Now I wish there was a show called Top Ramen, where the hosts travel around the world and eat ramen and rate it…
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Poot! It’s fine here and Privacy Badger is on.
Second time it’s happened to me today… weird.
not just you. I get a big paywall too.
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I’ve seen premium ramen/noodle packets for like 8 bucks or more, they look fantastic and i tried one once on a lark and loved it but that’s more of a splurge than something i’d habitually eat. The mid-tier stuff is also well worth the money, particularly like the Korean and Thai noodle ones because of the spice.
This one is available on Prime and Viki:
One of the shops she visits has a branch local to me, but they’ve stopped using the signature broth because shipping it from Japan is too expensive.
We have noodle shops all over the place where I live, so go out for ramen pretty often; that means spending $10/bowl or more instead of $1/bowl, but I think it is worth it for the non-instant stuff.
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That looks fun, but I was looking for more like Top Gear, but for ramen!
Where we are, you can get decent ramen for just under $10 or so… Agreed about it being worth it.
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“Proper” restaurant ramen costs at least $13 here. Pricewise, it bums me out, but the quality really is outstanding for a bunch of hipster places.
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There go the hipsters, gentrifying ramen now! 
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I dunno if you want to habitually eat instant ramen of any kind.
But generally the sweet spot seems to be around the $2 mark. Cheep enough for a lark, expensive enough to be pretty good.
The Roah the few times I’ve seen singles is around $4, and I’ve got some that are closer to $6. But you buy the multi packs, especially online and it works out to a buck and change each.
I do have one packet that apparently goes for $12-15 in the us. But I got it on Amazon for like 6 bucks and it’s not hard to find for less than $5. And it’s technically a 2 portion meal kit. Your supposed to add fresh toppings and Chashu. Haven’t tried that yet.
What I usually do is every once and a while I order like $25 bucks or so of my favorites and stuff I haven’t tried on Amazon. Get multiplies of everything. And then it’s my junk food treate. Some of the best regarded ones are like a quarter a pack. And my favorite instant yakisoba is less than a buck if you buy a 12pack.
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Do give Ramen-loving Girl a look, it is odd as a show but short, and the food is delightful. Don’t watch it when hungry, unless you have easy access to food.
So around the price of a pound of decent (uncooked) pasta.
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Yeah. If you’re buying them as singles in a US retail store. The same stuff is always cheaper in multi packs, often cheaper in Asian grocery stores like good ole H Mart. And they’re even cheaper online.
The packages are larger than the ubiquitous nickel packs everones familiar with. And they tend to have a lot more stuff in the package. Multiple soup base packets, oils, etc. The miso ones will sometimes come with a little squeezey thing of real miso paste. The Korean ones often contain things like fish cake, dried veg, even freeze dried beef. And the instant yakisoba I mentioned comes with little packets of Japanese mayo and nori to top it all with.
The biggest determination on price seems to be the noodles. A lot these (like Nissin Roah) use noodles that are just air-dried alkaline noodles instead of being deep fried to par cook them. And start with a higher quality noodle.
A bit like going from the decent $2 pasta to the broze die stuff. Or from minute rice to actual rice. Or since we aren’t talking pantry staple here. Going from the Hershey bar to Ritter Sport.
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Well, you can buy a pound of bronze[sic] die Italian dry pasta for $2/pound no problem (eg De Cecco). You can get a lot more meals out of that than out of a $2 packet of ramen, without too much trouble or time. While fresh noodles are even better (I do have quite a good source of fresh undried ramen noodles local to me), the only point I can see in buying instant dried ramen (of any quality) over Italian pasta is if you really need your meal in 1 minute instead of 10.
Ien that case you’ll get a lot more meals out of dollar store discount pasta than that DeCecco. You get a lot more meals for your dollars out of chicken thighs than rib eye steak. Or rice and beans than any meat. You’ll get a lot more food for your dollar with a bag of flour than those boxes of pasta. You get a lot more food for your dollar out of any pantry staple than from any convenience or snack food. And you get far more for your dollar from anything you eat at home than ever setting foot in any restaurant.
The point is that I like it and it’s fun. And again I would not characterize it as a meal. This isn’t the sort of thing you should be structuring your diet around or budgeting as a major part of your grocery bill. This is sugary breakfast serial, bag of chips territory. It’s snacky junk food. And it’s very much it’s own weird little thing, rather than an attempt to easily produce actual ramen at home.
OK, so I finally tried the Nissin Raoh. It’s good, I suppose. It’s definitely not designed as a complete meal like some of the other fancier (Korean) ramen – which I guess is to be expected since it’s Japanese style. But I don’t mind having paid $1.50 each for them. The noodles are definitely realer than most instant ramen, even other ones with air-dried noodles that I’ve tried.
Next time I need to make sure to have more little dressings handy to make it more of a proper soup. This time I just did it with some soft-boiled eggs, but it was still very basic.
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Yeah the Japanese approach is very much “add shit if you want a meal”. With the exception of certain non-soup instant noodles.
I tend to do that anyway, even back in my college days with crappy ramen. So i definitely appreciate the japanese approach. Even if i bought a more expensive pack i would be inclined to add some fresh veggies and some other stuff
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I just bought a couple of these.
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I dig the industrial aesthetic on these 
