Over 5,000 Instant Ramen Noodle Reviews Since 2002
Here’s one I’ve been waiting for just the right day to try. Iga Penyet is a dish which is extremely popular in Jakarta, Indonesia. But, exactly what is it? Well, from looking around, I found that it translates to Smashed Beef Ribs ala Jakarta. I’ve also seen it referred to as Fried Beef Ribs. Either way, beef ribs and a spicy sambal sauce are involved, as well as garlic. I didn’t have any beef ribs to cook alongside, but I’ll figure something out – let’s check out this Indomie Iga Penyet!
This is the second of the two Mie Goreng Indonesia cup varieties Mamee Double-Decker sent me for Meet The Manufacturer. The first one was really good! This one sounds good too. Sambal is spicy stuff! I like spicy. Today before I do the review, I’m going to trek up to our local Indonesian grocery Waroeng Jajanan. They clued me in about a couple of great additions to mie goreng – Kerapuk Aci and BonCabe! Kerapuk Aci is a big round Indonesian cracker made with tapioca and other ingredients. It’s crunchy and goes really well with mie goreng when I’ve made it in the past. BonCabe is a spicy chilli seasoning – bits of chilli powder, flake, some salt and crunchy bits as well as other spices are in it and it’s great stuff! Off I go to the Indonesian grocery to find some additions…
Mie goreng is one of my favorites – – noodles with a sweet, salty and spicy flavor. To be honest, it was mie goreng that really got me fanatical about instant noodles many years ago. Let’s have a look at this Malaysian take on an Indonesian standard.
Here’s an interesting new one – bulgogi is probably one of my most favorite foods! Bulgogi, for those of you who haven’t experienced it, is Korean barbecued beef. What they do is marinate the beef in a nice sweet sauce and then barbecue it in thin strips. What are great are Korean barbecue restaurants. You are seated at a table with a little brazier in the center.
I’ve been asked about this special series from Indomie for a long time and finally got my hands on some! Indomie’s Taste Of Asia line has three components: Laksa representing Singapore, Bulgogi representing South Korea, and finally Tom Yum to represent Thailand. I thought since I embark on a new Meet The Manufacturer tomorrow, I’d try something a little different. So Tom Yum is a Thai soup, usually with very strong spiciness and citrus flavors. I’m very curious as to how they’ll do this one. Let’s check it out!
Another from a friend in Indonesia – thank you! I’ve reviewed quite a few instant noodles lately that have been less ‘vanilla’ in color. I had some purple ones, another green one from Taiwan and a Japanese variety a week or two ago that had ‘jet black’ broth! This one’s hook is that it has green barley in it. I did a bit of looking around and found some information on green barley/barley grass here. From what it says, it’s good for you, but how does it do in the case of being added to Healtimie noodles? Let’s have a look.
Here’s another one from a friend in Indonesia – thanks! I got some really cool new varieties from Indofood last week, but I’d better get a few older varieties out of the way before those! Shouldn’t be long! Let’s check out this rice vermicelli soup variety from their Pop Bihun line.
A friend sent this a while back from Jakarta – thank you! This is one that says kuah on it. What’s kuah? Well as far as I can gather, kuah is gravy. So instead of a broth, this one should be a bit thicker. Guess we’ll see! Black pepper chicken )rasa ayam hitam) – let’s check it out!
Today, we come to the end of this Meet The Manufacturer. Fifteen reviews! Let’s have a look at this one.
My son Andy got me a bowl and a plate for Christmas! Yesterday I used the plate – today the bowl! Hot and spicy chicken sounds really good – let’s see what kind of heat this one’s packing!
Only a couple left for this Meet The Manufacturer! Of the remaining varieties, I thought Andy might like this one the best. Let’s check it out!
Hope everyone who celebrated had a Merry Christmas! My son got me a new plate and bowl – today I’ll be using the plate as it’s mi goreng on the menu! Let’s check it out!
The last ten reviews have been varieties that are now available in the US. The next five will be ones sent to me by ABC President that are only available in Indonesia. Let’s check this one out!
As I said in the last post, today is the anniversary of the first time my wife and I spoke to eachother, four years ago. More on that in the video at the bottom. I had the fortune to be able to try real rendang yesterday! They make it at Waroeng Jajanan! I’ll do a special post about it soon! This one was really good last time – let’s revisit it!
Close to 100 reviews ago, I tried this for the first time. Four years ago today, my wife and I had our first conversation! It’s a big anniversary for us – check out the video at the end for more on that. Let’s revisit this one by ABC President!
I wanted to do something special with this one. Recently, I visited Waroeng Jajanan, an Indonesian grocery nearby. As it turns out, they make Indonesian style meatballs! I didn’t want to make this without sampling them, so this is a really exciting one for me! Honestly, I’ve never had Indonesian food other than instant noodles before! Let’s check it out!
This is a little different – fried dumplings! Basically they’re little chips of fried wonton as a garnish. These were present in one of the Eat & Go cups I reviewed earlier. Let’s check it out!
This is an interesting one; there’s ABC and there’s President. I’ve seen the logo on products made in other regions too – Taiwan most notably. Let’s see how this one tastes!
This is a really good one – it placed #8 in my Top Ten Indonesian Instant Noodles 2013 Edition! Let’s revisit this one!
I got an email from Mario over at ABC President in Indonesia this week. He said a package with some more samples were on it’s way!
Chick mi goreng time – and it’s spicy and lemony! Sounds interesting. Actually I reviewed this a while back – it was #810. Let’s check this out!
Mi goreng means fried noodles. To those not familiar with mi goreng, you’ve absolutely must try it! There’s no broth involved and very strong and delicious flavors. I would wager that if I looked through all my reviews, I’d be hard pressed to find a mi goreng that I didn’t like. Well, there was one, but it was a Chinese take on it and the spices were really off. What’s really nice is the ability to pair it with so many different things. Let’s delve into this one; I have a good feeling about it!
To begin this Meet The Manufacturer, I decided that curry chicken flavor sounded good today. One thing I’m a big fan of is curry; from India, Britain, Thailand, Japan and of course Indonesia. In the past, I’ve been pretty amazed at everything that they put inside these Eat 7 Go cups. Let’s see what awaits within!
A box came the other day – noodles!
Four varieties of pillow pack instants by ABC President.
I’ve got a lot of reviews of Indonesian instant noodles coming up starting today and I thought ‘man, I need some Indonesian chilli sauce…’ Well lucky for me, there’s a nice Indonesian grocery just a few blocks away!
After looking at the new The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Indonesian Instant Noodles Of All Time 2013 Edition and talking with people from around the world about it all week, I felt like having some Indonesian noodles! To translate, rasa means flavor, bawang is garlic, ayam is chicken and pedas means spicy. Let’s give this one a try!
When I was very young, I first discovered a satay variety of Indonesian mi goreng and loved it. I would go on special trips to Seattle just to get tons of it! The many seasoning sachets, oils, and the exotic flavors – it was great! I have been very fortunate to be able to try many, many more varieties of Indonesia instant noodles. I think what makes them distinctly different from others in the world are the use of sweetness and spiciness. These flavors balance so well in mi goreng. Then there’s flavors like lime, hot chillies and the crunch of fried onion. Reviewing such exotic varieties are what makes being The Ramen Rater so enjoyable! With that, I proudly present The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Indonesian Instant Noodles Of All Time 2013 edition!!!!!
Here’s another from my friend in Indonesia – thank you! I asked my son if he would pick which one I’d review today and this was what he picked – he wanted to make sure it was a spicy one. I did some looking and found this on Wikipedia:
Another one from my friend in Indonesia! Milk chicken soup – sounds interesting. I had another milk chicken soup variety awhile back which I enjoyed, so maybe this one’ll be good too. Let’s see what’s in this cup.
Here’s another from my friend in Jakarta, Indonesia – thanks! I’ve got high hopes for this one. Why? Well, the Spicy Chicken version placed on my Top Ten Instant Noodle Cups of 2013. Also, Indomie’s Rendang placed in the Top Ten Instant Noodles of 2013 list. I guess we’ll see how this does! Let’s check it out!
Another one that was sent from Indonesia – thank you! Soto varieties usually have a broth with them, rather than mi goreng which are dry. Cabe means chilli and hijau means green; so green chilli flavor noodle soup. Let’s check it out!
Here’s another from my friend in Indonesia – thank you! When I translate ‘seribu,’ it says ‘thousand.’ This may be a reference to the Thousand Islands – here’s a Wikipedia excerpt:
Another one sent by my friend in Indonesia – thank you! A little translation. So it’s onion chicken flavor – rasa means flavor, bawang is onion and ayam chicken. Mi instan is instant noodle, but rebus? Rebus translated to boiled and here I think refers to the noodles being ‘cooking noodles.’ As I’ve mentioned in the past, what makes a noodle ‘instant’ is the fact that you can put the noodle block and seasonings in a bowl, add boiling water and then cover for a few minutes, stir and eat. Anyways, let’s check out this Indonesian variant.
Here’s something new – green barley noodles. I’ve had noodles that were green from a myriad of ingredients before (wonder if someday there’ll be blue?). These are supposed to be for the health conscious. Let’s check ’em out!
Here’s another one my friend from Indonesia sent me – thanks! This is a departure from the norm for me – very rarely have I had Indonesian varieties of rice noodles. I think I’ve had them maybe thrice before. This one’s by the Indofoods people – makers of Indomie Mi Goreng. Let’s see how it translates to a rice noodle variety!
Here’s one that was sent to me by a reader in Jakarta, Indonesia – thank you! Spicy green chilli soup – green chilli seems to be gaining popularity in Indonesia. Let’s check it out!
Found this the other day and hadn’t ever seen it before. Then I looked closer and saw it was Rasa Soto Mie. Now, I’ve reviewed the export version of Soto Mie before, but there’s a difference: this one’s beef and the other was chicken. Interesting! Always nice to see a new Indonesian variety available in the states! Let’s check this one out.
This year, we’ve got some new fiery additions to this list of spicy and burning hot varieties. If you can find them, you’ll be feeling quite the burn! If you think you’ve found anything hotter or noteworthy of being on this list, please comment below or send me an email. Without further adieu, here’s the 2013 picks for the spiciest instant noodles I’ve found after 1,128 reviews!
In the last day, lots of people have been coming to The Ramen Rater from Indonesia! One person who commented via the facebook page said”you should try this one fried noddle, it has black pepper flavour. will not disappoint you :)” (for those wondering, this is friend black pepper chicken flavor noodles). I looked through the box of varieties my friend in Jakarta sent me and lo and behold, I had it in there! Thank you very much! Let’s check this one out!
Another Indonesia variety sent by a kind person in Jakarta! Thanks! This is called ‘gulai’ – something I’ve never heard of. I consulted Wikipedia and found this:
