Ramen!

[knucklehead G]

Hey, I'm broke and I've been eating a ton of this stuff. Which kind do you like best? Those are the two main brands I've found in the last three states I've lived in, and the three most readily available flavors. What Ramen do you prefer?


I'll eat Oriental or Chicken in any brand, but I usually prefer to cook the noodles and add some oregano and crushed red pepper flakes if I have spices.


Also, do you buy the stuff in bricks, or in the cups where you add water and microwave?

 

[jmattbassplaya]

Oh, lord. I hate that stuff. I'd rather starve lol.

 

[bassteban]

It's been so long since I had to eat that swill that the memories are now pleasant. I used to throw an egg & some onions in it... good/bad times. Chicken was my choice- or rather *chicken*

 

[HEIST]

Shin Ramyun.

 

[crustychef]

I make my own from scratch.

But for store bought Shin is good. Any of the Korean brands are tasty.

 

[dmonroe]

Make some beef flavor and while its cooking slice a thin cheap steak up. Throw it and a handful of stir-fry veggies into a wok then dump that on your Ramen. Good stuff when you're broke.

 

[Ursus Tyrannus]

I'm poor enough to be eating this stuff, heck, the past three months I've run out of food for the last 3 or 4 days of the month.
I just just grab four of each flavor, lets face it, its like choosing between icky, sucky, gross, and nasty.

 

[elgecko]

I avoid the prepackaged stuff due to the insanely high salt content and the fact that I don't really like noodle soup. But as cheap as the prepackaged stuff is, you could probably make it yourself for cheaper, and better!

 

[knucklehead G]

I'm poor enough to be eating this stuff, heck, the past three months I've run out of food for the last 3 or 4 days of the month.
I just just grab four of each flavor, lets face it, its like choosing between icky, sucky, gross, and nasty.

This sounds like my life. Right now we're in a rough spot, so we keep ramen as a backup food source. If we run out of actual food, which happens weekly it seems, well grocery money isn't budgeted until the next Monday so its icky, sucky, gross or nasty. I've done it proper a few times, when possible I throw away the "sauce" packets entirely and make my own.

 

[tom once dead]

I'm pretty damn poor. I mostly eat plain rice.
And by mostly I mean 9 meals out of 10.

 

[Bongolation]

Note the scandalous rise in the price of ramen over the past two years or so. I used to be able to get 12/US$1, now I really have to scrounge to get 6/US$1.

Also note the huge increase in the price of rice.

The crazy inflation of food prices seems to be a story nobody's reporting.

I used to eat a lot of ramen as a base from which to make more substantial food. I'd get whatever dirt-cheap cut of meat I could find and slice it up paper-thin and throw it in the soup with whatever I had growing in my garden or with some cheap frozen mixed vegetables. The seasoning packet was an OK flavoring with a lot more liquid than the usual, otherwise it is nasty salty.

 

[Pacman]

Nothing listed in the poll actually qualifies as ramen.

And to be TRULY enjoyed, it has to come from a ramen shop counter at 2am. Heaven!

 

[ShredderMaximus]

+1 for buying a giant bag of rice for cheap from costco, it'll feed you for MONTHS!

But I've had my share of ramen (see sig), I always got the 1.25$ bag of six bricks, one chicken, one beef. After nuking the noodles I would then pour out most of the water, use about 1/2 of the seasoning packet (gets pretty potent without all the water) and add a splash of milk to make it kinda creamy. Actually passes as a meal for awhile, I literally lived on the stuff for sometimes weeks at a time, but now the thought of ramen almost makes me nauseous.

Don't even want to think of what I ate after we lost power and could no longer cook the noodles, but I still look back and can't help but grin! Goodtimes

 

[Hawaii Islander]

It costs a little more but Chow Mein by Nissin is much better than the other two brands (I've eaten all 3 brands). The Chow Mein comes in chicken, orange chicken, spicey chicken, teriyaki beef, and Alfredo (those are the flavors I have seen so far). My nephew adds boneless chicken to his. It is setup for microwave cooking and it takes five minutes.

 

[ShredderMaximus]

theres been points in my life where that would have been straight up gourmet! LOL

 

[pickle]

Koka noodles are the best ramen brand

Koka noodles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Bongolation]

+1 for buying a giant bag of rice for cheap from costco

So, what is that currently running?

 

[Bongolation]

I make my own from scratch.

That's a killin' amount of work. The division of labor has much to be said for it.

If I'm going to actually make noodles, I'll do potato noodles in quantity.

I wish fresh chow fun noodles were close and economical.

 

[ShredderMaximus]

So, what is that currently running?

Not entirely sure where its at right now, in all honesty most of the time, since I didn't have a membership, it was my mom taking pity on me and going there and buying me a bag, for the reasons I stated earlier. (cheap, feed you forever)

 

[Bongolation]

(cheap, feed you forever)

That's my point, it's not really, unless the price has fallen pretty drastically lately. It was typically over a buck a pound not long back, and the best I've been able to find now is still over $0.60/lb. for store brand 20# sacks on sale at Smart & Final.

Basmati was over two bucks a pound.

To put that in perspective, chicken quarters are typically $0.79/lb. on sale every few weeks.

Far cry from $3.99/50# long grain I used to get at the Arab bodegas in the Inner Mission about fifteen years ago. That's some inflation, brother!