#439: Little Cook Tom Yum Seafood Premium Noodle

So the idea of a seafood noodle soup with fake seafood has been kind of daunting for the past couple monthsHowever, today was the day. I must fear no ramen! So, here we have some seafood tom yum fromThialand.

Nice earthy colors from left to right: dry seasoning powder, seasoned oil paste and finally chili powder.

Then we’ve got a retort pouch!

It’s full of fake seafood – looks like it’s made from tapioca and other things. There appear to be mushrooms in there too according to the ingredients.

Wow now that’s a crazy looking pile of packet contents. Should be interesting…

Added a couple fried eggs. So here we are. The noodles are of a wider gauge – broad and flat and actually quite good. The broth is flavorful – spicy and lemonny. As for the fake seafood, it’s not bad. However the mushrooms are kind of funky – I had one larger piece that was almost the consistency of a carrot. So this was pretty good stuff I’ll admit and I’m kind of pleased I have two of them. Giving this one a 3.0 out of 5.0 stars. Get it here.

#326: Namchow Little Cook Instant Noodles TVP Curry Chicken Flavoured

So here’s another of the big ole Little Cook bowls. I would like to say first that curried chicken is one of the favorite things of mine. Let’s see if it’s good.

Here’s the side – yeah its big.

A little packet with some curry soup base seasoning.

Hooray for retort pouch! Full of sauce and vegetables!

Revolutionary and amazing!

Here’s the block of noodles with the curry soup base.

The finished product. Okay first off the pouch contained some interesting stuff. It looks like those little brown round things are supposed to be chicken chunks, although its gotta be textured vegetable protein. The broth is excellent – nice curry flavor for sure. The noodles aren’t bad – nothing special. The veggies are okay too but kind of wish there had been more. Long story short, I liked it! 4.0 out of 5.0 stars.

Jamaican Curry Chicken! Next, your weird video of the day…

#325: Namchow Mee-Jang Artificial Pork Flavor Instant Noodles

So some noodles from Thailand. I have no idea what to expect from this one… Let’s see what’s inside…

Looks like the deisgn that was on the Little Cook packet I last tried. Powder on the left, seasoned oil on the right.

Whoa – greenish oil and brownish powder! Hope it sits well…

The finished product. Noodles are like cup noodles. The broth is salty and a little spicy. A bit of the stewed pork flavor there, a bit of veg. I liked it – 3.5 out of 5.0 stars. Find it here.

We’re going to start with some amazing Canadian pork… Would’ve liked to have found a Namchow vid but ya know.

Here’s some TV ads from 1974 from the UK…

#321: Little Cook Spicy Beef Flavor

So this looks really interesting. Upon tearing off the outer cellophane, i notice that where it says NEW TVP SPICY BEEF FLAVOR is actually a sticker. In fact, on the sides there were stickers as well – ingredients, nutrition facts and direction on preparation.

My Spidey Senses were tingling. I took the lid off of the bowl and held it up to my swing arm lamp. Lo and behold, hidden by the NEW TVP SPICY BEEF sticker were the sacred words ‘with Real Meat.’

The bowl contained two packets – first a small one containing some bit of veg and some soup base very much smelling and tasting like curry.

Then, the retort pouch – something I have not seen since my youth. What is funny is that its exactly the same as it was when I was a kid – same size, lettering and everything. So this means there’s some sauce and possibly some decent veg and meat going on inside. Thing is that from seeing what it said underneath the sticker on top and reading the ingredients sticker, I was not going to find any meat in this sucker.

Ah yes – don’t use this if its punctured or oozing everywhere.

There’s the curry like soup base atop the noodles. See the line? That’s the boiling water line! I was floored – it asks for so much…

But I obliged it to a degree; it said to leave the lid attached and use the Retort Pouch to hold it down as the noodles ‘cooked.’ I decided of course to go the sane route and use an old Tower of Power record.

Here we are – the finished product. First, the noodles are great – nice texture and firmness. The broth is spicy and beef-like and very curry. Finally the textured vegetable protein fake meat things that are found here and there are really weird but interesting and flavorful too. In short, this whole things is a smorgasbord of oddities tat I find irresistable. 4.75 out of 5.0 stars! Little Cook is the man!