Despite all of the effort that I put into reviewing (predominately East Coast) restaurants on this blog, one of the most visited pages on this entire site is this one paragraph review for Uni-President’s King of Tomato instant noodle. I guess if there’s a formula, this works.
Today’s review is about Man Xiao Bao’s Fat Sauce Ramen. There doesn’t appear to be any official English translation for the name, but I think fat sauce, or grease sauce works pretty well.
The packaging is extremely elaborate, with no less than seven individually packed components, consisting of noodles, fried tofu wrapper, dried coriander, ghost chilli powder, bean sprouts in vinegar, more vinegar, meaty greasy sauce, and of course noodles.
The cooking instructions were translated by Google Translate as I’m a bit of a 文盲. Essentially the noodles are cooked separately and drained, then the toppings, then it’s all mixed together. Despite the seven component smorgasbord, the bok choy and egg pictured on the packet was not included, and had to be added separately.
Luckily, I had some bok choy in the fridge, and some of the excellent 78 degree snack eggs from Weilong in the pantry.
Taste wise, I found these noodles to be unfortunately extremely sour. It is probably my fault that I didn’t read the (CHINESE) instructions on the little sauce packets themselves, which if I did I would know that I was meant to adjust the amount to put in by personal preference. Still, I can’t imagine that anyone would want to put all of that vinegar sauce in.
The famed combination of stewed bone soup, fried meat paste, and braised grease sauce, as appetizing as those components once translated into English, were not perceptible to me.
I overall did not enjoy this, despite the journey of putting it all together, and won’t be buying this again willingly.
Man Xiao Bao Fat Sauce Ramen (满小饱肥汁拉面)
UPC 6973279800241
