Noodle flavour: It's written at the top as "Shrimp (Tom Yum)". There's something very satisfying about that "Tom Yum" in brackets. All the most excellent song titles which all have parentheses: Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) or Everybody (Backstreet's Back), (Everything I do) I Do It For You, Sometimes (Lester Piggot), Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To be A Long, Long Time) and Shrimp (Tom Yum). I also like to read it as an aside to the high-level Asian food lover. It's shrimp flavour to all the arrivistes, but <you> would say it had a Tom Yum* base.
Country of origin: Mama are made by the President Foods Corporation of Thailand, which has been serving up instant noodles since, ah yes, let me check because I think it's going to be a long, long time time, it's been since 1972. They also have a rice brand called "President Rice" which I think is a political concept we can all get behind.
Flavour packets: Three. One conjoined chilli and soup base and one dark but very thin soy sauce. I prefer a more viscous soy, personally.
Cooking instructions: Add what the Basques would say was "ur gehiegi", and boil for a bit. Really can't be bothered with this topic any more. Isn't it strange how much inertia can set in when it comes to removing categories on noodle review blogs? Sometimes I can really understand why politics might be quite hard, I mean, I can't even bring myself to remove this wholly pointless category, what would I be like in the unlikely event that I was asked to set VAT rates?
Overall: This is a small pack of noodles. It is possible that you (can't get no) satisfaction from them. Unlike Shin Ramyun, for example, these do not feel like a full meal and so like a clock necklace shop in the late 1980s, they rely a lot on Flava. And you can't deny that they pack a lot in there. There's a lot of salty, sweet and sour going on with a touch of lemongrass. As a result, the broth is excellent.
The noodles, less so. They're too thin and also have a slight papier-maché texture, which just isn't great. But while this is a bit like that joke, "'Food terrible.' 'I know and such small portions...' " because the soup is so very good, you just wish there was more of them.
Similarly paradoxically, because of their size and flavour, as amuse-bouche noodle soup these would be excellent. But an amuse-bouche noodle soup would be bad. So there we go.
If these noodles were a crime novel they'd be: Something by Pascal Garnier, probably.
Noodle rating: 3/5
* From some brief research, Tom Yum is a hot sour recipe made from a base of crushed lemongrass, lime leaves and juice and chillies. Everyone claims to have a recipe and all of them are totally authentic. This reminds me of a big argument on micr0-blogging website twitter.com about Chicken Katsu and how important it is that it remains authentic, which one day I may wade into because it's really important the world has more opinions.
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