*Snacks :: Traditional | »

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KAJ’s Mango Slices. Packed in Hawaii, the premium sweet ripe dried mango is from Thailand. These more tender deep orange colored mango slices has a natural sweet fruity mango taste that’s very “tropical.”

The delicious sweet flavor is almost reminiscent of fancy ripe Hawaii pinneapple with those aromatic notes and it’s very mango in flavor with a delicate tartness like in a fine mandarin orange flavor. Sometime, there is a delicous overtone of intricate sour tartness near the outer rind which I loved, but not all packages will have it.

A fine ripen mango is truly indescribably delicious and consider it as fortunate if you had such an experience, because fruits sold today rarely are of the quality to develop its full range of flavors. KAJ’s mango slices have just enough of that intricate ripe mango tastes to exhilarate your palate!

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*Snacks :: Chocolate | »

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Meiji Apollo Chocolate - Strawberry. Shaped like a tiny umbrella parasol with a dark chocolate bottom and a pink strawberry flavored top half, it has an icy sweet rich strawberry taste together with a strong cocoa taste. When you first open the box, there’s a nice swiff of strawberry aroma.

It’s like Hershey Kisses in texture. If you let the strawberry half melts slowly in the back of your mouth, you can taste the flavorful tartness of real dried strawberry.

I wonder if the “Apollo” brand has anything to do with its resemblance to the Apollo space capsule.

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*Snacks :: Traditional | »

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KAJ’s Red Ginger, sweetened ginger. Marketed in Hawaii, the sweetened ginger is from Singapore. While there’s no pepper, fresh ginger has its own sharp pungent flavor very much like hot pepper. It’s fingers licking good.

These ginger strips have the most succulent moist smooth-texture of any ginger preserve that I had, almost like fresh semi-ripen mango. It has a sharp sweet spicy taste that linger with a warm burning sensation all the way down and clear your nose a bit too! It’s an intense exotic flavor that is like a blends of a very sweet, flavorfully salted and tangy crisp tropical fruit preserve with the sharp heat of hot pepper.

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*Snacks :: Chips | »

“mild” Well spiced.

Baby Star Crispy Noodle Snack - spicy flavored. The snack looked like short pieces of brown curly toasted noodles. It has a very crunchy biscuit texture like very thin pretzels but also tasted kind of like spicy barbarque flavored potato chips with a note of soy sauce and anchovy. You can eat it as a snack or use it as topping for salads, soups & more. This is a perfect snack to go with beer!

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*Snacks :: Traditional | »

Takaokaya Teriyaki Nori, seasoned seaweed. Contains 80 delicious thin strips for snack, noodle soups, salads & more.

Nori has been valued as a food of longevity by Japanese people for a long time. There is a proverb, “Two sheets of nori keep the doctor away.” It’s high in vitamin A, B1, B2, C and other minerals, including iron. It has as much protein as soybean and most easily digested.

The secret of Nori is it has the three desirable taste components: glutamate acid (which tastes like kelp or konbu), inosinic acid (dried bonito), and guanil acid (shiitake mushrooms) - also called “the flavor of Japan.”

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*Recommended :: IndoMie :: Indonesian Brand | »

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Mi Goreng Rendang - fried noodle with a hot spicy vegetarian rendang curry paste, a traditional Indonesian curry similar to Thai curries, but has its own characteristics. Some of the characteristic ingredients in this recipe are kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce), garlic, onion, pepper, coconut, kemiri nut (candle nut), clove, anise, and herbs.

This is about the spiciest of the Mi Goreng’s that I have tried, my mouth felt hot after eating it. It has a sharper taste than the typical curries found here, with strong garlic-onion flavor and a note of clove & anise that give it an almost ginger-like pungency. I liked the toasted onion which are a few tasty bits beside noodles.

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*Best :: IndoMie :: Indonesian Brand | »

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Mi Goreng Satay - fried noodle. This is my favorite Mi Goreng so far. A spicy hot fried noodle with a mixture of sweet dark soy sauce and garlic-onion oil paste with a sharp note of peanut and lime, and bits of toasted onion for added texture. There lot of tasty contrasts in it.

It’s February and the weather was rather cool inside. The flavor packets were for Indonesia’ tropical heat and were kind of hard to squeeze out. I left them in the boiling water to warm up before using them this time. I cut the packets and squeeze them between two chop sticks to get every bit out into a plate. I mixed together all the seasonings while the noodles were being cooked. Then I added the well drained noodles and mixed it together thoroughly for about 30 seconds. I had to eat it quickly while it still hot and the result was excellent!

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*Recommended :: IndoMie :: Indonesian Brand | »

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Mi Goreng - instant fried noodle. This is the original flavor that catapulted Indomie into Indonesia’s ramen hall of fame.

It’s seasoned with an Indonesian sweet soy sauce and a spiced garlic flavored oil with a note of sesame oil. Properly prepared and hot, it has a rather rich sweet spiced soy taste with slightly nutty note and an almost buttery feel in the mouth.

Now that I have tried it, it needs a bit of explanation as to why it has such a legendary status in Indonesia. It got there because peoples remembered it, a simple comfort food at a time of needs. It’s like how ramen became a national heritage to the Japaneses because it too served a great need in a formative period. People adapted to it and while there has been great changes, there’s always a nostalgic longing to reclaim our pasts.

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IndoMie :: Indonesian Brand | »

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Rasa Soto Mie - instant noodle soup. Soto Mie is a common term for Indonesian soup, so it’s a traditional fare. The flavor is somewhat like the IndoMie Soto Betawi flavor, but noticeably without that sweet thick soy sauce. It was spicy hot pot style with light curry overtone and a garlicky-onion chili oil-based paste taste with a note of lime and other spices. It was not too spicy, so don’t use too much water to noodles in bowl with seasonings.

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IndoMie :: Indonesian Brand | »

Satay BBQ Chicken - fried noodle. It shared a similar recipe with many of IndoMie’s fried noodles type, though it’s mildly sweeter like miso with a note of peanut. It’s not the familiar BBQ chicken flavror, but it’s a popular sauce used in Indonesian BBQ. I did not tasted any chicken flavor itself.

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*Recommended :: IndoMie :: Indonesian Brand | »

Rasa Soto Betawi - instant noodle soup. Betawi refers to the “people of Batavia” (old name for Jakarta) in Indonesian and the flavor of soto seasonings is a Jakarta specialty. This soto recipe has a peppery, mild sweet soy-curry taste with a note of coconut, lime and other stock & spices - very flavorful, if you were careful about not adding too much water to the seasonings in the bowl.

Indomie has multiple pouch type flavor packets, which are narrow and quite messy to pour out liquid with. I had resigned to tearing it open and drop it into the soup to soak out by itself.

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*Recommended :: IndoMie :: Indonesian Brand | »

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Rasa Ayam Bawang - onion chicken flavor instant noodle soup. This is one of the best chicken flavored instant noodles that I had reviewed. It has a strong tasty blend of hot pepper, garlic, onion and leek flavors. The seasonings reminded me of what used for a savory pepper steak recipe. Its noodles are decent too.

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*Best :: IndoMie :: Indonesian Brand | »

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Mi Goreng Pedas - hot instant fried noodle. It’s a hot version of IndoMie’s popular stir-fried style noodles seasoned with Indonesian sweet soy sauce and spicy hot garlic-onion flavored spicy oil paste with a note sesame and toasted onion bits. It has 5 condiment packets.

Now that I have mastered the art of making Mi Goreng, I have updated this review. This time, the noodles were served perfectly. It was hot and spicy, and tasted delicious. The noodle tasted much better when hot and served properly, I can now appreciate people’s love for it and upgraded the rating from my initial impression last time. It makes a light tasty snack for me.

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Chinese Brand :: VEDAN | »

Beef Flavor (Mi Thit Bo Tom Cay) Instant Noodle. The noodles are the same type used in the familiar instant cup noodles and so it cooks in the same way, just add hot water and cover. The soup is quite dark likes a sauce and well seasoned with a spicy vegetable beef flavor that not too bad. It’s a little faty though, but so is real ramen.

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*Recommended :: VIFON :: Vietnamese Brand | »

Wantan Instant Noodle (Hoanh Thanh An Lien). Something new, flat sheets of noodle also know as wonton skin! While the sheet noodles may be odd, the soup was very good with a delicious aroma and flavor of savory dried shrimp with a note of pepper-beef-onion flavor and mild sweetness.

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MAMA :: Thai Brand | »

Oriental Style Instant Flat Noodles (Clear Soup). The rice noodles are quite wide (~ 1/2 inch) by instant noodles standard. The clear soup was very garlicy and its aroma was strong. A light serving of only 180 calories with only 25 calories from fat. Not too bad tasting either.

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Chinese Brand :: SCAS | »

What drawn me to try this was the nonfried “Instant Sweet Potato Noodle,” as I never had this before. It came in a good looking paper takeout-type bowl so it can’t be too much of a surprise, right? Wow, was I! If you want to have fun with your friends, give them this.

First, the sweet potato noodles were translucent brown and very gelatinous, but I actually enjoyed eating it. The soup was very spicy hot with lot of toasted bean and crushed Sichuan peppercorns sediments and is almost muddy dark. Good thing I had experience or else I would have thrown it out! It reminded me of a very thick bean stock soup my mother cooked sometime, she says it’s very “nutritious” which translated to “it’s not your favorite.”

I don’t know how to rate this one, so I just gave it two stars to discourage other from trying it… better yet, don’t even try this one unless you’re into budget “nutritious” meal.

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