Simply Asia noodle bowl, sesame teriyaki

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Today I shall inform everyone of the quality and taste of the Simply Asia product known as a "sesame teriyaki noodle bowl."

But first, a picture of it admiring a 1970s map of Mars!


With that out of the way... remember back to a few months ago when I reviewed a store-brand version of this product? I really didn't like it. I gave it a grade of "eh" and someone commented with the sentiment of "Bah." I must be ridiculous.

According to the packaging, sadly bereft of broken English, this product is vegan, hooray! Positive points.

Onto contents.


First things first. Dehydrated vegetables go on the bottom, because I've learned they absorb water better if they're actually in contact with it. Then the noodles-- precooked, thick, in a giant clump, and smelling like Play-Doh(!). There's a nice little arrow on the pouch pointing to the easy-open slit. How pleasant. Next is the sauce. There's no arrow on this one, just the words "Simply Asia" printed over and over and over again. This is more unfortunate, because the sauce is what could potentially go all over. Negative points. Also, what's this in the sauce? Sesame seeds? But there's also a packet of them for topping. Come on Simply Asia, make up your mind here. This really does harken back to Kroger post, where I expressed my sentiment that sesame seeds really should just give up the pretense and call themselves an ingredient. But I digress... They stuck to the inside of the pouch anyway, so it mostly became a moot point. And the sauce didn't get everywhere either, but I'm not sure if that's because I was careful or if it was a magic packet that didn't need arrows and slits.

"Two tablespoons" of water went in, meaning some arbitrary amount that looked like it would work went in.

The instructions said to "cover loosely with lid" and microwave. You know me, I snapped the lid on all the way and put it in. I didn't want to risk cleaning up messes.

After two minutes I took it out and tried not to burn myself. I was successful. It smelled like plastic. Maybe closing it so tightly was a bad idea.

It really did turn out to be a bad idea when I realized I couldn't get the lid off, because there was so much steam on the sides that it was too hot to handle for any decent length of time. I let it sit for a few minutes.

When it was cooler, I stirred it well (with the enclosed mini-fork: points!!) breaking the noodles apart without force-- many positive points! Then came time to open up the sesame seeds. Without an arrow telling me how and where to open, they went flying everywhere =( I put what remained on top like a good little topping-obeyer, took a picture...

...and promptly stirred it up again. I like a uniform food distribution.

Here be my notes

"Taste: Good! It's not as incredibly sweet as a lot of teriyaki things, it's balanced well by the sesame. Vegetables like to settle at bottom, so every once in a while you get a giant clump of scallion, but they're dehydrated so it's not overpowering. Sesame seeds may be unnecessary.

Still kind of smells like play doh but it's not overwhelming, it's masked well by the sharpness of the teriyaki.

Noodles: Not bad! I'm normally scared of this kind of noodle-- too doughy-- but these aren't bad. They're done quite well-- they're not firm anywhere, but also not doughy."

I was also pleasantly surprised by the quantity of food there was in this bowl. It's a hefty amount! And, not being a soup, it didn't splash everywhere and stain everything. Hooray!


CONCLUSIONS.
-There are certain things it's worth splurging on to get non-store brands. I've been making a (mental) list of this ever since I've started paying for my own stuff a few years back, and the list I've come up with consists of laundry detergent, salad dressing, and now sesame teriyaki noodle bowls. And this wasn't even much more expensive-- the Kroger kind, before coupon, retailed at $2.89. I got the Simply Asia kind from a retail operation inside my dorm, where they feel free to overinflate the cost of everything because it just comes out of our meal plans-- and it only cost me ten cents more. Ten cents to upgrade from "eh" to "yum?" Totally, totally worth it.
-Actually I think that's the only conclusion today