When All Else Fails; Ramen

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I get off of work, third day of my work week, whole body aching, staving off the pain with exactly three Ibuprofen and nothing else, and I log onto Second Life. Standing outside my static mansion on a hill that no one visits but me, because nobody else is allowed, I try to think of something interesting to write about. I do kind of tire of writing on negative topics, and topics I have to constantly cite with outbound links, screenshots, and facts. That stuff takes me such a long time to write. But today, I think I want to talk about ramen.

It took me an enormous amount of time in my life to finally have an actual good bowl of ramen, that wasn’t some bouillon chicken mess in a styrofoam cup. And that was … about three years ago. From a restaurant that, unfortunately, shutdown. I think they were called, Taste of Asia. And, although, I’ve never had the delight of going to Japan, or Korea, or Indonesia, I can say that if I did, I would eat ramen, first.

I remember it like it was almost yesterday. I ordered a bowl of ramen through DoorDash, and it came in this giant plastic container, and it wasn’t just the noodles. It had all the garnish: the seaweed, the pork, the egg, the noodles, and the broth. For this, I had bought a pair of wooden chopsticks, just to feel like I was doing something authentic. And then I took the first bite.

It was like how I would imagine Gordon Ramsay feels when he takes a bite of Beef Wellington that’s done right. It was amazing (I am by no means comparing myself to Gordon Ramsay, I cannot cook, not like that). And it was at that moment that Top Ramen, and Maruchan became dead to me.

It was like, “Wow! Ramen is supposed … to be FLAVORFUL?!” And my god, it was.

Flash forward to today, and I have specific instant ramen brands that I like, and I will not eat anything else.

Those brands are Shin Black, Samyang Buldak, and Sapporo Ichiban.

Shin Black is a very deep flavor, with a spicy kick to it, and it’s only “failing,” if you can call it that, is that they add no MSG to it. There are a lot of misconceptions about MSG, and although, it is of course, not healthy, it’s mostly fine.

My second favorite is Samyang Buldak, which I think went viral on Tik-Tok for some reason? But, I eat Buldak when I want to punish my stomach with flavor, and fire. You know, you gotta remind yourself that you’re alive sometimes, and the best way to do that, is to punch your stomach in the stomach with knives known as chili peppers.

My only downfall is that as I get older, I can’t handle intense spice as much as I used to, but I also partially blame the “one chip challenge” in damaging my stomach (because I’m pretty sure it did).

And then, at the top of my list, is Sapporo Ichiban. These noodles aren’t for committing crimes against yourself. It’s got a very rich flavor, it has the MSG, and it’s not punishing to your stomach. Sapporo is for when I’m on a day off from work, and I’m doing for myself a little bit of self care, and I want something easy, and also good to eat. This is my favorite instant noodle of all time.

But, there is a reason I eat all of this in moderation, and that’s because they’re all absolutely filled to the brim with sodium, and there is definitely value in understanding, that there can be too much of a good thing.

People who know me, know that I like to joke about pizza, but, pizza is only my second favorite food. Ramen is number one, and I don’t really speak about it. You wouldn’t know this unless you’ve just read this blog post.

Which brings me to what made me want to post this, and that is this video posted by someone I know on the fediverse, of multiple professional chefs critiquing instant ramen noodles. I recommend a watch!

Post by @ManiacalV@mastodon.social

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