Noodle flavour: Coconut. Well, "aromatic coconut broth" is on the packet It's hard to decide whether to take "Laksa" as a flavour. After some exhaustive research, I can tell you that Laksa could derive from the word "lakh" meaning a large number (A "lakh" in Hindi means 100,000) or it could come from "lakash", a Persian word for noodle or from the Mandarin Chinese word "lah sa" meaning "spicy sand" because it is hot and the ground flavourings give it a sandy texture. While, like Danny Zuko, we're fond of the idea of Sandy hotness, that one feels a bit of a reach. Anyhow, it's complicated.
Country of origin: Singapore! Look! It says it on the top of the pack:
Flavour packets: Two. And they're giant. They would win Biggest Flavour Packet of the Year award every single year at the World International Noodle Champs. Here they are. For scale, they're next to each other.
One of the gigantic paste packs holds red paste, the other seems to be a vast amount of dried coconut. It's a lot. See? Just like the Albino Film Awards in 1995, there's a lot of powder.
Overall: These are, in many ways, a postmodern noodle, in that they're incredibly hard to define, though, ahem, we do know more than sweet Foucault about them. For one thing, they're very expensive. They're £1.99, which almost makes them not an instant noodle. Who pays £1.99 for some instant noodles? I refuse to believe there's a group of people who believe that they're not getting value unless they pay more than this? Or maybe there are some people for whom the glamour of buying a more expensive noodle is the actual selling point?*
In flavour terms, initially they're nothing special. The soup is like a compilation of good songs featuring Eric Clapton - almost overpoweringly creamy. First the coconut hits you and then the spice kicks in, giving it a longer flavour than you'd expect. Things keep happening in your mouth**, there's chilli, lime, a mixture of spices, prawns, lemongrass and it smells great, just as international artiste Olivia Ong***, says here after cooking them in a Pyrex dish:
The noodles themselves don't live up to the generous shape of the Shin Ramyun, but they allow you to make like Armin Miewes, in that there's plenty of pulling while you bite.
When they're finished too, there's something undeniably satisfying about them. Like, um, Roses na' Guns, one of their best moments is destruction of appetite. Now, I pondered this for a long time. Was this psychosomatic****? Was the £1.99 price tag fooling my brain into feeling extra satisfied? Or did these noodles actually work as a meal? In order to be scientific, I ate them once again because writing a noodle blog is not easy (or relevant). And the conclusion I came to was: I still don't know****.
They're definitely quality noodles. I might buy them again, but I think it'd be mainly out of curiosity though I can't deny that they intrigue me and I may get pulled back into them. They're a curious, curious thing.
If these noodles were a crime novel they'd be: A signed first edition of a Donald E Westlake book that you already have.
Noodle rating: 4/5
* It turns out that in China at least, noodles may be a Giffen good, but they're certainly not a Veblen. See my definitive new economics thesis: Noodles: Giffen Not Veblen Goods.
** Do your own here.
*** She is actress and singer of albums such as A Girl Meets Bossa Nova and A Girl Meets Bossa Nova 2. Both of which are surprisingly pleasant.
**** Addict, insane.
***** But that's okay, isn't it? Not everything has to be either great or vile. In a world where it's increasingly obvious that everything is extremely complex, why is it people just want easy nuance-free stories in everything? I was wondering when reading a Guardians of the Galaxy picture book to my youngest son, if the narratives of good v evil are just harmful for us all.
How can you engage in any sort of critical thinking if you believe there are forces of pure evil in the galaxy? Obviously, you say, this is a child's picture book, so the ideas are necessarily simple and people grow out of this kind of monochromatic thinking. Well, having seen a Disney film called Star Wars take over my social media feed as the key cultural event for grown ups, I beg to differ. I've not looked and I refuse to look but I am 100% certain there are a lot of "Tories/Republicans are Darth Vader" memes out there to go along with some "Dems are people from Frozen" on 4chan. I thought we'd moved past this when we had the Sopranos and The Wire, where morality was all just a big mess but that moment seems to have passed and we're back to comics, superheroes and good v evil.
It's even worse because increasingly, people insist that everything is political, (ie, you can't like this comedian because her tweets are problematic/Taylor Swift didn't endorse Hillary until the last minute and therefore her music is somehow catchy tunes with lyrics which are a combination of Ayn Rand and Hitler) and so every large artefact is wary of actually including anything which may be difficult.
Obviously, you can say Star Wars is simple enjoyment, the same way that noodles are simple food and I'd say "noodles aren't simple, that's why I'm writing thousands of words on blogs about different nuances of a single pack". And you'd say: "Jesus, what a massive waste of time". And I'd have to agree.
Country of origin: Singapore! Look! It says it on the top of the pack:
Cooking instructions: Make like what a French Simpsons-hater's catchphrase and add "trop d'eau" and cook for seven minutes. Seven minutes. Seven minutes. Just think, it's possible that Youssou n'Dour got the inspiration for his hit song "Seven Seconds" by adapting these instructions and he should be sued for copyright by Prima Taste. Yes, that may sound absurd but no less absurd than cooking instant noodles for seven minutes.
Flavour packets: Two. And they're giant. They would win Biggest Flavour Packet of the Year award every single year at the World International Noodle Champs. Here they are. For scale, they're next to each other.
One of the gigantic paste packs holds red paste, the other seems to be a vast amount of dried coconut. It's a lot. See? Just like the Albino Film Awards in 1995, there's a lot of powder.
Overall: These are, in many ways, a postmodern noodle, in that they're incredibly hard to define, though, ahem, we do know more than sweet Foucault about them. For one thing, they're very expensive. They're £1.99, which almost makes them not an instant noodle. Who pays £1.99 for some instant noodles? I refuse to believe there's a group of people who believe that they're not getting value unless they pay more than this? Or maybe there are some people for whom the glamour of buying a more expensive noodle is the actual selling point?*
In flavour terms, initially they're nothing special. The soup is like a compilation of good songs featuring Eric Clapton - almost overpoweringly creamy. First the coconut hits you and then the spice kicks in, giving it a longer flavour than you'd expect. Things keep happening in your mouth**, there's chilli, lime, a mixture of spices, prawns, lemongrass and it smells great, just as international artiste Olivia Ong***, says here after cooking them in a Pyrex dish:
The noodles themselves don't live up to the generous shape of the Shin Ramyun, but they allow you to make like Armin Miewes, in that there's plenty of pulling while you bite.
When they're finished too, there's something undeniably satisfying about them. Like, um, Roses na' Guns, one of their best moments is destruction of appetite. Now, I pondered this for a long time. Was this psychosomatic****? Was the £1.99 price tag fooling my brain into feeling extra satisfied? Or did these noodles actually work as a meal? In order to be scientific, I ate them once again because writing a noodle blog is not easy (or relevant). And the conclusion I came to was: I still don't know****.
They're definitely quality noodles. I might buy them again, but I think it'd be mainly out of curiosity though I can't deny that they intrigue me and I may get pulled back into them. They're a curious, curious thing.
If these noodles were a crime novel they'd be: A signed first edition of a Donald E Westlake book that you already have.
Noodle rating: 4/5
* It turns out that in China at least, noodles may be a Giffen good, but they're certainly not a Veblen. See my definitive new economics thesis: Noodles: Giffen Not Veblen Goods.
** Do your own here.
*** She is actress and singer of albums such as A Girl Meets Bossa Nova and A Girl Meets Bossa Nova 2. Both of which are surprisingly pleasant.
**** Addict, insane.
***** But that's okay, isn't it? Not everything has to be either great or vile. In a world where it's increasingly obvious that everything is extremely complex, why is it people just want easy nuance-free stories in everything? I was wondering when reading a Guardians of the Galaxy picture book to my youngest son, if the narratives of good v evil are just harmful for us all.
How can you engage in any sort of critical thinking if you believe there are forces of pure evil in the galaxy? Obviously, you say, this is a child's picture book, so the ideas are necessarily simple and people grow out of this kind of monochromatic thinking. Well, having seen a Disney film called Star Wars take over my social media feed as the key cultural event for grown ups, I beg to differ. I've not looked and I refuse to look but I am 100% certain there are a lot of "Tories/Republicans are Darth Vader" memes out there to go along with some "Dems are people from Frozen" on 4chan. I thought we'd moved past this when we had the Sopranos and The Wire, where morality was all just a big mess but that moment seems to have passed and we're back to comics, superheroes and good v evil.
It's even worse because increasingly, people insist that everything is political, (ie, you can't like this comedian because her tweets are problematic/Taylor Swift didn't endorse Hillary until the last minute and therefore her music is somehow catchy tunes with lyrics which are a combination of Ayn Rand and Hitler) and so every large artefact is wary of actually including anything which may be difficult.
Obviously, you can say Star Wars is simple enjoyment, the same way that noodles are simple food and I'd say "noodles aren't simple, that's why I'm writing thousands of words on blogs about different nuances of a single pack". And you'd say: "Jesus, what a massive waste of time". And I'd have to agree.
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