Vit's Seafood Instant Noodles

35p for 78g from Tesco. Made in Malaysia with "prawn seasoning powder" and "chicken seasoning powder" so a little vague on animal content.The noodles are OK, if a little firm, but the sauce is too hot. It's got some tomato flavour and some seasoning, and a lot of blunt chilli powder. This is not my thing at all, and if animals were killed and ground up to put into this product, then that's a vile shame, as there's no way anyone could taste it, so they might as well have gone veggie.

Score: 1

Other reviews
*RamenRater - we rarely agree!

Maggi 3 Minute Noodles Chicken Flavour

Yeah. It's edible. But does lack a bit of flavour and character. Probably best as a base with some tasty things added, such as chopped spring onions and chopped baby tomatoes. 

Date: Sept 2023   Score: 4 

Cheap to buy. Quick and easy to make. No dead chickens. Soft edible noodles, and a bland but acceptable flavouring that comes a little more acceptable with salt. Not great, but does the job. I wouldn't object to having them again.

Date: July 2016   Score: 4/10

No chickens were ground down into powder for this version, unlike Maggi's Two Minute packet version, which does use dead chickens. But other than that the products are the same. Thin tasteless noodles and a thin flavouring which doesn't quite have enough impact, but which still manages to leave your mouth tasting of MSG. Put in some salt and it's edible enough, so I'm not going to object to it, but there are tastier products available.


Date: Oct, 2015  Score:  4/10

The best (and worse) Chicken flavour noods

Itsu Vegetable Festival Crystal Noocle (Cup)

The Itsu (or is it itsu) range are usually around £2, which is rather a lot for a snack that can be usually purchased for less than 50p. But now and again there is an offer, and I'll grab a few. These were severely reduced because they were "out of date". There is a lot of style and packaging with an Itsu noodle. A see through top (why?) and a large pink plastic spork.  You can see where the money goes, and it's not really on the food. The noodles are dreadful. They are gluton free, but that's no excuse for making them so bad. They are made out of mashed potatoes and peas. Yes. But the resulting texture and flavour is plastic. The sauce, however, is quite tasty. A savoury, herby, tomato flavour  - though there are no tomatoes, with some hint of roasted vegetables. It is nice. The sauce is actually a liquid rather than being dried. Not sure why that is, because there is still a processed flavour about the whole thing, but the ingredients do work. It's more of a soup with some plastic wire put in, and it is difficult to eat. The spork is genuinely useful here. My recommendation is to throw the potato noodles away, and just drink the soup. Or better yet, just buy an Ainsley Harriot packet soup.


Score: 3

Maggi 3 Minute Noodles BBQ Beef Flavour

Cheap cup noodle from Tesco. I used less water than recommended yet it was still watery. More flavoursome than the curry flavour, but still needs seasoning to bring the flavours out. It's supposed to be beef, but the main flavours are onion, herb, yeast extract, MSG, and sulphury egg. Finishes a little dirty/artificial due to the MSG. It's edible, but probably less likeable than the curry flavour. Thin noodles.
Cheap, veggie, easy to make, edible. I wouldn't object to eating again, though wouldn't search it out.

Date: Oct 2015   Score: 4/10

Beef flavoured

Maggi 3 Minute Noodles Curry Flavour

Cheap from Tesco. One of the cheapest cup noodles available in the shop.Bilious yellow packaging that is not encouraging. You open the flavouring and pour it on yourself. Then pour on boiling water to the fill line and wait three minutes. The fill line is too high, resulting in a rather wishy washy flavour that needs some garlic and salt. The noodles are thin and slimy.  There is a curry flavour, and once I had added garlic and salt I enjoyed them. Not a quality product, but not offensive, not too hot, there's no bird or animal powder, and it's cheap and easy to make. I wouldn't object to having another.

5/10

Best curry flavour instant noodles

Nissin Cup Noodles Beef Flavour

72g for around £1 a pot. Easy to prepare and absolutely delicious! Veggie. Little bits of veg which quickly soften adding flavour and texture to the noods. The overall impression is like an Oxo or Marmite drink with noodles and veggie pieces. It's not sophisticated, but it's damn tasty, easy to prepare, and cleaner, fresher tasting than Pot Noodles.

Nissin are the best nood makers in the world. They really are.

Score: 8/10

Other Reviews
 *RamenRater   The American made ones are different to the Hong Kong made ones, which is what I had. I think the American made ones contain meat.

Nifty Nissin noodles

Beef flavoured

Lidl Newgate/Vitasia Instant Noodles Spicy Prawn Flavour

Noodles are soft flour paste - rather bland. The flavouring is warmly spicy with some savoury flavours that hint at curry more than prawn. It's OK because it's soft and edible without too much sense of artificial flavouring. Slips down easy. But is otherwise unremarkable or different from most other instant noods. It'll do for the price, and I'll be OK with getting these again, but they're not something I would go out of my way to get, nor are they something I would recommend.

Date: Sept 2015   Score: 4/10


You get a lot of noodle for your money. The flavouring is nothing special - a mild curry, but is edible enough.


Date: Jan 2016   Score:  4/10

Slight rebranding. These are quite edible. It's a warm spicy mild curry flavour. Piquant, but not scorching. Veggie. Doesn't say where they are made. Good value as you get a decent amount of noodles and enough flavouring to taste.

Date: Sept 2016   Score: 5/10

Nongshim Chicken Poulet Oolongmen

Bland floury noodles, and a murky undefined flavouring that is mainly MSG. This is an odd beast - it's not exactly ugly - you can eat it, but it's not terribly enjoyable as it's such poor quality, and so all over the place. It feels like they're really trying, but they just getting it all so wrong. This is a chicken noodle, but they use artificial chicken flour (mostly onion and MSG), so that sounds OK, but read on and there's dried fish cake added and - get this, there's textured soya lumps which look like meat and are flavoured with beef extract! WTF. You make a chicken product with artificial chicken and then put in artificial beef chunks flavoured with real beef. I'm confused as to the intention, but it's not 100% veggie for sure.

When I first had Nongshim I thought they were the dog's knees, the bee's bollocks, and everywhere in between. But I'm wondering of what I was reacting to was the hot spice rather than what was underneath it. Less spicy Nongshim products I've had have really revealed their weakness. The noodles are air-dried, so become tasteless flour paste. And the flavour combinations don't work as they are not clearly defined, and are too artificial.

This was edible, but only just, and it left me feeling dirty due to the high level of MSG. It has that effect on me - it leaves a greasy false taste in the mouth and a sense that the body has just been poisoned. It does have umami, but a very little goes a long way!

2/10

Nongshim

The best Chicken flavour noods

MAMA Instant Chand Noodles Beef Flavour (Pho Bo)

I love the flavour - good savoury, almost meaty taste with celery and coriander notes. All veggie. But I don't like the noodles. They are rice noodles, so are a bit hard and plastic. I am going to have to work out a good way to cook them because I bought a box of 30 for £3.90 from Tradewinds.

Date: July 2015  Score: 5

Pour on plenty of boiling water. Place in the microwave for 60 seconds. Mix in the two sachets, stir and eat. Yummy! The flavour is pleasantly savoury, without meat and without chilli. Cooked well, the rice noodles work. I enjoyed this.

Date: Sept 2015  Score: 8

MAMA's best

Beef flavoured

Golden Wonder The Nation's Pasta & Sauce Chicken & Mushroom Flavour

This requires a lot of cooking. Measure out milk, water and butter, and then boil, stir, simmer, time it, and stir, etc. It's not an instant meal. As it's British there's a lot of sticky floury sauce. Us Brits seems to like that. We love our stodge. Asian instant noodles are not stodgy. That's the main difference really.

This has no powdered chicken - the flavour comes from MSG. I like it. I like a bit of sticky stodge. I used a fair amount of butter so there's a nice buttery flavour.

So the flavour is nice, but there's just a little too much effort in making it.


Score: 4

***

The best Chicken flavour instant noodles

Symington's

A-One Ga Quay (Instant Noodles Bowl) Chicken Flavor

These are very tasty. Artificial chicken flavour, so no chickens were shredded, yet a good tasty chicken flavour. The veggie pieces work, This is a fresh tasting and sumptuous lunch. There is chilli, and while not hot, it's enough to make me prickle and sweat. I love this, and if it wasn't for the chilli, I'd be buying more of these. Almost perfect!

Score: 9

A-One

The best Chicken flavour instant noodles

A-One

A-One is brand owned by the Vietnam company Saigon Ve Wong Ltd.

A-One Ga Quay (Instant Noodles Bowl) Chicken Flavor

 Score: 9

A-One Instant Noodles Shrimp Flavor

Score: 7

A-One Pho Bo Beef Flavour Rice Noodles

 Score: 7

A-One Pho Tom Cua Instant Rice Noodles Shrimp & Crab Flavor

 Score: 3

A-One Instant Rice Noodles Chicken Flavor

 Score: 2

Pop Bihun Spesial Rasa Soto Ayam

Another Pop Bihun rice noodle. I cooked the noodles this time, following the instructions, and  used a little less water. Cooking the noodles releases a little too much starch for my taste. And using less water increases the impact of the flavour, which isn't necessarily a good thing. The initial taste is pleasant with sharp acidic peaks, hinting at lime, balanced with sweet and salty. Then it becomes a little too heavy and powdery and chemical. At that point I azdded more water to soften the impact, and make the experience more pleasurable. I did enjoy this, though on the whole felt it lacked backbone. I didn't use the chilli powder.

Contains "chicken flavour" which usually means it's not chicken.

The Pop brand is owned by Indofood, which is the largest noods company in Indonesia, with a 72% market share. Indofood also make the Indomie brand.


Score: 6/10

Pop Bihun Spesial Goreng Spesial

Rice noodles are my least favourite as they usually taste a bit plastic and empty. But these had an acceptable texture, and the sauce was very pleasant. Good savoury notes. The chilli sauce was piquant, but not overpowering. Onion and soy flavours, a good mix of sweet and salty. Nice. If the noodles had been wheat I would have loved this.

Contains artificial chicken flavouring, and no fish, so it's veggie.

The Pop brand is owned by Indofood, and is the largest noods company in Indonesia, with a 72% market share. Indofood also make the Indomie brand.

Date: June 2015  Score: 6/10

This is a yummy product. I found this at the bottom of my noodles cupboard, so it is seriously out of date, but still tasty. I didn't use the chilli, and am quite happy without it. Lots of savoury flavour, mostly onion, though also some peanut, which I have noted in other Indomie goreng noodles.

Veggie ingredients

Date: Feb 2017   Score: 5

Indomie noods

Best instant noodle chow mein

Nissin Teppan Yakisoba

I like these. Made the standard way, they create a decent meal. Good noodles - chewy and flavoursome. If boiled as suggested, they end up a soggy tasteless mush. The sauce is savoury without being too false tasting. Say sauce and a bit of onion, and some interesting zest. No animal ingredients. My only complaint is that there is a little too much chilli for my comfort. I can eat it, and it doesn't burn too much, but I do end up sweating, and my mouth is feeling a little too alive.

Though I enjoyed it, it's not one I will be rushing to buy again because of the chilli level.

Score: 7/10

Nifty Nissin noodles

Nissin Cup Noodle Prawn Flavour

These are great. The noodles are lovely - thin, fresh tasting, firm, but not stodgy. There's bits of veg, bits of soy meat, and whole shrimps (prawns). Plenty of flavour, yet not hot, not harsh, and not too artificial. It's in the thin soup style favoured by Asian noods, so may not be popular with all Brits, but I really like these. Yummy.

Date: Feb 2017    Score:  9

Awesome. Easy to make - simply pour on boiling water, stir and eat. No packets to mess with. And the taste is gorgeous. These are instant noodles? Wow! No meat - there is shrimp and egg (doesn't say free-range). The large lumps of what appears to be meat are textured soya.  I love this. I'm getting more.

Date: May 2015   Score: 9

Nifty Nissin noodles

Nissin Cup Noodle Seafood Flavour

Yummy soft and chewy noodles, just like fresh. Flavoursome with a sesame seed tang. The seafood flavour is mild, but attractively savoury. I love these. Top dog.

Date: April 2015   Score: 9     

Easy to make, and the finished product tastes fresh and yummy. Good mix of flavours and textures. It works. It simply works. Not stodgy like British noods, and not thin and hot like many Asian noods. This is in a class of its own.


Date: April 2018      Score: 9


Reviews
*RamenRater
*ReviewStream

Nifty Nissin noodles

Authentic Asia King Prawn Wonton Soup With Noodles

Our local Co-Op is closing, so they are selling off the stock. Picked up a couple of packs of this noodle soup made in Thailand for Authentic Asia - not really an instant noodle company, they sell frozen Asian meals, because this comes in a bowl like some instant noods, and has noodles, I thought I'd include it on my blog. I loved this. Nice lightly fragrant soup, with tasty soft noodles, and a pleasant king prawn delicately wrapped in a pasta skin. Worked very well.

Score: 7/10

Myojo Char Mee 100

Cooked by the directions the noodles are soft and mushy, cooked the usual soak and wait method the noodles retain some texture and character. Both ways the noodles are fairly bland. The sauce is nice - quite savoury with a bit of warmth. I like these.

Made by Nissin Foods (Asia) in Singapore. No meat, but does contain fish products.