Tag Archives: ginger

#3252: Shin Horng Lukang Thin Noodles Ginger & Sesame Oil Flavor – Taiwan

I often end up at 99 Ranch Market to pick up mung bean sprouts, other produce, and other things once every week or so. It’s a chain of Asian markets that started on the west coast but after looking at their site, they’ve popped up all over the United States – which is good – they’ve got lots of neat stuff.

It’s neat because The Ramen Rater and 99 Ranch Market have some special history. When I first started the site, I lived far from any Asian grocery stores. I got about 60 reviews in and had a five or six year hiatus. When I met my wife and I moved to Edmonds in 2010, we lived about a five minute walk from one. That rekindled my flame for instant noodles and reviewing and really was the reason you’re seeing this review today; if we hadn’t moved to that spot, I’m unsure the site would’ve ever gone forward.

I see new products popping up there all the time in the noodle aisle. Taiwanese products in particular. I saw this one last visit and thought ‘this looks interesting.’ Never seen this brand before and ginger sesame sounds good. So I got it. The hunt for the noodle is something I really love. The obscure, the never before seen. Honestly, it’s a thrill for me – perhaps in the same way some people spend their kids’ college savings at the racetrack. On the upside, this gamble is not going to break the bank. Anyways, yeah it’s something I thoroughly enjoy and here is the fruit of my search – something new.

Shin Horng Lukang Thin Noodles Ginger & Sesame Oil Flavor – Taiwan

The import/distributor’s sticker (click to enlarge).

Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, boil noodles 1~2 minutes. Drain. Add 70ml water. Add sachet contents. Finally, stir and enjoy!

This was a nice surprise – shelf-stable fresh noodles.

A large wet sachet.

Finished (click to enlarge). Added sauteed beef, egg, scallion, pickled ginger, sesame seeds, and pepper flake. I used a pair of kitchen scissors to make two crosscuts of the noodles. The noodles are indeed thin with a sturdy tooth. The flavor is just excellent. A strong showing of both ginger and sesame oil taste – super savory and delicious. Hard not to put this one down. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 4710575369995.

Mama Lieu’s Kitchen: A Cookbook Memoir of Delicious Taiwanese and Chinese Home Cooking for My Children

Watch me cook on Instant Noodle Recipe Time!

Meet The Manufacturer: #1062: Tasty Bite 1 Step-1 Minute Asian Noodles Lemongrass Ginger

Comments

Here’s another one from Tasty Bite – Lemongrass Ginger! Let’s check it out.

Back of the package (click image to enlarge). Vegan.

Finished (click image to enlarge). Added red bell pepper, beef, sweet onion and kizami shoga (pickled gonger) sauteed with soy sauce. The noodles have a nice character – nice rounded gauge and good chew. I would have thought they’d been mushy and soggy after being in a bag surrounded by a light sauce and veggies, but that’s not the case here. The flavor is a little spicy and a very light ginger and lemongrass taste. The abundance of fresh ingredients is wonderful – really nice to come across a fresh carrot or tidbit of baby corn. Amazing what food technology has produced these days – piping hot in one minute. 3.75 out of 5.0 stars.

Tasty Bite makes all sorts of quick to prepare products. Here’s a recipe demo by one of the co-founders of Tasty Bite – sounds good!

#972: Meet The Manufacturer: Annie Chun’s Soup Bowl Chinese Chicken

1 Reply

This is it – the last of the nine Annie Chun’s samples that were sent for Meet The Manufacturer. It’s definitely been an interesting jaunt! Some I really liked quite a bit, some I didn’t like so much. What’s very evident here is that Annie Chun’s definitely has a wide range of flavors. The last one is Chinese Chicken.

Back of the outer cardboard (click image to enlarge).

Fresh Hokkien noodles.

Liquid soup base.

I’ve got to say, this stuff smells fantastic.

The last of the seasoning blocks I have enjoyed so much!

The seasoning block.

Finished (click image to enlarge). Added oven baked chicken, cilantro and some onion. The noodles are really nice – I steeped them with the non-microwave method. Excellent. The broth was really nice – had a good real chicken flavor; I would deem it real comfort food flavor. The seasoning block lent itself nicely with lots of good veg. Great stuff – 4.25 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 765667100301 – get it here.

Annie Chun’s TV commercial.

Annie Chun’s also make seaweed snacks that people like too!

#959: Meet The Manufacturer: Sakurai Foods – ARCHE Naturküche Ramen Mit Ingwer

1 Reply

Here’s the second of the two ARCHE versions that Sakurai sent samples of. Not sure if this is going to be a lot different, but we’ll check it out just the same.

The back of the package (click image to enlarge).

The noodle block. This and compact.

Only one packet – liquid base.

A dark colored liquid soup base.

Finished (click image to enlarge). Added thin sliced beef, onion, green onion, hard boiled egg, Krazy Mixed Up Salt and Urashima Sesame & Salt furikake. The noodles cook for six minutes – and come out nicely. The broth has a strong, deep flavor. Exactly the same as #954. 3.25 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 4020943124300

A New Thai Chili Sauce From Apinya Thai Food Co.!

3 Replies

I saw something about a Thai chili sauce mentioned on my favorite hot sauce group on facebook recently. It got me wondering if it would be something that could be an alternative to the standard big bottle of Sriracha that I usually go for. I tracked down the company and asked if they could possibly send a sample – a few days later, it arrived!

First off, the bottle is interesting – it has a little flip up spout like you would find on a shampoo bottle – but its similarieties to shampoo immediately halt on a dime right there. This stuff is excellent! First off, the second ingredient after peppers is ginger, which I’m sure those who have followed this blog for a while will know by now that I’m a big fan of ginger.

This tastes like nothing I’ve had before and I think it’s a real winner! It has a flavor that I wouldn’t expect to be coming out of Virginia, USA either! Wow! I’ll be trying it on a bowl of noodles very soon – possibly one of the ones from Australia (one of the packs is made in Thailand for the Australian company, so it would definitely be fitting)! Thank you to the kind people at Apinya for sending along a bottle! Check out their website at www.apinya.co!

Re-Review: Maruchan Ramen Noodle Soup Oriental Flavor

4 Replies

Such a classic – almost as American as it is Japanese! Actually, this packet was made in California. Just like rival Nissin, Maruchan has a huge southern California factory. Here’s a re-review of this standard that probably everyone has had once in their lifetime.

My son, Andreas gave me this one, along with a beef and a pork flavor pack! He’s been quite a noodle eater – he really likes Top Ramen Chicken flavor, but I got him to try the Indomie Special Chicken flavor and he really liked it – gotta keep trying new things! Thanks for the noodles, Andy!!!

Back of the packaging (click image to enlarge). At the bottom you can see – Irvine, California.

Here’s the block in all of it’s glory. It’s ready to join two cups of water.

A single packet. A lot of these end up in kitchen drawers or half used. As always, I say use the whole thing. Don’t be a wuss! Don’t hate on ramen while that fast food meal has twice the sodium.

Behold, the spice! It might not help you evolve into a space folding Guild navigator, but it makes the broth and noodles tasty!

Finished (click image to enlarge)! Two egg omelet with some Tabasco Buffalo Style Hot Sauce, garlic salt, and a light sprinkle of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning within. I added some Kizami Shoga (pickled ginger) on top. First, the noodles. They’re surprisingly chewy and of good character; not eternally stalwart, but there for you during a cold snap. Decent noodles. The broth and its flavor are interesting; almost like a shoyu. I like this one – not my favorite of the Maruchan line, but I think it deserves praise for its simplicity and surprisingly complex flavor. 3.75 out of 5.0 stars. UPC barcode 041789002144 – Get it here.

Maruchan TV ad.

Andy’s new Crasyola Color Dome – trippyness!

#547: Lucky Me! Instant Pancit Canton (Chow Mein) Sweet & Spicy Flavor

16 Replies

Hey! Haven’t tried this yet! Pancit Canton is a lot like Indomie’s Mi Goreng – that’s one of my favorites!

So we have a powder shiny packet on the left and a combo packet with oil and soy sauce on the right. I like how they tell you not to worry – it the powder’s clump the soy sauce will break it up. If the soy sauce is crystalline, a little liquid will break up the salt crystals. See, this stuff comes from the Philippines where they get some serious humidity and heat. I see lots of products from there that are packaged in some pretty fancy ways to keep food the way it needs to be.

Looks like ya stepped on a slug huh? Trust me, it’s seriously excellent stuff!

Click image to enlarge. Voila – topped with a pair of fried eggs, a little fried shallot and some pickled ginger. The noodles are drained and then you stir them with the stuff in the last photo till everything’s all combined. This is it, Ramen Rater fans – this is the holy mountain of the instant noodles world, the pinnacle of perfection. I love it – the noodles are chewy, and they’re hot AND sweet. The trick is to keep the egg yolks a little runny and everything combines nicely. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. A truly awesome meal. Get the noodles and the condiments here.

A commercial for thi stuff.

#471: Koyo Lemongrass Ginger Ramen Made With Organic Noodles

2 Replies

The first thing I noticed about this one was that it was expired. I got these at The Market At Anacortes on July 4th or 5th this year. I’m sure they’re still fine but jeez! Lenmongrass ginger… I like ginger that’s for sure. Wondering about lemongrass though – I guess we’ll see…

Single packet of powder.

Yup – powder – nothing much to see here really.

Click image to enlarge. Added one egg and cooked it with the noodles. Well, I must say I am rather taken aback by the way these noodles taste. The noodles aren’t bad by themselves – a little chewy. The broth had a lemongrass and slight ginger flavor. The thing is, is that I don’t think anybody checked to see what slapping all these ingredients together would be like in one’s mouth, otherwise known as a facehole. Therefore it is my decree that these are funky and not so good. My wife found them to be nasty and the one word I would call them would be muddy. 1.5 out of 5.0 stars; truly disappointing. Find it here.

#448: Ve Wong Kung-Fu Artificial Sesame Chicken Flavor Instant Oriental Noodle Soup

2 Replies

Here we have some noodles from Vietnam. I got these during the trip to California in Pleasanton. I’m figuring these won’t be too bad – in my time as a noodle reviewer, I must say that chicken flavor is pretty hard to screw up. So let’s see what we have here!

Powdered seasoning on the left, oil on the right. I figure it’s a very large sachet of sesame oil from the color and the fact that its sesame chicken flavor….

My thoughts on the oil were correct – sesame oil for sure. What I didn’t expect was the aroma of ginger from the chicken seasoning packet – that was very nice to experience for sure!

Added one fried egg. The noodles weren’t too bad but a little on the mushy side. The broth was great – a kind of chicken ginger sesame amalgam that was very enjoyable and the ebb was welcomed by all. Excellent! 3.75 out of 5.0 stars!

#430: Quickchow Pancit Canton Toyo-Mansi

Comments

Toyo Mansi huh? Well, I’m pretty sure that mansi is lime, but toyo? Well, Wikipedia had the answer:

Toyo’t Kalamansi (sometimes referred to simply as toyomansi) – soy sauce with kalamansi lime juice

Even better, I found it on this page of Philippine condiments! Pretty cool!

Dry powder, soy sauce and seasoned oil. I imagine the soy sauce has the lime infused in it.

There they wait the drained cooked noodles.

Click image to enlarge. I added a little Kizami Shoga (pickled ginger) and a little fried shallot for garnish. Well I must say this is stupendous and wonderful stuff and I could eat it every day. Very much like Indomie’s Mi Goreng line. I like the noodles and the flavor and everything. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars – delicious!

#382: Lucky Me! N-Rich Instant Noodles with Malanggay (Moringa Oleifera) Tinolang Manok Artificial Chicken Flavor with Ginger

Comments

So here’s one of the smaller packs of noodles. This one’s from the Philippines and containes something called Malanggay. Here’s what is said about it on Wikipedia:

In the Philippines, the leaves are widely eaten. Bunches of leaves are available in many markets, priced below many other leaf vegetables. The leaves are most often added to a broth to make a simple and highly nutritious soup. The leaves are also sometimes used as a characteristic ingredient in tinola, a traditional chicken dish consisting of chicken in a broth, Moringa leaves, and either green papaya or another secondary vegetable. The leaves can also be processed with olive oil and salt for a pesto-like pasta sauce that has become popular on the Filipino culinary scene.

Hmmm… Interesting!

One packet.

It might look like there’s a lot here, but it was a reasonable small packet and the powder is just spread out. Also this is some soupy stuff – two cups of water went with the noodle block which was small.

Click image to enlarge. Threw an egg in with the boiling noodles. Okay so this is like chicken ramen with just the lightest hint of ginger. I do like it, but it’s not anything to write home about in my opinion. I’m giving it 2.5 out of 5.0 stars – absolutely average, but tasty.

#351: Nissin Top Ramen Picante Beef Flavor Ramen Noodle Soup

Comments

So today I opted for something different from Nissin – Top Ramen Picante Beef. Kind of funny; why don’t they make a teriyaki beef or a stir fry flavor over here? Anyways, here we go…

A single packet of flavor – rather non descript too.

Dark and slightly chunky powder.

Click image to enlarge. Added one hard boiled egg (sliced) and some kizami shoga (pickled ginger). The noodles are your standard Top Ramen noodles. Tasty, industrial strength and relaxingly expected. The flavor was a little spicy actually and I enjoyed that. 3.0 out of 5.0 stars. Get it here. UPC bar code 070662010129.

For those keen on regurgitation, here’s some soup.