Maruchan Yakisoba, tomato & basil flavor

New post new post new post! Today: tomato and basil Maruchan Yakisoba. Let's waste no time here.

Here is ramen making friends with one of its ingredients, basil. Meta!


Here is ramen checking our Facebook page! Social!


Here is ramen playing Pokémon. Kitschy! (If anyone has any Pokémon they don't want my friends code is 4039 2766 2868, I only have Pearl so I will take ANYTHING </desperate>)


Onward!

Packaging notes! Packets (2) are labeled with what they are and when they're supposed to be put in. This could be helpful if one was incapable of reading the directions printed on both the plastic and paper wrappings. I must notice, though, that the brackets change between the two packets, one using () and the other saying <MIX IN AFTER COOKING> so I'm wondering if it thinks it's HTML. It must really want to be on the Ramen Review, huh?


The vegetables smell salty. There are no large cabbage chunks like with the other yakisobas-- there are peas instead.

Here I must make the comparison to another kind of Tomato and Basil ramen I've eaten before... probably near the end of last summer. (I never completed the review. Consider it a B-side.) This other one, some Nissin deal, had no vegetables and a packet of weird reddish oil. It seemed like pizza grease. It wasn't good.

(instead of chow mein it's "chow pasta" isn't that clever)

Onward again!

Well, for the summer, I'm living with my parents. What this means for the blog: New microwave, one that doesn't have the power of a sloth, AND has actual buttons instead of a dial. Meet the fourth TRR microwave:


Me being me, I didn't take this into account. I used the trick I had to for my old microwave-- using boiling water-- and when I looked in the microwave a few minutes later, it was super bubbly. It didn't seem to be overflowing, though!

Of course it was, though, and much like last summer, I was cleaning out a microwave yet again. >=(

Cooking finished HOORAY

(you can tell I'm home: the fork isn't plastic!)

I forgot it wasn't "regular" ramen for a minute, took a smell, and got confused. It smells sweet, not overwhelmingly salty. It's nothing like Ragu or anything like that, so don't expect spaghetti in spite of the tomato. Nice color, though, isn't it?

I picked up a forkful and brought it to my mouth... THEN I smelled the basil. Oh my.

And you know what? It tastes pretty good. It's not spaghetti, obviously, but it's not bad. Somehow it tastes a little creamy, actually, even though it's water-based. If* I made this a second time, I'd probably pick the peas and corn out of the vegetable packet (I wouldn't leave the whole thing out, though, not knowing how the other stuff affects it.)

Final score: 2/3? Not bad but not excellent. On the better side of neutral.

*I say "if" because while it's pretty good, there's tastier things out there... now that I'm back in my parents' house for a while, I have access to a whole lot of food for the picking! Take that as you will.