Re-Review: Meet The Manufacturer: Sakurai Foods 100% Vegetarian Miso Flavor

Today is the last of the Sakurai Foods Meet The Manufacturer. I have enjoyed trying such a great range of products from Japan! We finish with the one that made this Meet The Manufacturer happen. I email lots of instant noodle manufacturers, trying to get Meet The Manufacturer interviews to happen. I hadn’t contacted Sakurai Foods before and gave it a shot. Here’s my re-review of their miso vegetarian flavor.

Back of the packaging (click image to enlarge).

The noodle block.

Powder seasoning.

The powder has a nice taste – miso and an almost buttery component.

Finished (click image to enlarge). Added onion, green onion, sweet corn, kizami shoga (pickled ginger and Urashima Sesame & Salt furikake. The noodles are good – soft and plentiful. The broth has a nice heartiness while light at the same time. Not an overwhelming flavor but delicate and balanced. Very good! 4.5 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 4960813312959.

#958: Meet The Manufacturer: Sakurai Foods Soy Sauce Ramen (Bowl)

Here’s the second of the two Bowls that Sakurai Foods sent. From what I gather from their website, these are their newest products. The bowls are recycles sugar came fibers! Has an interesting feel to it. Let’s check out this second bowl, this time, soy sauce flavor!

Here are the information panels from the sides of the bowl (click image to enlarge).

The noodle block. It has flour sourced from Hokkaido and potato starch.

The packet of powdered seasoning.

Tasty stuff – deep flavor as I’ve become used to with this brand.

The vegetable packet.

A very nice variety of vegetables.

Finished (click image to enlarge). Added green onions. The noodles are nice – again, a good chew and consistency. The broth has a nice soy taste and delivers a nice warmth. The veggies and other bits are great – thew nori (seaweed) is especially good and gives a seafood taste that weaves throughout the meal. Excellent! 4.25 out of 5.0 stars.UPC bar code 4960813332612

A drive around Minokamo Gifu – looks like a really interesting place!

Re-Review: Meet The Manufacturer: Paldo Gomtang Oriental Style Noodles With Soup Base

How often do you see Korean instant noodles that aren’t spicy? Well, here’s one of those rare times. Pronounced Gohm-tahng (thanks Moses from Paldo America!), this is a traditional beef noodle soup.

Package back.

Noodle block broke in half – no worries!

A single packet – no veggies in this one.

Lots of seasoning powder. It has a strong sweet and garlic scent that I found very enticing.

Finished. Added some roast beef lunch meat and a little Krazy Mixed Up Salt. This was great! The noodles are a little different – I noticed they include a little rice powder in the mix and I think that’s why they have a slightly chewier texture. I also noticed as the noodles cooked, the broth was getting a creamy white color. The broth is wonderful. The flavor is a sweet, beefy and garlicky melange that is very pleasing. This isn’t a spicy one either. Very good – 4.75 out of 5.0 stars! Delicious! UPC bar code 648436100149 – get it here.

Another vintage Paldo commercial

How to make Korean Gomtang

 

#634: Baijia Sichuan Hot Pot Flavor Instant Sweet Potato Thread

This one was sent by Michelle L. of New York! Unfortunately, for this one I have exceedingly low expectations. Every Baijia product I’ve tried has been just plain gross in my opinion.

The side panels.

Hey – a fork!

Thick liquid seasoning starting on left, powder seasoning in the middle and finally beans on the right.

Otis Pug and Daisy Pug are out cold…

So they cannot be held responsible for that vile looking thing.

Finished. While this was pretty horrible, it wasn’t as horrible as I expected. First, the noodles were not too bad themselves; they weren’t as clumpy as usual. The broth was all but gone and the bean things were as funky and odd as always. The problem as with all of the Baijia products I’ve tried thus far was the flavor. First, it’s spicy – nothing wrong with that, but it’s like a ridiculously strong black pepper kind of spicy. Also, it’s very salty  too. All in all, I felt a little funky after eating a couple of bites – I deem this non-palatable. 0.5 out of 5.0 stars. UPC barcode 6926410321341 – get the pack version here.

That’s more like it!

Yeah that’s a lot of saice!

#69: Baijia Instant Sweet Potato Noodle Spicy Fei-Chang Flavor

Since these noodles are Chinese, I thought I’d include our pugs in on cooking them. They were extremely helpful with the preparation.

So Here we go – notice the pugs in the background. I thought sweet potato noodles sounded fascinating.

So this looks a little worrisome. Very dark noodles and three packets – one with a very fine powder and the other two – one with seasoned fat and the other was some form of hot pepper paste – but it was based with some form of greasy nastiness.

So here’s the finished product. It reminds me of gravy. However, not the kind of gravy I usually enjoy – like the stuff you can get on mashed potatoes at KFC. No, this is a mean gravy.
The noodles were too hot to eat until about 8 minutes after cooking. The broth was sucked up by the noodles and turned into a Jell-O like consistency. Very greasy concoction. It really is the kind of food that if I ate the whole bowl, I’d require an altogether new meal to ingest as to recover from the sheer work of eating this stuff.
Although rather nasty (I don’t honestly think people should eat this), it does certainly seem bizarre and I like bizarre. I’m going to say Fei-Chang means ‘dirt and urine.’
So let me just rate this ramen and get it over with. The official ramenrater.com rating here is 1.75 out of 5 stars. Gross. Just gross.