
Here’s one that’s spent a little time in my noodle hamper. I’ve been wondering what flavor it might be, although it really doesn’t say. It’s manufactured in Thailand, but definitely for the US market. Let’s check out this microwavable instant ramen.
Over 5,000 Instant Ramen Noodle Reviews Since 2002

Here’s one that’s spent a little time in my noodle hamper. I’ve been wondering what flavor it might be, although it really doesn’t say. It’s manufactured in Thailand, but definitely for the US market. Let’s check out this microwavable instant ramen.

Today is my wife Kit’s birthday! I thought I’d do up a post about the new restaurant I took her to.

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!

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…

Here’s one that has been at the bottom of the noodle hamper for a while . Kind of an interesting one; kimchi from Japan eh? Let’s delve into it and see how it tastes!
Here’s a half hour documentary about Japanese ramen – enjoy and happy Friday!

Okay, I’m familiar with yakisoba, but what’s Gotsumori sauce all about? After some scouring of the Internet, I didn’t find a whole lot. I found on the manufacturer’s site that the sauce is spicy and also has a sachet of Kewpie karashimayonnaise (kind of a mayo-mustard thing). Anyways, yeah I’m definitely coming up short on this one! Let’s have a look.

Been quite a while since I’ve had some miso ramen, and this will be only my second Sunaoshi review. This one was in my hamper asking to be reviewed today and so I thought why not give it some attention. Ready? Set? Miso.

It’s kind of hard to tell the size of this little mini Kitsune Udon, so let’s have a look at this.

What does one do after reviewing 1,500 varieties of instant noodles? All I could think of was review number 1,501. Chow mein sounded nice today and I do have an open container of Kewpie mayo in the fridge. I think after trying so many yakisoba varieties that have mayo with them, not including it when having it is kind of a tragedy. This was a strange one as far as translation goes. I looked around and found it called Super Big Cup and then found this one and thought this would be the right translation! If not, please let me know. Anyways, it’s onwards towards review 2,000. Let’s get to it!

Thanks to Yuji Hashimoto over at Takamori Kosan of Japan for helping me to translate this one! Today’s review is one that I think I found up in Canada. It looks to be similar to Maruchan’s regular Kitsune Udon bowl – the red one.Kitsune means ‘fox’ in Japanese. Here’s a little something about the ‘kitsune myth’ from wikipedia –

I think this is the last of these I got when I went up to Canada last year. Shoyu translates to soy sauce, so these are soy sauce flavor ramen noodles. Shoyu is one of the standard flavors of ramen from Japan, such as miso and tonkotsu. Sounds pretty good to me – let’s have a look inside and give ’em a try!

To start off, thanks to Raissa T. and Andre L. for their help on translating! Today feels like a yakisoba day. I really like yakisoba! It’s a pretty versatile dish; you can add anything to it and it’s still good! Well, strawberry jelly probably isn’t the best add-in… Then again, with that mention perhaps someone will try it and make it the new craze? The latest weird add-in craze was adding those little pudding cups or flan into a Cup Noodle. Bizarre… Well, let’s see how this comes out – looks good on the package! Especially with the amazingly cool little recommendation to…

Most of us in the United States are familiar with Maruchan’s ramen packs and ‘Instant Lunch’ cups. However, most of us aren’t familiar with Maruchan’s popular products overseas in Japan. Miso is a fermented soybean paste – it’s good stuff, with a kind of musty scent. Notice on the front of this one: it’s also saying that it’s lower calorie. Let’s have a look inside.

This is the first bowl of instant noodles I’m having since our California vacation last week and I must say it’s good to be back to reviewing! This is one I picked up while in Canada a while back. Let’s take a look!

I like the title of this one, because to be honest, I do want to eat Shio ramen today! Shio translates to salt in Japanese, but it’s not like you get a block of noodles and a packet of table salt. There are four main variants of Japanese ramen, with Shio being one of them. Here’s what wikipedia has to say about Shio:

I got this colorful package a few weeks ago from a reader. She had asked if I could identify and find an instant noodle for her.

I’m pretty excited – we’re moving to a new apartment soon! I’ve been going through everything, boxing stuff up. Actually, I’m currently flanked by a stack of boxes that’s getting really high – and they’re pretty heavy, too. What’s going to be insane is that we will be moving to a place on the top floor – only one flight of stairs, but it’s a decent amount of stairs. Should be quite a workout! What’s nice is that it’ll be close to a nice big Asian grocery – an HMart – so there will be easy access to everything I need to add to my noodles. Anyways, yeah – pretty big thing. I thought I’d have one I found while packing – no idea how it got to where it was as I usually keep everything in a couple big totes. Let’s check out this yakisoba – with black pepper mayonnaise!

Here’s another one of those snack style instant noodles! This one came from a birthday trip to Canada this year. Let’s have a look inside!

Well folks, this is it. The last one for this Meet The Manufacturer. I really have enjoyed reviewing all of these fresh noodle varieties quite a bit, and I think it’s finally gotten me to look at the possibility of a The Ramen Rater’s top Ten Fresh Noodles Of All Time list. They don’t exactly fit into the Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time lists as they’re usually on a different playing field; they’re not fried blocks, but fresh pouches. So that might be something coming up in the near future. I’d like to thank Yuji for the help in making these reviews happen – I’ve messaged him plenty of times with questions throughout as there’s no English on any of the packaging, let alone the title sometimes. Let’s have a look at this interesting variety from Takamori Kosan of Japan as we bid them a fond farewell for now. Yuji has mentioned that there will be new varieties coming, so it’s not goodbye, but til next time.

Well, we’re almost to the end of this Meet The Manufacturer. It’s been a really fun journey through all of these Japanese flavors. Today, I’m going to review a beefy sukiyaki udon stew! But what is sukiyaki? Let’s ask Wikipedia:

First things first: Happy Mother’s Day! Don’t forget to call your Mom today!
This one sounds good – yaki-udon is something really new to me and during this Meet The Manufacturer, the first time I’ve tried it. The one I had the other day was really tasty – curious how this one will be! Basically the different between yakisoba and yakiudon is that it’s a wider gauge noodle. Let’s see how this one with roast soy sauce flavor comes out!

This is another cold noodle dish. Bonito is a fish that is used to flavor broths quite often in Japanese cuisine. The last Takamori cold noodle variety I had was one of the best I’ve ever had – let’s see how this one fares!

During this week, we’ve been reviewing different types of yakisoba – but what is Futomen yakisoba? Futomen is a variety with a slight wider gauge noodle than the regular soba noodle. Also I am told that the flavoring is a little spicier. Let’s check it out!

We;ve had some nice sunny days already this spring here in Washington. Had a day that got close to 80 degrees! Was really nice. The review today is on a noodle dish that is served cold. Cold noodles are enjoyed throughout Asia, but it’s really something that isn’t commonly seen in the United States. Let’s have a look at this unique variety.

Hey it’s curry time! Japanese curry is much different from other curries around the world. Often with a sweet and less spicy hit, it’s really excellent stuff to behold and taste. I’m really curious about this one – let’s dig in!

This was a welcome surprise – shio yakisoba! Shio is a popular variety of ramen, but I’ve never heard of it as a version of yakisoba before. Shio translates to salt in English, but that doesn’t mean that it”s just flavored with salt. Wikipedia has this to say about Shio ramen:

I’ve always liked yakisoba. It’s a brothless soba noodle that’s fried in a skillet with some meat, veggies, and a nice Worcestershire sauce flavor. It’s great stuff! I’ve always been curious though, how Worcestershire sauce made it into Japanese culinary culture. I dug around and found this on Wikipedia:

On the menu today is something I’ve been very curious to try – yaki-udon! As you might surmise, the yaki prefix means fried. Yakisoba are fried soba noodles, and so yaki-udon are fried udon noodles; simple! Anyways, it sounds really interesting – let’s have a look at this one.