Not for everyone…

In my post the other day, I was talking about this brand and range of instant noodles…

…and how that Korean guy on Youtube picked it as his favourite instant noodles in Malaysia and my ex-student who went and tried agreed with him and was praising it to the skies.

That was why when my missus went out last Friday to the neighbourhood shops in the next lane from our house to stock up on food and other necessities, I asked her to look for it…

…in the hope that they were selling it and I would be able to give it a try as well. Much to my delight, she came home not with one, but TWO packs of the noodles.

At RM5.50 for a pack of only 4, that works out to almost RM1.40 a packet so comparatively, I would say that it is not all that cheap. Inside, there are three sachets…

– one with the paste, obviously the sambal or the rempah, one with the seasoning and garnishing and the third one with the creamer.

I boiled two of the New Zealand mussels…

…left over from the other day and used the stock for the soup. I threw in the mi tarek (pulled noodles) and the contents of the three sachets.

Once done, I poured everything into a bowl and served with the two mussels by the side and the vegetable fritters, the ladies’ fingers and the brinjal from our garden, from our previous night’s dinner, sprinkled some chopped daun sup (Chinese celery) on top and served…

And now, the moment of truth! Frankly, I could not see what was so special about the mi tarek as they came across as what they were – instant noodles, nothing more, nothing less and the garnishing in the sachet of seasoning was just a few bits of thinly-sliced red chili – no spring onion, no fried shallot.

On the other hand, I absolutely loved the taste! It was bursting with the flavours and the fragrances of whatever went into the sambal/rempah and I did enjoy it…

…initially. I would say I had never had anything quite like it. I wouldn’t say it was too lemak – I thought it was just right but still, towards the end, I started to feel that I probably should have just used half the contents of the sachets or added a little bit more water. After all, it was a little bit too salty for my liking too and yes, it was VERY spicy. Considering that I actually love things spicy, perhaps this may be a bit too much for some people to handle.

When the ladies got up that morning, they too wanted to try so I told them to share one packet. True enough, they enjoyed it very much and no, they did not think it was spicy at all. They said that the Korean ones they ate before were a lot worse. Furthermore, they did not get the effects of the Economics Law of Diminishing Returns like in my case whereby towards the end, I did not think I was enjoying it all that much.