Let me start by saying I eat a lot of instant noodles/ramen and spend a lot of time at noodle houses and ramen joints near me. I have received zenpop ramen boxes and imported instant noodles from both Japan and Korea. I would not consider this "ramen" for a few reasons, mostly just ingredients, and more of a stirfry noodle. I'll break my review down to 3 categories below.
Flavor: Is off the hook! Absolutely delicious sauce and honestly the real highlight, I think the simple fact it's not powder goes a long way plus the recommendation of stirfrying the sauce into the noodles needs to be followed as it prevents dilution. If the spice ends up being too much for you you can always preserve more water in an attempt to dilute it but I don't know why anyone would do that.
Spice Level: It's spicy, if you are like me and can regularly eat habaneros or spicier you won't get it off the bat nor will it linger long. The spice does build a bit but as most chili heads know you start to get the spice on and around the lips first (since I was slurping it up so quickly because of how good it was) as that's how I generally tell how spicy something is. If you find buffalo sauce spicy then this might be rough for you, my GF can barely handle buffalo sauce and just the smell of the noodles was enough to intimidate her.
Add-ons/Doctoring it up: Outside of the sauce (which honestly they could just sell and I'd be happy) there nothing special in the packet so doctoring it up could go a long way. I personally threw in some chicken while stirfrying (as pictured) to absorb some of the flavor but not too much as I didn't want to spread the sauce too thin and cutback on spice and flavor. As someone who can handle ghost peppers (well eating them at least), down the line might add some additional peppers like piri piri (as that's my on hand chili I throw into everything). I'd go with piri piri over habanero or ghost because I wouldn't want to mess with the flavor too much as it is very good as is. Alternatively I might toss the chicken in a sweet gochujang sauce before adding it too the noodles. I'm also unsure what veggies I'd consider throwing in but I might down the line. Add-ons is probably the best way to cut the heat (if you need it) while trying to preserve flavor.
Overall: A delicious noodle sauce and super easy to make at home!
NOODLES
