Over 5,000 Instant Ramen Noodle Reviews Since 2002
Here’s another one that was sent to me by Javier over at Box From Japan – thanks! Box From Japan is a subscription service – you can get a box sent to you every month with some great noodles within! This is the last of the ones Javier sent me – it’s been a lot of fun reviewing these! Send more anytime! This one is wantan men – just think of wonton mein – wonton noodle! Let’s delve into this bowl!
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No. It’s a superhero which is a leek. Leeks, negi and Welsh onion – they’re all the same thing. I got this one from my friend Shinichi – he’s working with Mr. Yamato of Yakantei, a purveyor of very unique instant noodles to bring the harder to find tastes of Japan to your door! Very excited to try these hard to find varieties! Thanks, Shinichi for bringing noodles over to my apartment! Everybody – go and check out Ramen Mania!
Here’s one sent to me by Casey P. in Hong Kong – thank you! It’s not common that I have crab varieties. I think the majority of them have come from Singapore, so this Japanese variety is a real treat! Let’s check it out!
I got some new samples from Nissin USA a few weeks ago (thank you!) of some varieties from Japan that are now available in the USA. At this piont, you can only get them on Amazon. Not sure if that will change though. So Umami. This is something interesting – first, let’s have a look at what wikipedia has to say about umami –
Here’s another one that was sent to me by Javier over at Box From Japan – thanks! Box From Japan is a subscription service – you can get a box sent to you every month with some great noodles within! Today it’s one from Seven-Eleven in Japan. Seven-Eleven does partnerships with different companies (this on is made by Nissin) and has varieties they make only available there. This is Sumire Ramen, a miso variety. Let’s take a look!
Okay so you might be wondering – plum mayo ramen – that couldn’t possibly mean… Yes – plum and mayonnaise flavor. Where did I get it?
Here’s another one that was sent to me by Javier over at Box From Japan – thanks! Box From Japan is a subscription service – you can get a box sent to you every month with some great noodles within! This one says got Chinese cabbage with a sweet soup and a deep flavor which is from something called ‘rajan,’ a strong and spicy red pepper seasoning fermented with rice koji. Let’s check it out!
This one came from Shinichi over at Ramen Mania, a new monthly subscription box you can check out! They have special regional Japanese ramen varieties – good stuff so far! Thanks! So today it’s a special shio ramen. What’s shio you ask? Shio translates to salt. Here’s a little more on shio from Wikipedia:
Here’s another one that was sent to me by Javier over at Box From Japan – thanks! Box From Japan is a subscription service – you can get a box sent to you every month with some great noodles within! From what I’m reading, it sounds like this one has a tonkotsu broth – with pork bone flavor! Let’s check it out!
This one came from Shinichi over at Ramen Mania, a new monthly subscription box you can check out! They have special regional Japanese ramen varieties – good stuff so far! Thanks! So today it’s a very interesting looking shio variety! What’s shio? Here’s what wikipedia has to say:
This one came from Shinichi over at Ramen Mania, a new monthly subscription box you can check out! They have special regional Japanese ramen varieties – good stuff so far! Thanks! So today it’s Hakata tonkotsu. So, what’s tonkotsu? Wikipedia, if you please:
Here’s another one that was sent to me by Javier over at Box From Japan – thanks! Box From Japan is a subscription service – you can get a box sent to you every month with some great noodles within! From what I’m reading, it sounds like this one has a lot of garlic, green onion and leek influence on it. Sounds really good – let’s check it out!
Here’s one I got from Shinichi with Ramen Mania! Thanks! This is something new for me – tuna flavored instant noodles. I’ve had tuna before – skipjack tuna flavor from Indonesia. The Ramen Mani site has this to say about it:
I found out recently that there was a new Nissin Foods USA product or two that was new and asked for some samples – and they arrived today!
Here’s one I got in the package sent by Javier over at Box From Japan – thanks! Box From Japan is a monthly subscription service that delivers different varieties of instant noodles to your door each month – fancy stuff like this one! Definitely worth checking out. Also, thanks go to Shinichi S. for help in translation! So let’s ask Wikipedia about Tonjiru:
Okay so I asked for help on The Ramen Rater facebook page . I needed someone to do a voiceover for the Bottom Ten List video – in Japanese. Responding to the call was Shinichi. I thought he was in Osaka, Japan.
Here’s another one from Box From Japan! Thanks, Javier! I also want to thank Shinichi S. for helping with the translation! Shoyu translates to English as ‘soy sauce.’ Shoyu ramen is one of the classics from Japan – been around forever. Let’s see what makes this particular bowl variety tick!
My wife and I were at the grocery store the other day and she saw this series by Myojo. ‘Have you tried these yet?’ she asked. It’s funny – she finds lots of varieties for me that I never even notice – it’s pretty awesome! Since she’s a fan of udon, I thought I would make her some today. Let’s check ’em out!
Here’s one I got in the package sent by Javier over at Box From Japan – thanks! So shio is a classic style of ramen – here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:
Here’s another one that was sent to me by the folks at Exotic Noods – thanks! This looks to be a somen served hot,m which would make it along the lines of nyumen which is served in Winter.I must admit, when I see low sodium and low calorie I usually don’t shudder with delight; I’ve had some pretty bad ones that have these tags. But, you never know! Let’s have a look at this one!
I found out about Box From Japan on Reddit recently and sent the guy who runs the service an email. Javier sent me a sample box and Today I’ll let you see what was inside!
Wow it’s Summer here today! Just hit 90 degrees and the clouds are rolling in – hoping for a nice lightning storm to watch tonight. I’m still reviewing instant noodles in this weather though – it’s 83 degrees in our apartment right now. Wish we had air conditioning! It rarely gets this warn in Western Washington though. Anyways, I thought some miso might be a good one to try today, and an organic one at that. The packaging has a Vegan logo on it, but I think I might add some meat in with it. Let’s have a look at this organic miso ramen!
Here’s a seafood cup that screams seafood. I’ve mentioned before that certain colors seem to be universal when it comes to instant noodles – red for spicy or beef, green for pork (not sure why) and yellow for chicken. Well, blue is for seafood and this cup’s text is certainly blue enough. This is a Samyang Foods product for the Japanese market. Anyways, let’s crack it open and see what makes it tick.
First off, you’re probably wondering why it says NCC before the post number. Well, I’m a Star Trek fan and NCC-1701 was the number on the starship Enterprise.
Another year’s gone by and here we are again with the new bowls list. A lot of really interesting ones this go around and some old favorites. At the point of putting this list out, I’ve almost hit 1,700 reviews. Of those, these are in my opinion the best tasting and the most memorable varieties. With that, allow me to present The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Noodle Bowls 2015 Edition.
The top ten instant noodles list is an annual post I do which is always quite a treat for me. I started reviewing back in 2002, but I really got going with it in June of 2010 – I’ve done nearly 1,600 reviews since then. It still boggles my mind that after trying so many, the industry continues to innovate and bring flavors forth that truly amaze me. With that, here are my absolute favorites – The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2015 Edition.
As I’ve said before, some companies will make products for different markets. Shoyu isn’t really a variety you’d generally see in South Korea, however Samyang Foods is making this one for the Japanese market. Shoyu is a very common variety of ramen in Japan – here’s a little about it from wikipedia:
It might be hard to tell from this image, but this is a very small bowl from Nissin’s Donbei line. I’d say it’s about 1/3 the size of a normal bowl. Kinda cool – a mini bowl! Let’s have a look.
This is another of the Gonbuto bowls. Nissin Gonbuto Kitsune Udon has a unique preparation regime which was quite hard to figure out – I figured it out after a lot of research (to be honest, I read the side numbers). Let’s have a look at this Nissin Gonbuto Kitsune Udon bowl!
A while back I reviewed the Myojo Men Black Seafood Tonkotsu. Well, this is the white creamy variety. Tonkotsu is usually made from pork bone broth – pork bones and boiled for quite a while to pull out the flavor, and it gets a milky color. This one’s manufactured in the United States by Myojo, and so pork products are present. Let’s see how this creamy tonkotsu variety stacks up/.
Got this one on last year’s birthday trip to Canada. Since my trip is coming very soon this year, I figured it was time. So, what is maitake? Wikipedia had this to say:
Just finishing up packing for our move. By the time this one’s posted though, it’ll all be done (I’ve been doing a couple reviews every day. One thing that’ll be vexing about the move is the fact that the Internet won’t be up until a few days after we’re there. Gonna be tough to get posts out but rest assured, I will! Today I’m reviewing this Mitoku variety from Japan. It looks to be packaged for sale here in the USA – you can really tell by the bar code being 12 as opposed to 13 digits, as well as the distributor. I don’t know much of anything about this one, so I guess we’ll see how brown rice noodles compare shortly. Let’s check out these Mitoku noodles!
This is one got last year on my birthday trip to Canada! Really excited that the next trip is coming up very quickly! My wife, son and sister will be coming this time, so it should be a lot of fun. Today’s review is on Myojo Desse Nyumen. So, what’s nyumen? Wikipedia had this to say:
So we’re moving. Seems like we just moved here a little while ago, but we’re moving again. I’m pretty glad too – new scenery is always nice and it’s closer to my wife’s work. I’ve been doing a lot of packing and throwing things away. During this I found this one that was under a couple of things. It was sent a while back by a reader – she was trying to find out how to get her hands on these as she really enjoyed them when in Japan. I figured it out and as a thank you, she sent me a pack! Translating this one has proven quite a task – I’m still not sure I’ve got it right in any way, shape or form. If I’m way off, let me know! Let’s look inside – I think it should be interesting.
Found this one at Uwajimaya, a Japanese grocery store chain up here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m always keen on trying a new yakisoba; I usually enjoy them with a little karashi mayo! So this variety is dashi shoyu flavor. Dashi is used to make broth for traditional Japanese ramen, and shoyu is soy sauce. Let’s have a look at this one from Japanese company Acecook.
Once in a while, I get something a little different – something that contains something I’ve not seen before. This is one of those times. So it was kind of difficult to translate this one – it’s basically salt Butter and Corn flavor, although the translation I ended up with didn’t mention the corn. I decided to go ahead and add corn in the title anyways. Also, I saw lots of translations mention the word circle, although I’m not sure if that was just Google translate being weird.Anyways, this is a big bowl of noodles and I’m very curious to try them. Without any further adieu, let’s open this thing up and look inside!
So today’s Friday Video. This is actually a pretty good one – a few interesting little tidbits of knowledge are gained, so enjoy. Happy Friday!
Having an emergency? Well then, hunker down in your shelter and boil some water! This is a fine dinner for two of Nissin Cup Noodle in a neat metal can, sealed for long life.
Here’s one of the ones I got when we went up for my annual birthday trip to Canada! So snack noodles are very popular around the world – Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan have quite a few companies making different varieties. They’re usually basically an uncooked instant with a seasoning to add or are pre-seasoned. Let’s check out this one from Japan – Oyatsu Baby Star!
Got this one down in California during our summer trip! JFC distributes a lot of different products here in the USA from Japan and elsewhere. I’m curious what the actual brand here is. Those characters at the top look extremely familiar…
