#846: Vifon Mi Kim Chi Kim Chee Instant Noodle Seafood Flavour

My friend Todd T, clued me in the other day about a new Asian grocery on 99 in south Everett and we checked it out. Well, I found this interesting one. Vietnamese kimchi ramn! Check it out!

Importer sticker.

Back of the package. Click to enlarge.

The noodle block.

Seasoning powder.

Chili powder.

Chili powder on top of the seasoning powder.

Seasoned oil.

Lots of little bits in there.

Veggie packet.

Looks like veggies and seafood – smells like seafood at least.

I want to take a minute to talk about kimchi. As you can see, I like it! Got this jar maybe three weeks ago. Basically, it’s cabbage and a couple other things like onion, green onion, salt, anchovy soup broth and chili paste. The recipe differs from person to person that makes it, but from what I’ve seen it’s usually pretty close to that.

I knew I wanted to buy some, but I had no idea which one to get. If you go to an Asian grocery, you’ll find a lot of different kinds and brands. I found this one at a place called KS Mart in the Lynnwood, Washington area. KS Mart is awesome – they’ve got everything you could need that is Korean – great instant noodle selection, veggies, candy and chips – if you’re in the area, this is great! Anyways, We went there and got a small amount, then the next time we were hooked and got this enormous one. Check out the price – not too bad for so much of it! This would be considered ‘store brand.’Just seems fresher, which is kind of a funny thing to say…

See, when you get a big jar like this, you should first off know that the contents are going through the process of fermentation. The jar should be opened over a sink to prevent any of the ‘juice’ from spilling out – which I’ll let you know will stain your clothes really well! It’s pretty neat to see though; the top of the stuff can even be bubbling from the gases escaping! It’s not like a vigorously shaken soda or anything, but you should just be mindful of it.

What’s it taste like? Well, it’s crunchy, a bit spicy, kind of acidic and just really good. I highly recommend it!It’s on the list of top healthy foods of the world. Koreans eat it as a traditional food – usually with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Anyways, that was my yammering about kimchi. Now, on with the noodles!

Finished. Added some kimchi, onions, odeng (Korean fish cake), Ajishima Kimchi Furikake and Huy Fong Sriracha chili sauce. The noodles are very thin and light for wheat flour noodles and exceedingly good! The broth is excellent – spicy and flavorful with a lot of color. The veggies were good too – and the bit and pieces re-hydrated well and crunchy! Good stuff – 3.75 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 8934561240181 – get it here.

Vifon TV commercial

Center for Research and Development of National Music. Hanoi, Vietnam – tranditional Vietnamese music

#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

 

#583: Vifon Phu Gia Mien Cua Crab Flavor Instant Bean Thread

Crab flavoed bean thread from Vifon eh? Sure why not.

Back of the package…

Three packets! This should be really good compared to the last four I’ve reviewed today!

Here’s everything in the bowl. Then I read like the Baijia sweet potato thread, this stuff steeps in the bowl so the bean thread went on top and then 400mL of boiling wawa.

Here we are. I forgot it was bean thread. I had such high hopes. Well, if you like bean thread, you’ll be in gelatinous hard-to-eat noodle heaven. But if you’re like me, you’ll be disappointed. It’s like torture for me with this one because the broth and veggies are both extremely good – a very nice crab flavor and the little swirly bits floating around. But, the noodles MUST be palatable for any of these to work in my opinion and bean thread here is just too tough to swallow. 2.25 out of 5.0 stars.

Looks like an interesting documentary…

 

#426: Vifon Tứ Quý Mì Ga Ngu Vi Chicken Flavor Instant Noodle

So here’s another of the Vifon Tứ Quý packs I got on my birthday. Chicken eh? Sounds basic… Hmmm.

Two packets – the soup base on the left and the seasoned oil on the right.

The oil has a very strong aroma but not of sesame as one would imagine.

With two fried eggs. So this was halfway decent stuff. The noodles were of a dcenet quality and flavor. The broth was okay… It’s just that everything kind of had this almost sweet basil flavor, but it seemed rather fake. I don’t know what it was to be honest but it kind of overwhelmed everything and I believe it was in the oil packet. From looking zat the ingredients there are some interesting things going on such as star anise and chinese yam. Anyways, it seemed to distract from it being a chicken instant noodle. 3.0 out of 5.0 stars.

How to make mozzarella cheese

#422: Vifon Mì Lẩu Thái Thai Style Instant Noodle

This one’s been sitting in the bottom of the ramen box for quite a while now. Wondered how they would be – spicy? Salty? Nasty? Thready? Well, let’s open them and find out!

Well for one thing its full of packets – and a fork! Fork update! As far as the packets go, going clockwise from the top left we have (according to the package) a Citronella & Gallingale packet, soup base, vegetables and seasoned oil.

Nice colors atop the noodle block. The block is made of fried pre-seasoned noodles that could be eaten by themselves as almost all of the wheat flour based noodles I’ve had from Thailand are.

Added a couple lightly fried eggs. Very good stuff! The noodles and broth reminded me a bit of Tom Yum flavor, just not as strong. The noodles were tasty and the veggies were too. The soup was not greasy at all – in fact it was very light – not what I expected at all. I was tasty yet delicate. The eggs atop lent a broken yolk heartiness to the broth and some bulk. A fine breakfast. 4.0 out of 5.0 stars.