdone. The broth was nice though – a bit if spicy, some nice flavors there. 2.0 out of 5.0 stars.UPC bar code 8934561251170.
Here’s what the fish balls are all about (click image to enlarge). The outside is a kind of rubbery bit reminiscent of calamari except in that it is not tough but satisfying. The innards of this particular fish ball were a surprise; the little sign at the seafood counter just said Golden Fish Ball With Shrimp. The receipt said with shrimp eggs though and it was correct. Said these were imported from Taiwan and wow were they good! I highly recommend trying fish balls if you haven’t and you have access to them. I didn’t even know our 99 Ranch Market had them; I always thought they came in a can or frozen. Always something new to learn!
Been some time since I’ve had a crab flavored noodle from Vietnam, so I thought why not today.. Looks cool – let’s check it out!
Here’s the back of the package (click image to enlarge). Contains crab.
The rice noodle block.
Soup base powder packet.
A light powder.
The vegetable packet.
Lots of little veggie pieces.
An unlabeled packet. Hmmm…
After a nibble, I’m going to guess this is fried shallot.
Finally, a surprise – a big retort pouch!
This must be the sour soup – looks to have lots of crab.
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added some imitation crab meat. The noodles are nice – light and plentiful. The broth is very rich and buttery with bits of the shallot floating around and other veggies too. Has a nice flavor and gives a warm cozy feeling. 3.75 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 8934561010043.
Here’s a news program talking about Vifon.
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