Neoguri Ramyun

Noodle flavour: Seafood & Mild. If you have assumed here that they mean, mild as in "not spicy" rather than "mild" as in "half a pint of the British beer called 'mild'" because a) no one drinks mild any more and b) Nongshim have a spicy version of this noodle. That said, it's a misnomer anyhow as like a middle-aged MOR rock fan, they still have enough chilli peppers* to keep kids from liking them.

Country of origin: Korea, S.

Cooking instructions: Like a hesitant man telling the former England cricket captain he's boring on about the inventor of the steam engine:  Too much watt, er, Cook. 

Flavour packets: Two and, get this, some dried seaweed! It's a solid block, which looks and feels so much like plastic, I wonder if it's part of some kind of machinery that's fallen in by accident. After a tentative sniff and lick, I can clear it as part of the flavouring for the noodles, which is of course massive news for this blog.

Never before have we seen solid seaweed flavouring. Never. People have in the past, dismissed this blog (no one important, you understand, just mums at the school gates, trolls on facebook and my entire family) as a misguided waste of time but... have they ever come across solid seaweed flavouring in a pack of noodles? Or indeed found solid seaweed flavouring in any type of food at all?

From now on those people, and you, will know what to do if you run into solid seaweed flavouring: add it in to whatever you are cooking.

Now, solid seaweed flavouring might not seem a lot. But what we have here is what internet experts like to call "a niche on the long tail". This is the only website that has any sort of discussion of solid seaweed flavouring on the web. That means a massive boost to numbers when people start catching on and using the Ask Jeeves website to search for "what is solid seaweed flavouring"?  Soon it's all over instagram, then twitter and they all link back to here.

Solid seaweed flavouring can move this blog on to being the important, money-making writing operation that it surely deserves to be.  Surely it can't be long before we're chatting on hit post-Brexit TV show: Rick Stein's Seven Sisters Road Journey.

"Yes, Rick, I find that covering my Christmas turkey in solid seaweed flavouring adds a certain 'wow' factor that brining just didn't get me before.

"Now, yes, let's go to the weird desperate-to-be-a-café Post Office to sample some of what the locals like to call 'prepared-from-frozen Viennoiserie'. Actually, they don't really use that term, per se, that's more my terminology and I'd never actually say it out loud, obviously.  But anyhow, what's specific to this location, and ha ha, yes, it is very funny, what is unique about here is that the croissants are absolutely identical to ones you get in 70% of cafés in London. That's why I add some solid seaweed flavouring to them..."

Overall:  Solid seaweed flavouring! Solid seaweed flavouring! Solid seaweed flavouring! Solid seaweed flavouring!Solid seaweed flavouring!Solid seaweed flavouring!Solid seaweed flavouring!Solid seaweed flavouring!

It had no impact and these noodles were absolutely fine.

If these noodles were a crime novel they'd be: One of those Sherlock Holmes ones where you've got no chance of guessing the criminal because it's some made up Conan Doyle nonsense that Holmes only knows because of his "expertise". "It was the five orange stripes on the body, Watson.  Why five stripes are a well-known threat used by the Venezuelan Masons. As soon as I saw them on the body, I knew I was looking for a Venezuelan with a rolled up trouser leg..."

Noodle rating: 3/5


* Did you know? Even if you don't ever listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers they can still annoy you by the way they spell their name?