I'm back with more instant noodles from China. It's unfortunate that I can't read any of the characters but the flavor: Spicy Pork Bone.
I wish they have some
pinyi attached to the packaging. This way I can only say to people "I bought a Chinese-brand instant noodle. Anyone who can read it, please let me know what the brand is called :)
The portion was kind of big. The noodle's thickness was average, perhaps slightly thinner than average. The seasonings were well packed. The red packet contains non-dehydrated chili in oil, vacuum packed in aluminum. It's quite a high quality packaging. There was the oil-based seasoning (at current temperature in the Netherlands I'd say it's fat-based rather than oil-based) and about 25-35% of what's inside the package was fats. And then lastly there was powder seasoning. Of all three, the powder seasoning had the lowest grade of packaging material.
Verdict? Spicy. Really spicy. I think this is spicier than Shin Ramyun. It's a little sour, but not to the point I'd call this hot and sour soup. The noodle was surprisingly chewy despite the rather thin appearance.
You can't really tell from this picture, but once I started stirring the chili and oil into the noodle, the soup became pretty thick (pickering emulsion - too much fat droplets makes the soup thick - learnt that in class last period). I can taste the pork bone flavor, which is great. I think overall this instant noodle had great flavor - if it could be a little less oily. A lot of spicy Chinese food relies on chili oil if not the chili pepper itself (all Sichuan foods are oily, as far as I know). I guess that makes Chinese spicy flavor delivery its uniqueness.
And oh, there was no cooking instruction on the package. Either that, or the annoying translated label covered it.
Reading this makes me think more about the use of palm oil in instant noodles. Palm oil production has been considered not nature-friendly because making oil palm plantation costs massive area of forest and its habitats. Palm oil has also about 50% saturated fats, which is one of the risk factors of cardiovascular disease (just learned that in class!).
And actually there was another story to tell about this. I'm not 100% sure that this instant noodle was the real culprit, but later on the same day I had this instant noodle for lunch, I suffered from serious fat maldigestion. I don't really want to talk about the symptoms because it's pretty... disgusting. If you are interested to know, just Google it, or you can read it
here. It's pretty ironic because the morning before I had this instant noodle I just learned everything about fat maldigestion in class. And 5 hours later, I had a first-hand experience suffering fat maldigestion.
I hoped to see a nutrition content label on the packaging but I couldn't find it. But I really think the amount of fats in this instant noodle was pretty absurd.
Will I buy it again? No, thanks. I don't want to risk myself suffering another fat maldigestion. It was a horrible 2-day experience.
