#716: Vifon Hủ Tiếu Cá Asian Style Rice Noodles With Stewed Fish

Stewed fish huh? Found this one at Uwajimaya in Seattle around my birthday. It says there’s fish in there… Hmmm.

Here’s a closeup of the text on the top. Basa fish it says… Hmmm… What’s Basa fish? Well, Wikipedia says:

The basa fish, Pangasius bocourti, is a type of catfish in the family Pangasiidae. Basa are native to the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam and Chao Phraya basin in Thailand.^[1] These fish are important food fish with an international market. They are often labeled in North America and Australia as “basa fish” or “bocourti”.^[2] In the UK, the species is known mainly as “river cobbler”,^[3] with “basa” also being used on occasion. In Europe, these fish are commonly marketed as “pangasius” or “panga“.^[4] Other related shark catfish may occasionally be falsely labeled as basa fish, including Pangasianodon hypophthalmus (iridescent shark) and Pangasius pangasius (yellowtail catfish).

Wow – that’s interesting! So its like catfish eh? Here’s a link to the full Wikipedia article.

Kind of looks like a bunch of tape! This is going to be an interesting bowl of noodles!

Hey – an included fork! Already found one of these in another Vifon bowl a while back.

Here’s some powdered seasoning.

Very light powder.

Veggie packet.

Onions and such.

A retort pouch! I’m really curious how this will go here. .. Well, only one way to find out!

Finished and left it as-is. So these noodles – they have to be the broadest rice noodles I’ve ever seen – pretty amazing that they stay together being so wide and thin! They’re not too chewy and no mushy either. The broth is very interesting – kind of salty and kind of buttery – but absolutely not fishy. It’s got a thickness to it – not an overly greasy kind of thickness either. Lots of green onion bits here and there – they look nice and maybe add a little flavor to the broth. The Basa fish? Well, there’s not a huge amount of it but it’s good – not really fishy at all – like a whitefish. I will say that I do like Vietnamese catfish instant noodles! Unique, different and pretty good! 3.75 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 8934561260325 – get it here!

This is how I react when I see Asian groceries…

An informational video about Vietnamese catfish farming

 

#354: Maruchan Instant Lunch Chicken Flavor 35% Less Sodium Ramen Noodles With Vegetables

Here’s another new one brought from California by my lovely lady. Thanks, Kit! On with the review!

Okay first off… ‘this product contains 660mg of sodium versus 1170mg for our regular product.’ What I’d like to know is why it says 735mb of sodium on the cardboard package them. I just looked at Nissin’s Hearty Chicken Cup Noodle and it has like 40mg more than this one. Weird.

Looks like a nice amount of veggies and seasoning…

The finished product. So I think this stuff could use a little salt. It had a bit of a buttery flavor to it actually; kind of strange. Not bad though. 3.0 out of 5.0 stars.

I found this extremely annoying. Hopefully the CFCs from the styro finishes him off.

However I found this to be wonderful – sit. Stay. Longer.