The Shirakiku label is a highly respected quality namesake in foods from Japan on many top products.

Nong Shim, a renowned Korean brand, has a well deserved reputation for making quality products with a hearty Korean taste which tend to be slightly peppery even if not labeled as hot and/or spicy. Its dehydrated soup mixes often contain nice distinct pieces of shitake mushroom, and other fine traditional ingredients.

Myojo’s Chukazanmai premium label brand has one of the best made instant noodle, an air dried deep yellow noodle with excellent bite texture and short cooking time to boost. In almost every aspects, this product line is the gold standard. Both in and out of the package, its premium quality is readily apparent, a very well packaged product with rarely any noticeable breakages inside.

Of all the Thai brands that I have tried, MAMA is the most reputable and has a very broad product line, including instant rice bowls. Some of its new products have fancy English packagings. One of the main signature style that defines Thai flavor is its really hot and sour taste in some of its instant noodles.

While VIFON is not well known outside of its ethnic market, its Vietnamese brand instant rice noodles are usually very tasty and rice noodles themselves are both fat-free and gluten-free. It’s instant bowls with fish actually have delicious mild flavored fish pieces in sauce that comes in a large special pouch for wet-sealed ingredients. This brand doesn’t have fancy packages, but its prices are a real bargain.

While Japan makes the most instant noodles, most items are not available here. Part of the reason is the import restriction on meat products from Japan. Another is that its domestic market is much more profitable and discerning, and high-priced items have not made much inroad aboard.

Japanese and Korean brands make up most of the popular items sold here and are reputedly some of the best. Korean brands are usually spicy, while Japanese brands have more refined tastes.

The Chinese and other regional brands are confined in this market to Asians and generally have deficencies in English labelings. Good products from these regions including China, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are very worthwhile trying.

Although bowl/cup noodles are more easy to prepare than the pack noodle types, because of the lower heat requirement, the noodles can lack the characteristic chewiness so esteemed in noodles boiled in hot water on the stove. The quick-soft instant noodles in some types tend to soaked up the soup sauce, meaning that you less of an option to avoid consuming the seasoning.

When eating the smaller cup type, it cools down too quickly toward the bottom of the cup, not the same experience as eating a bowl of noodle with lot of hot soup.

Overall, I like the character and quality of noodles that require cooking on the stove. The higher heat also bring out more natural flavors and aroma from the ingredients. On the other hand, there are more expensive products with bowl or container, which have premium ingredients and extras. Also, the sealed moist noodles packagings are breaking the mode and starting to offer new tastes and textures.

Regular Asian instant noodles are fried to remove moisture and have more fat. Nonfrying noodle types are air dried and have differences with other types.

Samyang’s nonfrying Korean cut noodle is a good recommendation that typify this category. It is low fat and has a good bite in the center. The one drawback is that it takes longer to cook than regular instant noodles, but it’s worth the wait.

Unfortunately, even the best companies such as Nong Shim can have manufacturing issues between each production batch of the same package of instant noodle made. If you like a particular instant noodle item, consider buying up a few from the same place before it runs out. The next batch may be different for the better or worst. There are a number of instances where my reviews have been adjusted to reflect changes in the product’s qualities at later times.