Vifon Kurczak (Chicken) Curry / Curry Ostra

This  is still the Vifon chicken curry, but the chicken name (Kurczak) is no longer prominent, and monosodium glutamate is used in place of dead bits of chicken. Also, the word Ostra (sharp) has been added. 

Decent noods with an acceptable savoury flavour (though not really very curry like or chicken like, just sort of savoury). It wasn't the favourite in our house, but it was generally liked, even though one of us placed it last. 

  

The taste test

Date: Aug 2023    Score: 5
 

A regular dirty cow this one. Good greasy noodles with a hot and greasy chicken flavoured curry. Good burn in the mouth. Solid all round. Three little flavour packets - I put them all in before pouring on the water. Seemed to work OK.

Yep. Go for it!

There's bits of real dead chicken feet, bum and brains in this one, so score is reduced.


Date: Nov 2013  Score: 5

Vifon Instant Noodles

The best Chicken flavour instant noodles

Sawadee Instant Noodles Spicy Tomato Flavour

 

Like a string vest boiled in dirty washing up water.

Date: Nov 2013   Score: 3 

Kohlico Group

ASDA Smart Price Chicken Flavour Noodles

This is about as cheap and nasty as it gets. About 20p a packer, which has to be cooked rather than simply having boiling water poured over them. I did try the boiling water soak and slurp method, but it resulted in hard noodles in a cold liquid. I had to warm up in the microwave. Too much effort man! And not enough flavour!

There's no chicken, but it does - bless it's little nood socks - leave a greasy boiled chicken flavour in the mouth. Basic stuff, but you can eat this people! Yes, you can!


Date: Nov 2013   Score: 3

The name has changed - they've dropped the "Instant" part - after all, if you have to cook it, I suppose it's no longer instant. Noodles are very basic. No flavour or character to them. The sauce has a pleasant onion and parsley flavour, but it's in need of seasoning. Yes folks, you can eat this, but I don't know why you would want to. There are plenty of cheap instant noodles that taste better for around the same price.

Date:  March 2015   Score: 2

ASDA Noodles 

The best Chicken flavour instant noodles

Ko-Lee Instant Noodles Curry Flavour

It's basic stuff. Deep fried noods which are firm and tasty (in a deep fried way) with a watery and indifferent curry sauce (this is a curry!).

I mean, you'll eat it. But you won't actually enjoy it.

Par for the course really.

Kohlico

Kohlico (Ko-Lee and Sawadee)

Kohlico is a British company. They own Sawadee and Ko-Lee brand noods. Basic deep fried cheap noods made in Malaysia. Standard powdered flavourings. These are your straight ahead average noods. Apart from the Super Chow Mein, which is an epic fail due to the stupidity of having four flavouring packs to open and mix in (according to the instructions) after the noodles have soaked in water for three minutes. Given that the soy sauce alone will take you three days to squeeze out of the packet, your noods are guaranteed to be stone cold sober and somewhat surprised to find themselves in a compromising position by the time you get around to eating them....



Sawadee


Sawadee Instant Noodles Chicken Chow Mein Flavour
As filthy as it gets.
Nood score: 6



Sawadee Instant Noodles Prawn Oriental Flavour
Basic nood.
Nood score: 5





Sawadee Mushroom and Vegetable Flavour
Average, everyday basic nood.
Nood score: 4





Sawadee Instant Noodles Spicy Tomato Flavour
Dirty.
Nood score: 4



Ko-Lee


 
Ko-Lee Taste Sensation Creamy Shrimp Tom Yum
Top nood
Nood score: 9 



Ko-Lee Taste Sensation Classic Chicken
Top nood.
Nood score: 8




Ko-Lee Go Noodles Hot & Spicy
Top nood.
Nood score: 8




Ko-Lee Instant Noodles Mixed Vegetable
A dirty pig.
Nood score: 5

Ko-Lee Go Noodles Bombay Masala

OK, but lacks impact
Nood score: 4


Ko-Lee Instant Noodles Curry Flavour
OK noodles in an indifferent sauce.
Nood score: 4



Ko-Lee Instant Noodles Super Chow Mein
Epic fail.
Nood score: 1

Battle of the brands

Georgi Readman - eats 30 miles of instant noodles every year

Newspapers across the world picked up on this story in April this year (2013). Georgi Readman, 18 year old student on the Isle of Wight, only eats M Savers chicken noodles from Morrisons. It has been worked out that if the noodles were laid end to end it would amount to 30 miles of noodles every year.

Nice one Georgi! You're a true nood!


Daily Mail
NY Daily News
Yahoo
Opposing Views
Scallywag and Vagabond
Etc.

Sawadee Instant Noodles Prawn Oriental Flavour

Basic noods from British company Kohlico. Deep fried in Malaysia. Eaten in a kitchen or bedsit somewhere in the UK. Prawn flavour (or MSG and some spices and salt). Some kind of seafood flavour is quite common for noods. I think that what works best for the artificial flavourings used for noods is  1) Curry, 2) Chicken, and 3) Seafood. Three packets for £1 from my local shop. 85g net weight.
Nov 2013


Rather bland. Edible, but lacking in interest.
Sept 2014

Kohlico

Ko-Lee Instant Noodles Super Chow Mein

EPIC FUCKING FAIL!


I wanted to give up before I even started. This has FOUR - yes, count them: one, two,. three, fucking four - flavour sachets. Now, careful, you have to read the instructions - you add them AFTER the water and waiting three minutes. Why?!!!! Fuck knows. But it's all bit too fiddly and cooky for your average noodfan. Worse still, the bloody soya sauce is almost impossible to get out of the sachet (no, that's not a challenge to the world's strongest granny, that's simply a statement that this nood will annoy you). Guess what - by the time you add all the fucking flavourings and get the bloody soya sauce out of the packet, the noods have gone cold. What a fucking surprise!

The brain dead idiot who invented this should get back on the train to Idiotsville straightaway.

What's it taste like at the end of it? Who fucking cares! This is not cor·don fuckin bleu cooking - its instant noodles. Open the pack, pour on the water, stir and slurp. End of. Go home and lie down.

Hey, here's a clue for everyone: if it's got "super" in the name, leave it in the super shop, and buy an average nood instead.




Date: Nov 2012   Score: 1 

Kohlico Group

Best instant noodle chow mein

Ko-Lee Instant Noodles Mixed Vegetable

This is a dirty pig. Authentic deep fried noodles (none of your air dried nonsense) sitting in a puddle of dirty washing up water. For all you cooks out there, this goes great with a can of Tennents Super. Perfect breakfast.

Breakfast al fresco

You get three packets of Ko-Lee noodles for a £1 in my corner shop. Net weight 90g per pack. Gone in a flash, and you can eat the other two straight after. That's a three course meal! Munch five pickled onions, and that's your five a day sorted as well.

The noodle packet proudly boasts "An authentic product of Malaysia"; though, while the noods were dried fried in Malaysia, the company which owns the brand - Kohlico, is British. They also own Sawadee brand noods.

This is yer basic Asian nood - cheap and dirty. Though not as filthy as it could be. A little wishy washy - as you might expect from a packet which is flavoured "mixed vegetables".

The cooking instructions (as well as the traditional, open the packet of powdered chemicals, pour on boiling water, stir, wait, stir again and slurp) include cooking on the hob for three minutes and cooking in the microwave in a complex system of stirring and waiting that is just too confusing for your average noodfan.

Don't make it difficult, people - if you have to cook it, then it aint a true nood!
Nov 2013



The noodles are great - real wheaty and tasty. Good chewy and satisfying noodles. The sauce is secondary - indeed, quite meaningless: a wishy washy faint savoury flavour. There are three flavouring sachets, which is rather a lot to produce an insignificant flavour. But it's OK.
Oct 2014

Kohlico

Mug Shot BBQ Beef Flavour

These noodles are more pasta than noodles. A little too firm and, well, pasta like, for my taste.

And I still don't get what a standard mug is, because I used a much smaller cup this time, and the result was that the juice was still a little too much like soup.

But at least there's no dead cows in this one.

But it's all just a little too clean and harmless for my liking. 1% fat for god's sake! This stuff is for joggers not those who have a noodle horn.

Score: 2/10

***

Beef flavoured

Symington's

Nongshim Shin Cup Hot & Spicy

Nov 2013

BEST NOODS EVER!

This is the holy grail of instant noodles. Perfect noodles - soft and yummy - just like you get in a noodle bar (that's a noodle bar, not a gay bar), and a sauce so hot it rips your mouth apart!

It doesn't get better than this. Eat these, and your mouth will love you long time.

These noods are made by Nongshim, a Korean company founded in 1965 who have become the most popular and successful nood maker not just in Korea, not just in Asia, but in the whole wide world. One taste of this bastard, and you'll know why!

10/10

April 2015

Lovely soft fresh tasting noodles, with a wonderful sauce - very savoury and yummy, and not tasting artificial or chemical.  Strong chilli bite, which I like, though is perhaps a tad too hot for me. Really easy to make - no fussing around. Simply open  the packet of sauce powder, pour on boiling water and leave for three minutes. Simple. Job done. I really like these noods, and would make them my everyday snack if it were not for the depth of that bite. Also, I note that it contains beef. Why?

9/10

Nongshim

ASDA Smart Price Curry Flavour Noodle Snack (pot)

  

This is as filthy as it gets....

At least it is when you get down to the bottom.

The powder is put in the pot first, and the noodles are dumped on top. That requires a lot more stirring than the average nood enthusiast (noodfan?) will give it. I mean, stirring is such an effort isn't it? I like the packet noods where you have the powder in a separate sachet and pour it on top of the noodles yourself. And that's part of the ritual. Yea- stirring is as well. But not for half the fucking day. Stir, stir, stir. Come on!. When you have the noodle horn, you just want to get your face in there. No more messing about. The stuff is hot and ready and the aroma is wafting up your nose. What can a boy do? I mean what can a poor boy do? Get slurping. And burning your lips on a hot noodle, or getting your face splashed with hot sauce, is what it's about. 

No time to stir - just get in there!

Anyway. So this mother, has the powder at the bottom, and without spending the rest of your life stirring, most of the flavour will remain at the bottom as well. That means when you start eating it's a bit bland, and I had to add salt as though this were an epic fail. You work through it as a moderate modest sort of nood - the curry flavour is wishy washyy and bland, but there's some flavour there, and it's acceptable. But then you get towards the bottom where all the flavour has sat. The powder has turned to juice (no newbie mistake of not stirring in the corners), and has sat there waiting for the true noodfan to reach it and experience the delights of a truly filthy mess. It's vaguely curry flavoured (spot on! the best nood flavours are never "authentic" or "real" - they are synthetic or vague - a taste you may faintly remember as though a dream), and it tastes all synthetic and gungy and very moreish. Yum, yum, dripping yum. 

Get some in! It's cheap and nasty. Just what you want. 

Date: Nov 2013   Score:  8

ASDA Noodles 

Best curry flavour instant noodles

Mug Shot Roast Chicken Flavour

OK. This is pasta, not noodles. What's the difference? Noodles are a form of pasta, and on the whole there isn't much difference. Noodles are a particular shape of pasta; long and thin, such as spaghetti, fettuccine, or tagliatelle - though noodles can also be shaped. Pasta tends to be made of better quality ingredients, such as duram wheat - a very hard wheat, and contain egg. But, really, it's simply different traditions for essentially the same thing - so that something like chnöpfli  can be called noodles or pasta. Put simply - pasta is a European tradition, centred on Italy; noodles are an Asian tradition.

The instructions say use a standard mug. Our mugs must be larger than normal because this ended up as a pasta soup rather than a pasta coated in a rich sauce. The chicken is real - well, they threw a live chicken into a plane propeller and caught the bits; if that counts as real. Anyway, for those - like me -who don't eat chickens, dead or alive, I kind of wish food companies paid attention to the difference between "flavour" and "flavoured". "Flavour" means it tastes of that product, but does not actually contain that product. Proper in-noods are synthetically flavoured. "Flavoured" means it gets it's flavour from the actual product. So: "Flavoured with chicken" compared to "flavour of chicken". See? Simples.

I didn't enjoy this product. Needed salt. And it was actual chicken. For fucks sake.

Made by Symington's, who also make such delights as Chicken Tonight and the overpriced ponsy vomit that is Naked Noodle Poodle.

Score: 2

***

Symington's

The best Chicken flavour instant noodles

ASDA Smart Price Noodle Snack Chicken & Mushroom Flavour (pot)

Well, they're cheap. But they're not nasty. They're a bit bland and wishy-washy. And that's despite containing powdered baby chickens - bone, beak and claw (and possibly a bit of chicken poo).

You have to add salt - and that's an epic fail as far as in-noods go.

And despite being in a Pot Noodle type of pot, there's no extra flavour sachet. So that's a let down. ASDA do these slightly cheaper in just a packet, but I went for the pot expecting to get the flavour sachet. Also, it saves washing up.....

I have a Smart Price Curry Flavour to try,  but I'm not expecting big things.


Date:  2013    Score: 3

Still contains ground up chickens. Why? What possesses them to do that - the proportion is low it can't be tasted, and this is a cheap product anyway. Grief. Anyway, as before, it can be eaten, but does benefit from seasoning.


Date: Oct 2016   Score: 3

ASDA Noodles 

Clucking chicken noodles