the ramen blog & other goodies!

(Disclosure: I’m very sleepy, so if this review comes across as a bit loopy…well…you’ve been warned.)

The-wife-is-away-so-I’m-eating-ramen-all-week week continues with this special ramen. It’s got “PH adjustment” and “antioxidant”! Really! Scroll down and look at the label for yourself! Oh, It looks like the tonkotsu ramen I had a few days ago also had antioxidant (yes, it’s also singular). Who says instant ramen isn’t healthy?

I don’t know why you readers voted for us to show nutritional info on the ramen we review. I think I was happier not knowing what I was eating.

I was excited when I opened this bowl ramen…it came with four packets of accoutrements! Somehow, my expectations go up with every packet I see in my instant ramen. Oh, and ginger gets its own packet…yay…(I don’t like ginger, which always makes my wife roll her eyes and ask “are you really Asian?”). On the plus side, the soup powder has a very strong pork smell that reminds me of Chinese “pork sung,” which, according to wikipedia, is also known as “pork floss.” That sure sounds appetizing.

The noodles were decent, with a nice hard texture, and had a hint of instant-noodleness to them. The toppings gave the ramen good flavor, and the tonkotsu soup was rich and well-balanced. Being negi ramen, there were lots and lots of green onions, which suits me just fine. The strange thing was, while the soup had good flavor, you could barely smell it, which was especially surprising after the strong smell of the soup powder.

Overall, this was a slightly above average ramen. If you like green onions, it’s hard to go wrong with negi ramen. Marutai’s negi ramen gets a 7.

If you have an iPhone (lucky!) and you have firmware version 1.1.3 or up (lucky!), you can now add the ramen blog to your home screen (lucky!) for quick & easy one-touch access to your favorite source for all things ramen (lucky lucky!).

Agh!! Get it off of me! Getitoffofme! — oh, sorry… Ahem…this is the kind of instant noodles that gives people nightmares. In the interest of saying something useful besides just warning people from this travesty, I find it interesting that, even though technically ramen “started” from China, then evolved into the Japanese version we’re all familiar with today, I’ve yet to find any Chinese instant ramen that tastes nearly as good as the Japanese version. Sure, there are plenty of great Chinese noodle dishes, and plenty of really good instant Chinese noodles, but forget trying to find a good Chinese version of the Japanese version of Chinese noodles. If any of that didn’t make sense, blame this ramen.

The crowning achievement of this bowl ramen is the noodles, which are slightly thin, very reminiscent of Chinese instant noodles, and thoroughly mediocre. The toppings include corn, tiny pieces of sour, soggy bamboo, seaweed, and some unidentifiable mystery veggie bits.

The soup seasoning contains salt, MSG, and soy sauce powder, and the garnish includes sugar and caramel. Yes, the label says the garnish contains sugar and caramel. And for what it’s worth, the soup stock is chicken, not pork. So what does this concoction taste like? Have you ever had vinegar ramen? Really? Ok, no, there’s no such thing. I just made it up. But even if there were such a thing as vinegar ramen, I’m pretty sure the soup would taste better than this vile sour and vinegary witch’s brew. King Car gets a 3. The only reason it doesn’t get a 1 is because I think I could imagine eating this again if I was literally starving to death. Well…maybe…

Korea seems to be having a lot of problems with ramen recently. On one hand, Korea Beat is reporting that some Korean schools are banning ramen in the fight against childhood obesity and malnutrition. But then again, the Chosun Ilbo Korean newspaper reported that people are panic-buying ramen in bulk because of rising prices. Just about every food product is suffering from higher prices, and ramen is no exception. Prices for flour and other ingredient have skyrocketed recently.

But still…is it really necessary to stockpile and/or ban instant ramen? What do you think?

More Hello Kitty ramen madness. But I gotta say, I’ve never seen “ogre ramen-making kitty” before!

As in NYC, ramen in Vancouver seems to be experiencing somewhat of a renaissance. Either that, or there’s not a lot of news happening in Canada lately.

Seattlites, don’t feel left out. Here’s a radio interview with the owner of Boom Noodle (yes, that’s Noodle singular).

Kids might enjoy this simple little ramen game. If you’re over the age of 6, though, this might interest you for all of 3 minutes or so. I suffered through 10 minutes of this to report to you that it’s just. more. of. the. same.

Another day, another “ramen battle” in Japan–waitasec…did that article say horse meat ramen!?!

It’s the 50th anniversary of Nissin’s Chicken Ramen! They’ll be releasing special flavors in 7 countries including the U.S.! Has anyone seen the U.S. onion flavor yet?

The wife is away, so let there be ramen! It seems like I can’t go wrong with instant tonkotsu ramen, so I was eager to try this cup ramen. The ramen comes with a few bits of seaweed, a sprinkling of sesame seeds, plenty of green onions, and a few pieces of pickled ginger to balance out the flavor. Since it’s a tonkotsu ramen, it has the typical thin, hard noodles that are nice and chewy. The noodles held the thick broth well but were mostly adequate. The soup smelled great! Unfortunately, it was a bit of a letdown. The tonkotsu broth starts off with a rich, thick flavor. After a few more slurps, though, it becomes a bit one-dimensional, and very MSG-y. There isn’t much of a full-bodied porkiness to the soup, and after a while, the MSG starts to beat mercilessly on your taste buds. It’s not as bad as it sounds, but you’ll probably be really thirsty afterwards. There are much better tonkotsu bowl/cup ramen out there, and the small portion doesn’t help either, unless you’re just looking for a light snack. This cup ramen gets a decent 6.