This one usually comes out earlier than now, but it’s been rather busy. There’s a couple more lists coming, so stay tuned. These are my favorite varieties I’ve samples thus far. This list is current as of my 4,300th review. Hopefully there will be more great new varieties to try during the next year to add to the list. If you’re a company with some varieties I’ve not tried, please by all means drop me a line! With that, I present The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten American Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition.
Search Results for: bowl noodle
#4352: Paldo King Noodle Mild Chicken Flavor – United States
Thanks to BNB Global for sending this along! So this looks like a ‘king cup’ but I tend to consider them bowls. I’m thawing chicken in the sink right now for this one and the previous two as well. It’s hot – it’s about 8pm and 89 degrees (July 30th) and just been a tough go. We’re about to have a record for most 90+ degree days in the Seattle area ever. It’s gross. So, what do I do? I bake pizzas, cook ramen in boiling water. It’s a challenge. Anyways, hopefully when I do this up tomorrow it’ll be cool in the morning. Let’s hit it!
#4343: Simply Food Soursop Tea Noodles – United States
Here we have a Vietnamese variety for the US market. I’m not familiar with Soursop Tea however, so let’s see what that is about – from Wikipedia –
The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Spiciest Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition
NOTE – THE 2024 LIST IS OUT – CHECK IT OUT HERE
It’s true – some like it hot. This list is comprised of the hottest varieties I’ve tried – that are currently available as far as I can tell. In prior years, there were some that were so hot that the #1 on here was like cotton candy. That being said, I’m guessing there weren’t many repeat customers. At the bottom, you’ll see those varieties. This list is current as of review #4300. Let’s get spicy with The Ramen Rater’s Spiciest Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition!
The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Taiwanese Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition
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!
Maruchan Chicken Ramen Noodle Soup Ice Cream
Over the last year or so, I’ve been experimenting with infusing bread with instant noodles and their seasonings and making pizza with instant noodles. What’s the next logical step? Well, ice cream of course! Perhaps not logical, but it seemed like something to try. This is the first of many different ice creams I’ll be making which include noodles and seasonings from instant varieties.
#4306: Ya Shu Xi’an Famous Foods Biangbiang Noodles – China
This looks to be yet another one from Ya Shua – didn’t realize.. Biang Biang is a favorite of mine – a belt-like noodle with a nice sauce. Let’s give it a try.
#4287: Annie Chun’s Korean Style Spicy Ramen Soup Bowl – United States
It’s been a rough go for brands from the US I’ve not reviewed a ton of before. It really surprises me how many zero star scores I’ve given lately. I have a feeling (and hope) this one’s different. See where it says CJ Foods next to the Annie Chun’s logo? That’s a Korean company. If they’re making this line, I would think that they could make a great spicy Korean ramen. Then again I see corn is an ingredient which is very odd. Ah well – come on let’s give it a go!
#4277: Annie Chun’s Vegan Tonkotsu Ramen Soup Bowl – United States
This sounded interesting enough. Well, hopefully it’s alright. I dunno. I haven’t had all that much luck with this brand lately so we shall see. The last one was a shoyu and really kind of tame/bland. Hoping this will be a nice luxuriant and creamy tonkotsu with a lot of flavor.
#4269: Annie Chun’s Japanese Style Shoyu Ramen Soup Bowl – United States
Lately, I’ve found myself in a slight pickle. I’m low on varieties of review… Well, it’s mainly my fault – I think for over two weeks I’ve been in such a good groove that I’ve been able to do three reviews a day and walk about ten miles per day as well. That’s a lot of unique varieties of noodles… So, I’ve had to resort to finding a bunch in a bit of a hurry. I found this one locally at the grocery store today. In fact, I found five different varieties. Let’s see what this is all about – it sounds a little bit interesting. Guess we’ll see.
#4255: Ocean’s Halo Plant-Based Vegan Chicken Instant Noodle Soup – United States
This was one of three my lovely wife Kit found at Whole Foods a while back. These are really large noodle bowls – as you’ll see below, they have two noodle block in there. I just baked some chicken for the review so it should look somewhat nice. Let’s give it a go!
#4248: Dian Zun Crossing The Bridge Noodle – China
First, off a huge thanks to Kyle over at Mom’s Dry Noodle for help in translating this. According to him, this is a special dish – here’s what Wikipedia had to say about it –
#4238: MAMA Instant Noodles Chicken Khao Soi Flavour – Thailand
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 –
#4237: MAMA Instant Whole Wheat Noodles Black Pepper Pork Flavour – Thailand
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!
#4236: MAMA Instant Dried Jade Noodles Duck Flavour – Thailand
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!
#4217: Lin Jia Ya Tou One Noodle One Soup Spicy Noodle – China
One noodle, one soup. You get some dry noodle with sauce and a bowl of soup on the side – okay? This is the last of this series I found just before Lunar New Year. Let’s check it out!
#4196: Lin Jia Ya Tou One Noodle One Soup Pepper Noodle – China
Found this one right before Lunar New Year. Looked interesting and there were three of them we could get, so we got all three. The last one I tried said it was spicy, but didn’t seem to be so much. Luckily, this time I got some really great advice on what this was and how to cook it from Annie over at Red Chef – thanks you! Let’s give it a try!
TOP TEN BOWLS 2022
Lots of people enjoy bowls full of noodles from around the world. They often come with a utensil, and all you need it hot water. For a quick meal, they’re hard to beat insofar as convenience. Some bowls however go above and beyond a utilitarian sense and are truly gourmet. This list is comprised of my favorite bowl varieties from all reviews up to #4120. All scoring is done prior to garnish being added. Do you want me to review something I haven’t? Drop me a line! With that, let’s peruse my top picks on The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Noodle Bowls Of All Time 2022 Edition!
#4164: JTM Food XO Sauce Seafood Noodle – China
This is another one I found a couple days before Lunar New Year. The bar code came up with nothing which was a little troublesome, but I did manage to find the website on the packaging. The XO definitely is a reference to XO sauce, and it being blue and pics of the bowl definitely mean it’s gotta be XO sauce seafood. At least, I think so. Let’s check this one out!
#4155: Kung Fu Noodles Premium Braised Beef Noodle Soup – Taiwan
From the folks that brought you the unique goose oil dry noodles, we now have a braised beef variety. This looks really quite fancy – definitely a super premium range. It’s joined also in this range by a Duck Blood Mung Bean Noodle variant which also sounds good – let’s give this one a try from Kung Fu Noodles, a newcomer to the Taiwanese Top Ten.
#4149: Myojo HYBRID X Scallop x Chicken NOODLEVOICE Rich Scallop Soba – Japan
Here’s one that came in a Zenpop.jp box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a groovy discount!
The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2022 Edition
Most of the time, instant noodles tend to be pretty good. Companies tend to create products that they think people will like; why wouldn’t they? Well, sometimes there’s a product that I can’t believe anyone would like. These are my least favorite varieties out of 4,120 reviews. This is definitely a list you really don’t want to be on. One thing to note is that many of these products have been on the market for awhile, so there’s definitely people out there that enjoy them. Everything on this list is reviewed before adding any garnish. Hope you enjoy The Ramen Rater’s Bottom Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2022 Edition!
#4142: Baixiang Artificial Pork Bone Soup Flavor Instant Noodle – China
You know, I’ve had the pack version of it and I recall I did enjoy it, so hey – why not the bowl? I found this over at the local 99 Ranch Market and though wow I haven’t done the bowl – let’s do it! So, here I am, doing it as it were.
#4137: Phonomenal Bowl – United States
Here’s one that came by way as a Christmas gift from my friend and esteemed author Matthew Bellah of Port Townsend, Wa. My great thanks and appreciation to you, sir. This appears to be a vegetarian friendly bowl that is made in Vietnam and designed by a fellow here in the Pacific Northwest. Sounds interesting – I’ve seen these locally before, but never tried them. Let’s check it out!
#4131: Soupply Chicken Pho Bowl With Real Meat & Collagen – United States
Here’s the second of two products from Soupply containing retort pouches. This is really quite awesome – something I’ve wanted to see for a long time. Retort pouches are like flexible cans that can contain meats, vegetables, broths and more. This gives a serious boost to noodle soups that are shelf stable. Let’s check it out!
TOP TEN INSTANT NOODLES 2022
THE NEW LIST FOR 2023 SUPERCEDES THE PREVIOUS LIST – SEE HERE
It’s been twenty years since I started this crazy journey of reviewing instant noodles. I never even envisioned I’d be doing it for twenty years; it was just something to try out way back when. There have been ups and downs in the past – and recent past. I ended up getting COVID (as did the rest of my family) in early January this year. It wasn’t too bad in itself, but the repercussions were. I ended up in the ICU for blood clots in my lungs. It’s happened before when I slept ten hours on a cramped flight – but this time didn’t make sense as I walk a whole lot. Anyways, I’m better now, but it’s been a tough go to be sure. I hope all of you reading are happy and healthy!
The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2022 Edition
It’s been twenty years since I started this crazy journey of reviewing instant noodles. I never even envisioned I’d be doing it for twenty years; it was just something to try out way back when. There have been ups and downs in the past – and recent past. I ended up getting COVID (as did the rest of my family) in early January this year. It wasn’t too bad in itself, but the repercussions were. I ended up in the ICU for blood clots in my lungs. It’s happened before when I slept ten hours on a cramped flight – but this time didn’t make sense as I walk a whole lot. Anyways, I’m better now, but it’s been a tough go to be sure. I hope all of you reading are happy and healthy!
#4129: Soupply Filet & Brisket Pho Bowl With Real Meat & Collagen – United States
For a long time now, I’ve thought something that would be really quite amazing would be if instant noodles in the US would take a cue from the outside world. That cue is the retort pouch. Retort pouches are basically like flexible soup cans; metallic pouches that can hold meats and vegetables, sauces and more to give a noodle dish a serious boost while retaining shelf stability. I’m really curious about these – I reached out to the company to find out about samples and that worked out well as I’ve got some to try. There are two versions – a beef and a chicken. Let’s start with this beef one and in a couple reviews, the chicken.
#4122: Simply Food HODL Noodle – Vietnam
Okay so bear with me because I’m very clueless about crypto currency. I looked up HODL and it stands for Hold On for Dear Life – basically, hold onto your crypto to make money. It also says Stonkz on the side –
#4097: Aces Sriracha Ramen Noodle Soup Extra Spicy – United States
Was digging around in my hampers and found I hadn’t reviewed this extra spicy variety and thought to myself ‘it’s time.’ So, since I thought that, it must be. Let’s give it a try.
The Definitive Guide To Nongshim Shin Ramyun Noodles
Definitive Guide Series – Maruchan Ramen Noodle SoupSamyang Buldak * Nongshim Shin Ramyun * Indomie Mi Goreng
UPDATE 3/15/2023 – Added Shin Vegan cup
UPDATE 3/12/2023 – Added section referring to new Shin Gold and Shin Green US variants.
Back in 1986, a South Korean company called Nongshim 농심 (which translates to Farmer’s Heart), introduced a product called Shin Ramyun. Since then it has been one of the most popular varieties around the world. In this post, I’ll do a deep dive into the product – a tear down of the package and it’s contents, my tips of preparation, and some things you might not know about it. While not my favorite variety I’ve tried, chances are it may be yours. I run a group called Ramen Junkies on Facebook and the topic and focus of the bulk of posts on there surround this product.
#4037: Little Q First Love Beef Noodles – Hong Kong
Look at that cow licking it’s lips – cannibal! Well, probably not but hey! These are made in Taiwan for the Hong Kong market and I’m really curious about them so… Let’s give ’em a go!
Top Ten American Instant Noodles Of All Time 2022 Edition
Formerly the Made In The USA list, The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten American Instant Noodles Of All Time still is comprised only of varieties manufactured in the United States. This year’s list is comprised of all the best varieties from the United States in my reviews up to number 3,950. These varieties are mostly easily found as they’re not imports. Lots of great stuff to try here as well as links to find it on Amazon. I’ve also included some announcements at the bottom so make sure to check those out as well. With that, let’s check out The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten American Instant Noodles Of All Time 2022 Edition!
#3999: Thai Town Tom Yum Thai Flavor Noodles – Taiwan
When I saw this variety at our local 99 Ranch Market, I definitely wanted to try it out and so I contacted the manufacturer. I was a little confused, but a lot enthused! Thai food from Taiwan? But I remembered I did have some really great Thai food while I was in Taiwan in 2017. Thai Town is a Thai restaurant in Taiwan and looks like they have some very good varieties of food to try. They, like many other restaurants, have branched out to create varieties you can make at home. This one sounds right up my alley. Thanks to the folks at Thai Town for sending some packets over! Let’s give this one a try on the cusp of my 4,000th reviews.
#3997: Fashion Food Tom Yum Shrimp Creamy Flavour Instant Noodles – Thailand
Yet another one from an Exotic Noods subscription box – use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a discount! These are neat but a pain at the same time. The plastic bowls with lids can be reusable which is cool, however the labeling is impossible to scan, so that poses issues for me – but thankfully not for you. Let’s check it out!
#3994: Baman Sour Doujiao Noodle – China
This one looked interesting – saw it at our local 99 Ranch Market… Was really struggling with the translation of the directions, however my friend Bobby from Toronto came through right when I needed clarification and here we are – thanks! Let’s give this a try!
#3990: Sichuan Guangyou 9999 Chongqing Instant Noodle Artificial Beef Flavor – China
Here’s one that came via Exotic Noods – check ’em out and use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a discount!
#3987: Kenko Foods Shisen Style Spicy Noodle – Japan
Today, we have one that was part of Japan Crate’s Umai Crate. So Japan Crate is a subscription service which has all sorts of different options for you. pretty neat stuff from Japan! There’s a coupon code for you too – just use THERAMENRATER to get a special discount at check out.
#3984: Vifon Kim Chee Flavor Instant Noodles – Vietnam
Here’s one that came via Exotic Noods – check ’em out and use coupon code THERAMENRATER for a discount!
#3977: Lee Kum Kee Chinese Style Dan Dan Noodles – United States
Another one of the bowls sent by regular donor James from Lakeside, California – thanks again! These have been less than impressive thus far, but hopefully we end up with one of them being good. Still I’m shocked since their sauces are really quite good! Well, let’s give this one a chance to shine.