Tasty Bite Asian Szechuan

We found little difference between this Szechuan stodge and the Kung Pao stodge. The Kung Pao had peanuts, and this had a bit of chilli heat, but both are just stodge. Szechuan cuisine is generally quite spicy.

Score: 3

Tasty Bite Asian Kung Pao

Easy to make, but not hugely satisfying. It's a bit of a mess really. Mostly dull stodge with some sugar. There's nothing genuinely flavoursome about it. You can eat it, but it's not the most pleasant snack you'll eat. Kung Pao is normally made with chicken, but this one is made with peanuts.

Score: 3

John West Creations Salmon With Giant Couscous & Lentils Harisso Spices

There is something pleasantly Moroccan tasting about this one. Like the Wild Rice & Lentils, it tastes fresh and wholesome, with a fascinating range of flavours and textures. A real treat to have now and again.

Score: 9

John West Creations Salmon With Wild Rice & Lentils Honey & Ginger

In the Noodle Bar household we don't always have noodles for lunch - sometimes we have a pub lunch, sometimes we have a sandwich, sometimes we have a soup, sometimes we have an instant packet of food that is not noodle based, like those Indian foil packets - they're nice. I picked these John West Creations up yesterday, and we tried them along with the Giant Couscous & Lentils pack. Very nice. It tastes like real food. It tastes fresh. There's a lot of flavours, and lots of things going on. There's texture and flavour, and something interesting going on. Really quick and easy to make. Much quicker than noodles. You can even eat them cold.

I really liked this Wild Rice. I loved the hints of garlic and ginger, and the sweetness of the honey. And I like the texture of the rice.  A very pleasant experience. The downside is that they cost £2 a packet.


Score: 10

Bachelors Super Noodles Fiery Vindaloo

If I can eat these then so can you. Super Noodles are no longer crap, they are now officially pretty decent. This is a warm and spicy job, but it aint vicious - you can eat these and still walk, talk, and shit.  There are noodles, there is flavour. Easy to make, and no dogs were harmed.


Score: 4

Super Noodles

Best curry flavour noodles

Tasty Bite Asian Toasted Sesame

We tried this side by side with the same company's Asian Pad Thai. We both preferred the Pad Thai. There is little actual sesame flavour - its mainly a vague savoury taste, a little dry, with some vegetable pieces more for vague texture than real flavour. It's  OK - I mean, it's edible, but that that interesting or yummy. You can eat it without complaint, but you don't derive much pleasure from it.

Score: 4/5

Instructions and ingredients

Tasty Bite Asian Pad Thai

I'd not seen these before, and they were on offer at my local Tesco, so I grabbed a few. Made in India in the form of those sealed Indian meals, except that these are non-Indian Asian dishes. I like the idea. You simply open the packet slightly, heat in the microwave for 60 seconds (actually needs longer as that doesn't quite get it warm enough, and then eat. Quicker and easier than the traditional dried instant noods, but also more expensive. Of the two we tried today I liked this one the most. It had a pleasant but vague savoury / tomato paste flavour with little pieces of vegetable and peanuts for texture and variety.  But we weren't overly impressed - certainly not enough to buy them again. Edible, but not that yummy. And while being moist, the overall impression was that it would benefit from more moisture.

Imported by Preferred Brands Ltd.  the Tasty Bites company was formed in 1995.

Score: 5

Nissin Demae Ramen Tokyo Soy Sauce

This is pretty close to perfection.  Easy to make. Delicious noodles, and a great flavour. And its all veggie. Nice one.

Score: 8

Nifty Nissin noodles

Ko-Lee Go Noodles Roast Chicken Flavour

This is pretty much perfection. Fairly easy to make, though it's hard to tell how much water to add, as the markings are on the outside of the cup, and you can't tell where the water level is inside as it is concealed by the noodles themselves - you are supposed to be able to do a snack and a soup version - mine sort of ended up somewhere in between! Anyway, fairly quick and easy to make, soft, tasty noodles, and a lovely roasty savoury flavour that is veggie. There's even little bits of veg and peas in it to give some texture and variety. Bang on. I love this.


Score: 9

Kohlico

The best Chicken flavour instant noodles

Nissin Demae Ramen Beef

Gosh this is really yummy. This is almost perfect - great noodles and great flavour, well balanced, everything in place, and nothing excessive. The only downside is that they killed  a baby cow to make this, then hacked it up, and ground down the bones to use to flavour this product. Madness. Made in Hungary. Nissin noods I've had made in Asia are veggie - but when made in USA and Europe they just have to kill animals or the consumers will start whining.


Score: 8

 

Highly salty. Noods are firm and wheaty - good stuff, as Asian noods usually are. There is a beefy flavour here, but you need to adjust the amount of water to suit your own taste - too little, and it tastes overbearing and salty; too little, and it tastes watery and wimpy. Contains beef fat and beef broth. 

Date: Nov 2022. Score: 6

Nifty Nissin noodles

Beef flavoured

MAMA Cup Shrimp Tom Yum

Oooh, this is tasty. Easy to make, and tasty. An Asian style noods, and damn fine, with a enticing and refreshing range of flavours - not stodgy and comforting like British noods. Sometimes British is what you want, and sometimes it's the za\ng ping pang of an Asian. I didn't put in too much of the hot sludge, so it was spicy but not brutal. I really liked this.

Score: 8

***

Most yummy Tom Yum

Mama's best

MAMA Cup Chicken Flavour

These are bang on. Easy to make, and even easier to eat. Great flavour, great texture, not too watery, not too stodgy, not too spicy. No dead chickens.  What's not to like. I could eat buckets of this stuff.  It even comes with its own fork, so you can take this camping, or to the office. All you need to do is find some hot water, and Bob's your uncle.

Score: 9

MAMA's best

The best (and worse) 
Chicken flavour noodles

Lucky Me! Instant Pancit Canton Hot Chili Flavour

I quite liked this. It wasn't as hot as I expected, and it had a pleasant savoury flavour enlivened with lime notes. I find I'm moving away from Asian type noodles, and preferring the stodgy British style, but even so I quite enjoyed this. Not top quality, but OK.


Score: 5

Lidl Curry V Sainsbury's Curry

In the last curry head to head I had Lidl up against Asda. There wasn't much in it, but as the Asda contained dead chicken (WTF!) I declared Lidl the winner. So this time we paired up Lidl against Sainsbury's. No contest. The Lidl was edible, but when switching to the Sainsbury's the difference was really noticeable. Pleasant juicy curry flavour which enliven the whole experience.

Winner: Sainsbury's!

Urban Noodle Street Food With Satay Sauce

These are yummy. The noodles are thick, soft, quite edible but a little too bland for my taste. The sauce is a pleasant if slightly sweet and one dimensional peanut butter experience. It comes in a waxed box, with two packets inside that are opened, mixed together, then warmed in the microwave. It works quite well. Not too time-consuming or fiddly. It's in some ways quicker and easier than boiling the kettle, pouring on the water, and waiting for three minutes.

This is an easy to eat and tasty product. I would have liked a bit more texture, and a bit more character and range of flavours. Put some lime in there to zing things up, for example. But it's OK. Easy of use, and soft easy eating pleasure gives this one a decent mark.

Urban Noodles are a product devised by Petty Wood.


Score: 7


* RamenRater 

Batchelors Super Noodles Steak Fajita

For years I've been saying that Super Noodles are crap, but either they are putting their pants on, or I'm growing up, because I'm starting to get it.

This is not crap, this is bang on tasty. Savoury in a sort of French onion stylee, with a wodge of spice that warms you up and fills your nose with mustard, but doesn't bloody sting like Asian chilli noodles do.

I like this - it has some of the oily sleaze and charm of a Pot Noodle on roller skates, being very stodgy British, yet has the bite of a Japanese poodle.

Go for it. It'll warm the heart of your cockles.


Score: 5

Super Noodles are crap

Rollton Instant Noodles Chicken Flavour

Bought in local East European shop. Veggie noodles made in Ukraine. Strong artificial flavouring - MSG (listed as E621). . Edible, and surprising British in nature. They are edible, but there's nothing particularly distinctive or satisfyingly pleasurable about them. I have no objections to trying them again, but there's nothing here to encourage me to go out and buy them again.


Score: 3

The best (and worse) Chicken flavour instant noodles

Rollton Instant Noodles Cheese & Bacon Flavour

Picked up from my local East European shop. I like these. All veggie, yet with a bacon flavour. Soft, edible noodles. Great fun, and an unusual flavour. More British in style than Asian, so it is comforting and not spicy.

Score: 5

Rollton Instant Noodles Beef Flavour

Got these from my local East European shop. Rollton is a brand of the Russian based Mareven Group, which have several factories in East Europe. The brand was launched 15 years ago, and seems to be successful, though this is the first time I've seen it.

It's quite edible, with pleasant soft noodles. Flavour is typical for artificial beef, quite forward, and a little MSG tinged (three E numbers). Appears to be all veggie. OK

Score: 4

Asda Chosen By You Chicken & Mushroom Flavour Noodle Snack

This is edible, but like most Asda noods it contains meat. Powdered chicken. I'm not buying any more.

Score: 3

ASDA Noodles 

Clucking chicken noodles

Wai Wai Oriental Flavour

This is the third Wai Wai noods I've had. Like the others I like the noodles, and I like the flavouring (this one is very yummy, with good onion flavours), but it's just a bit hot for my palate. It's not a sharp empty chilli heat such as I've encountered from some cheap Asian noods, this one is an integrated warmth that invigorates and enlivens the soup base. It's just too damn hot for me, so I sweat and burn, looking for water to cool my mouth down. If only they made a less hot version I would be a happy man!

Made in Thailand with veggie ingredients.

Date: Dec 2016  Score: 5

Tried again. Madness. Too freaking hot man!  And there's not much here. And the flavour really wasn't worth the burn.

Date: May 2017  Score: 1

Lucky Me! Pancit Canton Original Flavour

O dear. I've had some Lucky Me! in March last year and didn't like them. This is the original flavour (which some folks in the Philippines, where these noods are made, are complaining doesn't taste like the original flavour any more), and it's dreadful stuff. These are really among the worse noods I've had. The flavouring is unpleasant, and the noodles are like old string. The RamenRater guy likes them, but its each to their own, and I do notice that we don't have the same taste. I don't think it has anything to do with him getting sent free samples from the company.

Made by the Monde Nissin Corporation which was founded in the Philippines in 1980 by Betty Ang. There is "chicken flavour" but no actual meat. The name means stirred or fried noodles (pancit is noodles) which roughly translates as chow mein.

Score: 1

***

Best instant noodle chow mein

The best (and worse) 

Chicken flavour instant noodles

Tom Yum Taste Test - Nissin v Mama

I quite like Mama noods, and I also like Tom Yum, which is a thin, spicy soup that originated in Thailand, where Mama are based. The soup is typically flavoured with lemongrass, lime and chilli. My favourite Mama noods are their Tom Yum flavours.

My favourite noods company is Nissin, so when I picked up a packet of Nissin Demae Ramen Thai Tom Yum I thought it would be interesting to  compare my current favourite Tom Yum noods with a Tom Yum from my favourite noods company.

Quess what? Yes, Nissin won easily. The flavours were crisper, sharper, fresher and more natural tasting. The noodles were spot on. The combination of great flavouring with perfect noodles makes for a totally yummy mouth experience. The Mama Tom Yum, which up to that point had constantly thrilled me, seemed artificial, cloying and overpowering by contrast. By themselves they would still be very yummy, but when eaten straight after the Nissin noods, the difference is plain to taste.

Winner: Nissin Demae Ramen Thai Tom Yum

Nissin Demae Ramen Thai Tom Yum

MAMA Tom Yum Pork Flavour

Nissin Demae Ramen Thai Tom Yum

These are awesome. Nissin do what other noods companies can only dream and hope of doing. Nissin have the years of experience, knowledge and infrastructure to make the world's greatest instant noodles. This is perfect Tom Yum - warmly spicy, with exciting lime and lemongrass flavours, and the noodles are unbelievable - just the right balance of firmness and yielding softness, they have a satisfying texture, and are able to pick up and hold the sauce. Veggie.  I don't think it is possible to achieve a better instant version of Tom Yum noodles.

Score: 10

Most yummy Tom Yum

Nifty Nissin noodles

Triple Chicken Taste Test

We put these three cheap chicken chaps to the taste test face off today. Initially the Sunrise one tasted  just too full of crude MSG to really compare - that quickly fell by the wayside.  The normal Asda chicken is made in China with dead chickens so that didn't please anyone. Added to which, though it had a tender and subtle flavour, there was too much noodle to seasoning, so the overall impression was bland. That left the Asda Smart Price chicken, made in China - ah, also with dead chicken powder. So, I really need to remember to check Asda's noodles. At one time Asda was a good veggie supermarket, with its own range of Wot No Meat veggie meals. But they stopped doing that, and then cut back on the Linda McCartney veggie brand, so we stopped shopping there. I still have a fond soft spot for Asda, but I think things changed for the worse when they were taken over by the American owned Wal-Mart company.

Anyway, the Asda noods were a little bland, and contained chicken, so the MSG drenched Sunrise wins by a technical knock-out.


Golden Sunrise Instant Noodles Roast Chicken Flavour  Score: 3
Asda Chosen By You Chicken Flavour Noodles     Score: 3
Asda Smart Price Chicken Flavour Instant Noodles         Score: 2

The best (and worse) Chicken flavour instant noodles