Myojo Chicken Abalone All reviews are subjective to the personal tastes of the author. Like all other reviews, don't take them too seriously and they do not represent the views of the market at large.
Now to showcase one of my chief intellectual pursuits -- Instant Noodle appreciation. Instant Noodle appreciation is an underappreciated and neglected field of study in our institutions of research. I will attempt to expose the world to this fledging academic item. There are many perspectives, one can take -- Marxist, Liberal, postmodern or post-structural, Neo-Durkheimian, Ultra-Weberian, anti-Nietzschean, and so on. In our inaugural issue, we discuss Myojo Chicken Abalone.
That's right folks, that's what it is. I'm eating my last pack of it as I write this. As you can see, it is 85g, much heavier than the standard 60g Maggi Mee or the new 80g Maggi Mee. As expected, it doesn't come with the depicted egg, meat or beans and definitely no stinkin' pieces of abalone (let alone chicken) in here. Would have liked a few chunks in there.
If memory serves me right, Myojo Chicken Abalone comes in a pack of five for under two Singapore dollars. There's just one flavouring sachet in side, with the standard brown dust-o-magic. The hard noodle comes in flat but round shape, like a big coin. It only qualifies as an instant noodle if you consider 2-3 minutes instant. But who's to complain?
As observed, my cellphone camera turned out to be an OK shot! To be frank, I cook my noodles in a metal thermos by pouring hothothot water in, and it cooks fine. The thermos advertising says that left capped and standing, it can cook rice and congee. So by logic, it can cook noodles too, which it does. So that's my metal thermos and my chopsticks for decor. Notice the purplish background. I actually took out a piece of coloured paper for a nice background, as with the shot above.
Back to the noodles. The broth that is produced is almost clear, somewhat yellow in colour. There's a little hint of chilli, but it tends to accumulate at the bottom of my mug. Hmm. Looks like I should stir more often. There are few, if any, of those measly square orange or dark green flakes that pass off for vegetables. The noodles are whiter than a North American geek. Oil is minimal, you can only see a few droplets floating around the unsubmerged noodles.
As one of the not-so-privileged to have not remembered the taste of Abalone if I EVER did have a chance to eat any, I have no idea what chicken abalone is supposed to taste like. So I'm imagining what Maggi Mee Chicken flavour tastes like, then subtracting that flavour away from what I'm tasting here. I'm not suprised to find out that abalone actually tastes like MSG! All in all, the taste is mildly bland, far from a riot in the mouth. Scooping out the dregs of the last few noodles feels like a chore. Slurping the remaining base soup feels like something you do when you're bored and desperate for entertainment.
Verdict on taste: B+. A grudging B+, I would have given it a B, if not for the other Chicken Abalone sitting in my larder which doesn't taste as good as this one, and that one probably deserves a B-, which B for Mjoyo Chicken Abalone seems not far enough. I don't classify it in my A category, because there's just some magic sparkle that it lacks, and a rather "meh" taste to it that hinders it from climbing to any recommendable state.
Comments (2)
Good recommendation though, I've heard good stuff about indomee.