Pro Chefs Rank Instant Ramen
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Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or DSW.com. Oh, all good things take time. We'll explain instant ramen then, Nicole. This is a hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? What?

Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Ayer. And I'm your host, Nicole Inayedi. And if you could not tell, those of you only listening to this, we have about eight bowls of instant ramen in front of us. Because today, Nicole, as professional chefs, people who have climbed to the culinary mountaintops. Professional chef. Now, pause. What are you talking about?

Yeah, here's the thing. We sometimes use the term professional chefs in titles because you and I are, for all intents and purposes, chefs. If you explain it to a normie, right, you might- I say I'm a producer. Do you? Yeah, I kind of do too, but people always call me a chef. Like, dudes in the gym go like he's a chef. You legally changed your name to Mythical Chef Josh, right? I did. I got the tattoo on my lower back as well. You haven't seen the new one. I would never call myself a chef to a chef, but anyways, we are professional- For the sake of this, we are professional chefs.

We're professional food people, and we have been working in this industry for a long time. And we've climbed to the culinary mountaintops. We've tasted some of the best food in the world. Gone to the valleys. It's really hard to beat instant ramen. It's so true. Yeah, I agree. I haven't had instant ramen in a few months, maybe.

But I used to eat it all the time. I used to love it so much. I used to have my finger on the pulse of all the cool ramens coming out. I loved all of the bulldog carbonaras. And then whenever Parasite came out, they did that combo of, what was it? It was ramdon? Ramdon. Ramdon. Where you would combine two different kinds of ramen packets and then you'd have ribeye steak with it. Yeah. All about it. But I'm very excited to try all these ramens.

So I grew up, my dad worked at a 99 cent store. And the best thing about 99 cent stores is they would get all of the discontinued major name brands. The cool ones. The cool ones. The awesome ones. So I grew up eating stuff like shrimp Alfredo flavored ramen. My favorite was just jalapeno cheddar. Oh my gosh. But those were the best ones. Those were the best ones. The real janky ones. High key best ones. What were your favorites growing up? Like what are you looking for? So I was always raised with the Maruchan instant ramen chicken flavor. We called this cup o' noodles.

Well, so Cup Noodles is an entirely different brand. I know, I know. I know, but everyone just calls them Cup of Noodles. Because it's so iconic. I mean, I'm holding it up right now. The Maruchan Instant Lunch, this was just called Cup of Noodles to me. And this is what I was raised on. It's like Kleenex or Jacuzzi. It's just, yeah. What do we call those? It's a transcendent name brand. There has to be a word for it. I don't think there is.

I have a special place in my heart for Nissin, who invented cup noodles in 1971. Here we go. Quick, quick history about instant ramen because it is really fascinating. It's, like, really important in how it's spread around the world. Right, right, right. Momofuku Ando is the one who was credited for creating the instant noodles, specifically instant ramen, and then cup noodles later in 1971. But it was post-World War II, food shortage in Japan. Right.

the Japanese, like, Ministry of Health was trying to get Japanese people to eat shelf-stable white bread from American companies because they were like, these have the biggest factories. We can give people bread. The Japanese population was like,

We ain't really eat bread like that, dude. That's kind of weird. Right. And so Momofuku Ando, who was in Taiwan that was under Japanese colonial rule at the time he was born there, he was like, we can get factories going to make mass amounts of noodles that can cook very quickly. And he developed it with a patented like air, not air frying, flash frying technique. Right, right, right. So you cook them, you flash fry them to dry them, and then you send them out and they can cook in a minute. And so...

Instant ramen like weirdly helped preserve Japanese food ways in a lot of ways. So instant ramen, it's really special to a lot of people and it's really big throughout the world. And so we have our work cut out for us today. I'm excited. I know we got some really popular ones. We also got one that kind of makes me feel a little weird. Is that the one that I specifically requested? Yes, but because I care about your meaning so much, we decided to go for it.

Listen, it is a new year and we're getting back on the nutrition game. We're trying to pack on some muscle so we have a special protein ramen. That's right. We'll get to that a little bit later but should we start with the original Nissin Top Ramen chicken flavor? Absolutely. So this is literally the first ever instant noodle in the entire world. Yeah. Chicken flavored ramen. But this one comes with a teriyaki sauce pouch and

and I don't know about you. I would like to just taste it OG chicken and then add it. I'll let you have the first bite. Okay. Ladies first. Shout out Momofuku. I know Momofuku means lucky peach in Japanese and that's how David Chang named his restaurant group. Very nice. Okay.

Good vegetable chunks in here. That smell is so specific. Oh, my God. It takes you back so much. I decided to go with like some classic chicken ones and then also some out there ones. So we're just tasting all that we can get our hands on right now. How does it taste? The original chicken ramen, top ramen from Nisen, is so scientifically calibrated.

to hit every major taste sense that you have. It is absolute. It's more comforting than like a grandma's chicken soup. You know what I mean? Love the veggies in there. Those veggies are large and in charge. The veggies are absolutely spectacular. Can I put this on the teriyaki sauce packet? Wow. Living the dream. This is the big bowl. It's actually funny. The cup noodles came about because Momofuku Endo noticed that when Americans were eating instant noodles, they would break up the

The original are the packets, right, that you'd have to boil yourself and then pour yourself a bowl. But you notice that Americans would, in very American fashion, break up the noodles into a styrofoam cup and pour hot water over it and eat it with a fork. And so they designed the original cup of noodles to be able to be eaten with a fork and to keep the noodles warm. Very nice. Yeah. Yeah.

But, man, even outside of America, like, instant noodles are everywhere. Yeah, I love instant noodles. I find them to be very, very handy. Don't need the teriyaki, dude. Yeah, yeah. I also don't need the teriyaki. But, I mean, the fact that it is the OG, we got to give it its points, you know? Yeah, I mean, there's...

I would say you start that off at like a solid seven. I'm going to give it an eight. Give it an eight? I'm putting respect on the name. You know what I mean? I mean, they are the original. It's God. I could eat an infinite amount. I know. What would stop you from eating instant noodles? It's like eating bowls of Frosted Flakes for me. There's just nothing that would stop me. The inflammation.

I worry about the inflammation in my face. But other than that, I would go to town on noodles every day. Okay, now we're going to be trying the Maruchan Instant Lunch. This is the one I was raised on. Yeah, so this is like the main competitor to Nisi. And as far as like OG instant ramen brands go. And I've never had them side by side, so I have no idea how they actually... I will say this. Watching people eat noodles is a strangely intimate event. Stop trying to be closer. Okay.

That is less salty, less flavorful, and the noodles are thicker by like a millimeter. I never noticed that, but I think Nissin does have...

A better seasoned broth than Maruchan, right? 100%. Much better seasoned broth. But this tastes a little bit less artificial tasting to me. Does that track for you? It does, but the Nissin, I think I like the vegetables and aromatics more. Me too. We're talking like razor thin margins when you're talking about instant ramen. Yeah, totally, totally. We're just being hardos right now. We're all like doing the same thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's those little things on the margins that make you actually...

something more in ways that you wouldn't expect. Absolutely. I would downgrade this a full point over Nissin. I'm going to give this a five. Give it a five? I'm going to give this a five because there's something about the ratios. Hold on, you're giving Nissin, you're giving Top Ramen an eight and Maruchan Instant Lunch a five? You want to know why? Yeah. I think the ratios are a little bit better. I think there's too many veggies in the Nissin Top Ramen that almost take away from that ramen experience stuff.

I'm being so serious. You just want to slurp the sodium. Yeah. With this, I feel like you get more noodle. You get more, like...

Something about the ratios here between the Nissin and the Maruchan. The Maruchan ratios make more sense to me than the Top Ramen, but the Top Ramen tastes better. So I'm going to give this more points. I'm going to give the Top Ramen more points than the Maruchan. At some point, I'm going to have to think about my sodium intake. Not today. I'm talking about in general in life. I try and eat somewhat healthy. I love sodium too. I eat a lot of pickles. And a lot of people say like,

If you're cooking fresh ingredients from scratch, you're probably not going to have high sodium. Like, doctors have told me this, that straight up, that high sodium tends to be correlated with high processed food diets. But that's not the case for you and I. They don't know how we cook. We season to the edge. If I make a soup...

It has the same sodium content, and this is frightening, if not more. I agree with you. Because it tastes good. Yes. And that's how you're taught as a chef, because we're professional chefs. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're taught to season your food completely and totally, and we seasoned literally. I went to your house for dinner the other night. Like, your food tasted like restaurant style. I went to my mom's house on Sunday and cooked her some tri-tip, and it was so good.

And she says, restaurante style. Because we season our food so, so closely to chefs and processed foods. There's no way the way that we eat is sustainable. 2026 is the year of kidney stones for Josh and Nicole. Oh, man, if

Do women get kidney stones? I don't know, man. I'm not down. So I can actually track my sodium intake only because Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt is the best salt. It's what most chefs use. It's just very standardized. I can't find it in my local grocery stores anymore. Diamond? Yeah. And so I just started ordering it off Amazon. I use 365.

Oh, yeah? Do they have it? No, no, no. I use 365 kosher salt. Oh, brand salt. Oh, it doesn't fall out of the hand the same. I agree. Salt feels totally different by company. Diamond Crystal. What's the other kosher salt that everybody freaks out about? Oh, I don't know. There's another one that people are like freaking obsessed with. Not Jacobson. But the Diamond Crystal kosher, I ordered, I ran out recently and it said when my last order was on Amazon and it was something like four months ago. And so I'm like,

Jules, we've gone through three pounds of salt. That's too much salt. In four months. That is entirely too much salt. Well, I don't know. I haven't broken it down by milligrams.

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It's the Severance Podcast with Ben and Adam on Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking by entirely too much salt, try this gin ramen. It's really delicious. Gin ramen. Is this from Korea? This is Korean. I believe this is one of Spork's favorite noodles as well. God, this looks so good.

Korean ramen or ramyeon in Korean. Ramen. Men means noodle in Japanese, right? And mian or main, depending if it's Cantonese or Mandarin in China, means noodle. And then in Korea, it's mian. But it all comes, I believe, from a Chinese root. God, this looks good. This is really delicious. This was delicious.

Salty, yummy, nummy. Oh man. I don't even know if there's MSG in here. I don't care. It's so good. It's phenomenal. Wow. You know what there is? It's sesame oil. Is it the sesame? Let me see. I wish I had that thing that you could control F and you could like see it and you could just like show it. They should invent that. Like a microchip in our head. Oh, you're getting the microchip?

I'm getting the microchip. You're getting the microchip? No way I'm getting the microchip, dude. So, yeah, there seems to be monosodium glutamate is up there. Yeast. I think there's a large amount of yeast in there that makes it taste so sexy. There's also, though, is this nori? A little bit of nori in there? There's a little bit of nori in there. There's seaweed in there. That's adding a lot of flavor. This, to me, if Maruchan and Nissin are generation one, this, to me, represents, like, generation two, right? Sure. Like, this is we've built off of...

You know, the success that they've had. Because Nissan was like, we need to appeal to as big a group as possible. Right. So we're going to make it somewhat basic, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chicken broth, a little bit of veg, famous worldwide. Now it's like, let's play with some flavors. And these are the brands that are really popping off today. This is delicious. That was really good. Pass it back. Oh, my God. Pass the dutchie punny left-hand side. It leaves your mouth. Coated.

It's coated with just the right, there's a little bit of fat in there. The noodles have a good chew that you're really missing. Look at the color difference. It's inviting. It is such a pleasant ramen eating experience. Eight and a half. Okay, can I go back? Go back. Go back. Go back. I would like to give Top Ramen a seven. I would like to give Maruchan a four. I would like to give Gin Ramen an 8.9.

I'm obsessed. Bro, I'm moving my laptop. I'm about to destroy my work computer. It's about to get water. It's about to get water damage. Oh, now this is interesting. This is Mama Noodle. So these are from Thailand. Now these, these were very exciting. I'm going to open this package right here because I want to show you what it comes with. This was very interesting when we were assembling this one. It comes with three distinct packages. One is chili powder. One is soup base. And then this is just, I believe, a glob of fat.

that you put in there. Heck yeah, dude. A glob of fat, and you cook it up, and let me tell you, the glob of fat made this seem very, very interesting to me, the fact that they're adding it in there. I love whenever they know there's something special in there. That's just the noodles are a little bit thinner. Yes, they are thinner. They almost eat like, there's this Vietnamese soup called mee. It's like vermicelli, but vermicelli made from wheat.

Which is interesting. So this almost eats like it's a dish called mi quong. It's a Vietnamese Chinese dish. But the noodles are delightful. The broth is roasty. It's a little bit spicy. It's a little sweet. Do you taste that sweetness? Yeah, it's very... Dude, there's a Thai term that I talk about a lot called klum klum. Which means like perfectly balanced of like sweet, spicy, sour. Excellent, man. Whoa. And it's not like the gin ramen from Korea. It's got a lot more...

bold flavors to it. Yeah, there's more body. I feel like there's the noodle being thicker and the broth having those special ingredients makes it a thicker bodied experience. But that doesn't eat like the gin ramen doesn't eat like a noodle soup. Mama ramen does. Yeah, you're right. Also, I love the packaging. It just says artificial chicken flavor. Yeah, nothing real about this, baby. Hey, man, if I can put it in my mouth, they're real. What's up?

Talking about ramen. Chicken flavor. That's pretty excellent. I mean, I'm giving that an 8 as well. I think to me that and gin might be tied. They're very different products. They are very different products. I will say that I'm going to give this one an 8.5 just because there's a lack of familiarity to me. And whenever I'm looking for ramen, I'm looking for comfort. I'm looking for something that is familiar. And speaking of unfamiliar...

This is the ramen Josh wanted me to buy. I think it's called Imi, right? Imi, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This brick of ramen was $8.49. Yeah, so I'm so glad you mentioned that. I need you to know that this was $8.00.

Which is absolutely an insane amount of money for ramen. Also, I have no water in my cup, but I'm dying of thirst. You don't need water. Drink the ramen broth. It'll get you. It's like eating a salt tablet during an NFL game so you don't cramp up. Oh, my God. Emi Ramen. So this has been going around the bodybuilding community. Okay, okay. The macro is on it. They still aren't the best, but if you're in a pinch and you want to get 23 grams of protein. How much carbs? Uh.

What do we got? 20 grams of carbs, 23 grams of protein, 20 grams of fat, which is a fair amount. But the noodles are made primarily from pea protein and wheat gluten. So this is like the new, new gen of where instant ramen's going. Black garlic chicken. Chicken is in quotes. Heck yeah. Why is chicken in quotes? They could have just said artificial chicken like our homies at Mama. So all of these noodles, right? These are basically like pure carbs, fat, and sodium, which is great because that's a lot of what keeps your body running. But this is the next gen where...

I always think about what the dietary fads that we're going to look back on at modern times and go, oh my God, what's wrong with us? Like the way that we look at the low fat diet. Right, right, right, right. People eating, you know, salad dressing cut with a bunch of sugar in it. I think we're going to look back at our protein obsession and be like,

That was disgusting. That was pathological. That was disgusting, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I feel like we're in the throes of it right now. 100%. There's no need that I should eat 200 grams of protein. I know all the studies about muscle synthesis and protein absorption and yada, yada. I have like 150 grams of protein. That's like...

So much. Humans need like 30 per day. Then why do we do this to ourselves? Because we've been poisoned by the fitness industry that says we need to do this. But what about doctors that tell you you have to eat that much protein? Are they also- What doctor? Dude, my doctor is so fed up with me talking about protein. Oh, my doctor's- She's like, you have high cholesterol. Stop eating so much meat. And I'm like, I need to. And she's like, I'm a medical doctor. And I'm like-

How much you bench, bro? My doctor says I need to eat more protein than 150. Your primary care physician? No, no, no, no. Exactly. This is my cool doctor. Exactly. This is my homie. She's like my friend. All my doctors are my friends.

Let's try this. Let's give this a try. So the noodles are... They kind of look like sludge. They look sludgy. Let's try the broth. They look sludgy, but not in... Most foods are pleasant sludges, but that's not a pleasant sludge. You taste the black garlic. Okay, that's good. Are the noodles hard? I cooked it according to the directions on the box. I'm going to go ahead and... I don't want to tell you how to feel, so I'm going to refrain from comment.

Broth tastes good. Okay, try the noodles. We're watching Nicole try the noodles. This is primarily made from pure wheat gluten, which is the protein found in wheat. My mind's telling me no. But my body... You can't. R. Kelly's cancelled. That's R. Kelly? Yeah. Wait, is it? Yeah. Oh no. I thought it was like Marvin Gaye. I don't know music. What do you think about the taste of those noodles? Really bad. Not enough salt.

There needs to be more salt in this. I'm about to say something very hyperbolic. You? I love it. Listen, I think this is a great product for people who want something like this. What's in your cup? It's stuck in my throat. What's in your cup? Poppy. I'm dying of thirst. Listen, I think this is a great product for people who want something... Nostalgic? I don't know. People who want this is fine. I don't. People who want this is fine.

Pound for pound, one of the...

maybe worse things. This isn't me taking pot shots. This is just if somebody is thinking about spending $8 on this. $8! Do not be prepared for it to taste anything like ramen. It wasn't very good. There are certain instances in which we try and play God and he spits in our face. And I think protein ramen is one of them. I've also been eating all of the protein cereals that have and we're not talking about like there's a company called like Kodiak Cakes, right? Yeah. The pancake mix that has like that's

That's good. 10 grams of protein for like four pancakes. Yeah, I like that one. And that's quite normal. They taste pretty good. We're talking about...

I would put like 40 grams of protein in the same thing. We're talking about these are dietary supplements, not food. Whenever you're making products like this, whenever you're in the quality testing, whenever you're in the R&D phase, you need to define what you want to go for. Like Josh said, this is a dietary supplement as a food. If that's what you're going for, fine, cool, awesome. If you're trying to have people just eat food and maybe just enhance

enhance their protein intake a little bit, Kodiak cakes are a perfect example of that. Something went wrong with the R&D, and I don't think they know what they're doing. Not to be rude. I'm a little rude. Yeah, but I... Yeah, dude, I don't know how this got out of testing. What if we added something to it? What if we added something to it? No, that's the problem. Wait, wait, imagine... Hold on, hold on. Imagine we added, like, an egg to it.

That's great. Then you'd have egg on top of that. I think the problem is so many of these companies are doing soy protein isolate. And when you think about what soy protein isolate is, it's tofu. Tofu is what happens when you isolate the protein of soy. And I love tofu when it's eaten as people eat tofu. These protein cereals, they taste the exact same as these noodles. They're trying to create a carbohydrate, a starch out of pure protein. And then it all ends up tasting like inari.

You know, the tofu skin. Which I love. Oh, I was just about to talk about Yuba. Or Yuba. Yeah, those are both great products that are hundreds of years old. It's better for people, instead of reinventing the wheel, people have already invented things that can be substituted. So if you just do a little bit more research for yourself, you could cut your Yuba super thin. You could cut your Nari super thin, put that in a broth, and have a similar experience to the ramen you know and love without spending $8 and eating...

Not such good stuff. I'm going to give that a three. I'm going to give it a three. Yeah, I'll give it a three, a charitable three. Thank you for indulging me, Nicole. It's my job. I had to try it. I know, it's my job. And I was never going to buy it on my own. What do we got here? Sapporo Ichiban. Sapporo Ichiban, another Japanese product. I've never had this, actually. I will say, some of our noodles are starting to get a little waterlogged, so don't judge us completely on that. I used to be a food stylist for ramen, and let me tell you, waterlogged noodles are a very big deal.

But I don't care that much right now. How is it? I feel like you're really enjoying yourself. I feel like you're really enjoying yourself. Did you like it? Especially coming off of the last bowl of ramen. Again, I feel like such an a-hole criticizing it. But that's a really tough thing for me to eat. Sapporo Ichiban.

much, much roastier flavor. I don't know if it's just caramel coloring or what they're using, but that is a delight. I'm going to try and look at the ingredients. No vegetables, which I do miss. But sometimes you don't need vegetables. There's a fair amount of soy sauce in there. Mmm.

Yo. Yeah, this is a lot of salt, a lot of MSG, a lot of sugar, a lot of soy sauce, caramel color. You spit into the bowl. I spit, dude. I'm spitting everywhere. Oh my god, there's leek chips in there. Okay, that's great. I find that to be incredibly pleasant and well-balanced. I think that might be the most balanced ramen we've had out of this whole entire lineup. I don't know, dude. I think Mama from Thailand...

Is more balanced than Sapporo? Yes. I disagree with you. I think there's a better, like, sugar to spice ratio in Mama. But do you need sugar in your ramen? I don't know if I need it, but now that I have it, I am loving it. Give me the gin, though. Give me the gin. Because the gin is such a specific...

Flavor. Josh, my face is about to be so puffy. I'm going to look like the moon. I'm going to look like the moon after this. No, the gin to me is over-seasoned for a broth. I got a gua sha. I got a gua sha. I'll give this to me, Sapporo Ichiban. I think it's still probably better than Maruchan and Nissin. But not by margins. I kind of have Maruchan, Nissin, and Sapporo Ichiban sort of tied in the same category. I think out of the three, Sapporo is the best.

Really? Of the ones you said. Yeah, maybe by some margin. I think the gin is almost over-seasoned in a certain way. In an unpleasant way.

Yes. I feel like if I really ate a whole bowl of that... You'd feel bad. Or at the end, you'd just feel fatigued. Your palate would be super fatigued, right? You ever get to that point? You're right. It's like, to me, like Takis versus like a Flamin' Hot Cheeto. It's like Takis, they've gone past the line of hyper-seasoned, right? To where your mouth is blown out. You can't eat those every single day. But now...

This was like my graduation into Epicureanism. Nongshim. Right, was going from Nisin and Maruchan to Nongshim. Nongshim is bomb. This is the Shin, Ramya, and Red. The Black is also very iconic. The Black is also iconic. Let's get a sip of the broth. I like that there's mushrooms in there, little Dehai mushroom. Yeah. I love the Dehai mushroom.

Something about Shin. First of all, I love their noodle thickness. I guess I'm one of those noodle weirdos that like cares about the way the noodle like acts within the broth. Utterly elite. Utterly elite. Not even an elite bowl of instant ramen. That's an elite plate of food. Right? Right.

Even like, you go to some Korean restaurants and if there's ramen in a soup that they're making, sometimes it will just be shin that they're throwing in. Which is very acceptable. 100%. I'm mostly there for the Towers of Hype beer in the K-pop playing on the screens. But that is just a delightful bowl of food. I don't know that I can. I haven't had bulldog in a long time. These are dry noodles, so it's a little bit different. Oh my gosh, these are the super spicy ones.

The Red? Or the Bulldog? The Bulldog will do this. They are like, do we have a banana on standby? What does a banana get? Where are you going to put the banana? Where am I going to put the banana? Where are you going to put the banana? There's only one place a banana can go. Can I tell you something happened? I went to a spa. I went to a spa with Julia. You went to a spa? I know. It was like our mini honeymoon kind of thing. Who are you? Who have you become? It was, listen, it was old. Everyone say Mazel Tov, Josh. I got married.

I forgot my ring because I'm always cooking. Yeah, I was looking at it and I'm like, where's your ring? I don't know, but it would be fused to my finger with all the sodium as it is now. I'll wear it eventually. But we go to a spa and we did like a Moroccan bath, which I don't know what that is. Who have you become? I was like, what is this? A Tunisian bath? No, it's Moroccan. But anyways, they had three food items. They were like, this is grated cucumber for your eyes. And then these are crackers. Or she said, these are grated cucumbers. They go in your eyes. These are crackers. And I said, where do the crackers go? Yeah.

And the woman did not understand the joke. And she goes, what? You said the grated cucumbers go in your eyes. Where do the crackers go? And she goes, they're just to eat in case you get hungry. Grated cucumbers on your eyes? Put grated cucumbers in my eyes. No, you slice cucumbers you put on the eyes. I'm going to tell you, there are grated cucumbers in like a wet nap. And I put them on my eyes in a bath.

I thought I was going to have a panic attack because I felt trapped. Where was this? It's got like Ole Henriksen. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's famous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually looked at that a few months ago, but no. I don't think I was wrong. I'm going to give that a 9.2. Yeah. Shin Ramyun. I'm going to 9.2. Shin Ramyun to me is still like one of the standard bears. The noodles are perfect. The broth is perfect. Spicy. So you kind of got to dig on that.

But now we gotta try this to me. This is almost a generational divide to me between Millennials and Gen Z. You're correct. Gen Z eat bulldog. Gen Z love bulldog. Boomers eat Nissin. Uh-huh. Gen X eats cup noodles because they were Lashkey kids so they couldn't even get a pot. They sent a microwave. But Millennials to me like Shin Ramyun was, that was our move. Yeah, yeah. Now we're going into spicy bulldog territory. How spicy are we talking? Spicy. Spicy.

Like killer spicy, like really spicy. Aw, nuts! Like really spicy. Should I go to the bottom where all the spices are? Oh, mix it, mix it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm trying to mix it. Okay, stall. Talk about something. My name's a colon. I am so hopped up on. Salt, salt, salt, salt, salt. I eat lots of salt. Okay, wow. Okay, full throttle. Josh Sharer, colon. Full throttle. Not like colon body, but like colon. Well, your lips are stained orange.

You got orange lips. All right, Gen Z, I'm seeing the vision. I'm seeing the vision on the fire, Bulldog. It is ultra spicy. It is. I can feel my tongue starting to swell up. I smelled it. I smelled it. Aside from the spice, though. I smelled it. Again, this is a dry ramen, dry stir-fried noodle. It's seasoned really, really well. There are some foods that are so spicy but so properly seasoned that you can't stop eating it.

Which is a problem, but that's a route that I love to live in. If I stop eating this, I'm going to die. But if I start eating it, I'm going to die later. So what do I do? I'm on fire. Get a banana. Put it wherever you want. Wow. The chew on the noodles is excellent. Give me the poppy. Oh, God. Oh, my God. Spicy bulldog. I have not had that in years.

That is making the tongue swell. That's a delight, though. What do you rank it? How do you even give that a ranking? I think you can't even put it with the rest of them. I gotta go read Chapstick. All the fires are making my lips crack up. I can't feel. I can't feel. I'll speak for Nicole.

The product's actually done. I almost don't think we can rank it against any of these. No, no, no, no. Honorable mention. Honorable mention. Very honorable mention. The Bulldog is incredible. They also have the Bulldog Carbonara that we don't have with us today. I would love to try that on the pot at another time. Oh, God. It got to the back of my throat. Yeah, 9 out of 10 for what they were going for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They accomplished what they set out to do. Did you just palate cleanse with the gin ramen? I gotta do what I gotta do, yeah.

What are your overall takeaways before we fully get to the ranking of it? I think ramen is an innovation. I think ramen has done so much good in the world. Welcome to Nicole's TED Talk. Ramen has done a lot of good in the world. And, you know, it was an honor to taste all the different generations and all the different...

Shades of ramen that about 50 shades of ramen that we were here to try I think that ramen is good and I'm happy that I ate it's been such a long time since I've dipped my toe into the ramen world and it felt nice I will say out of all of these I don't know how I rank them it's so spicy in my mind that I don't know anything about what I said before

And it doesn't matter, Maggie. Like, right now, it doesn't matter. But I will say my favorite out of all of them has got to be gin ramen. Yeah. 10 out of 10. I mean, 10 out of 10. Like, gin ramen might be the best instant ramen of all time. But again, you can always customize it to your own thing. Like, you know, you can put your butter and your Parmesan cheese and your peanut butters and your this and that and the others. Make it really fancy. My mouth is salivating. Yeah.

Jin ramen was the best one out of all of them. But I will say that the shin, the nangshim, close second. Yeah, fully agreed. I think you really do taste the generational divides here. Like the maruchan, the nishin, and the Sapporo ichiban, like they're all, again, they're all great. Your body wants the sodium, the chicken flavor, the carbs. Like they're all really well done products. But then you get into, I think to me, nangshim, shin ramen is...

Still the best. I still have this over gin because I think there's such a good deep chicken flavor like with that spice there. Very impressed by Bulldog. Mama to me was sort of the sleeper surprise hit here. Yeah, black sheep. But I think for me Shin Ramyeon...

Ramen's nostalgic for so many people. And I remember myself when I was like 14. My dad just got a full-time job. And we're like, wow, we can afford the more expensive instant ramen now. And I remember making this at home, like watching Food Network, watching SportsCenter. And man, that nostalgic taste comes right back. God, do I need some water. Yeah.

All right, Nicole, now it's time for a new segment where you and I put our food trivia knowledge to the test. That's right. It's time for our very own segment called... Yummy in My Tummy Got Some Trivia For You. Robot Maggie has three questions prepared. Nicole, you and I will wait until the question is complete, and then we will answer. If wrong, the other person gets a chance to steal and earn the point. Let's hear that first question. Let's do it. There's a town in the Peloponnese region of Greece with a namesake food item known for its purple color and smooth, meaty texture. What is this fruit?

Fruit? What is this, fruit or what is this, food? Hold on, hold on. Okay, sitting in... We gotta work through this together now. Sitting in Greece... Okay, my initial mind... My brain went to Pulat.

But I think... Pluot? But that's a combination of a plum and an apricot, right? Yeah, this is definitely a Greek name. Plum and apricot are not... Okay, something's not mean to me. I'm trying to work it out. I can't work it out with you if you're going to be disrespectful. Wait, play the question one more time. Play the question one more time. There's a town in the Peloponnese region of Greece with a namesake food item known for its purple color and smooth, meaty texture. Purple color and smooth, meaty texture? That's why I thought pula. Plum?

Wait, are they saying fruit that has a purple? Is it, I mean, is it... Fruit!

Fruit. Fruit. Fruit. Do you think they're using the botanical? What are purple, meaty textured fruits? Pluots. You're right. Nicole, you're right. Pluots are purple and meaty. You're so mean to me right now. I'm so sorry. I freak out when I feel insecure. You made my confidence go from like a 10 to a 2 just by simply shutting me out. I felt small because I didn't know the answer and I made you feel small and I'm very apologetic for that. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Should be. I worry that I don't

I know this. Wait, hold on. What's the Greek word for eggplant? Melitana? But that, no, that doesn't make any sense. Babaganoush. Babaganoush. No, it's melitana, I think. Well, maybe it's an eggplant. Maybe it's an eggplant. It's not in Greece, named after a food. It's not in the Peloponnese. Samos. I'm going to say babaganoush.

The correct answer is the Kalamata Olive. Oh. We're so stupid. We are so dumb. That is so dumb. Oh my god, we are the dumbest, hottest people on the podcast. Can I tell you what happened? We were too hot. From the bulldog? I've been reapplying chapstick every like 10 minutes. I look like I got lip fillers, look. This is all natural. I look like I've gotten lip fillers, which really I haven't. I look like I have lip fillers too, but it's all natural. I'm an all natural bodybuilder.

Have I gotten some work done? Of course. In this town, baby. Who hasn't? Are you Anna Delvey? I have been watching Inventing Anna. That's crazy. What are you wearing? You look poor. Wow. Okay. 0 for 1. Let's get to number 2.

What is the name of the coffee produced from beans that have been eaten and excreted by civet cats? I know it. One, two, three. Kopi Luwak. I totally forgot. I blanked on it. Did you? I just blanked on it. Yeah. Yeah, Nicole gets that. The correct answer is Luwak coffee. Yeah. Luwak. Yeah, kopi is coffee. Kopi means coffee. Yeah, good job. Oh, thanks. Josh, thank you so much. You're so sweet. Thank you. Real recognize real. Next.

Which country is the world's largest consumer of chocolate per capita? I know this one. I am ready. One, two, three. Switzerland? UK?

The correct answer is Switzerland. Dude, Nicole, Nicole absolutely crushing it. She is beauty. She is grace. Absolutely crushing it. She doesn't know what to call them out of all of this. She's a fruit, I guess. That was a pretty easy question that we both... I know, we both... I blanked on all three. I went over and I'm... Is it because all of the sodium and spices coursing through your body? Could be, man. Because if anything, it made me hyper-focused. Okay.

Okay. Wow. Well, now that we've heard me absolutely fail and Nicole crush me, it's time to hear what you all have to say. This is the time for the opinions are like casseroles. All right. Let's get to the first question. That's quite a voicemail you guys got there. Thank you. I bet you got quite a voicemail too. Josh, Nicole, love you guys both so much. Love you too, buddy. Stop. My wife and I have had this debate for the past, gosh, 10 years now. We're married. We're married.

I think cooked properly, done properly, rendered fat on any piece of meat or protein. I don't know why I said meat or protein. Any piece of protein is fantastic. My wife thinks it's repulsive and makes her want to throw up any time I try to do it or any time it's happened at a restaurant. So, yeah, what are your guys' thoughts? Rendered fat, I think it's a beautiful thing.

Love you guys. Say it back. I love you. I love you. No, I love you. I love you. I love you. Babe, I love you. Babe, I love you. Okay, let's define rendered fat. Rendered fat. I have a tub of rendered fat in my still from Thanksgiving. Like tallow? Not tallow, no. Duck fit? Turkey schmaltz. Turkey schmaltz. I mean turkey schmaltz. So when you, to render fat, like turkey, a lot of the fat's subcutaneous, but you can do this with any meat, right? Right, right.

Hit it in a pan. Honestly, put water in it. If you want to make your own beef tallow, take beef fat and put it in a pan with water. And do it multiple times. Do it multiple times. And then it'll boil off the fat. The water boils out. And then you strain that fat through a fine mesh sieve. And then you're left with very pure, for me at least, turkey fat. Nice. That I've been using. I fried latkes in turkey schmaltz. Yum. Delicious. Yeah. Rendered animal fat. It's a great cooking method. But this person is talking about topping their protein with...

Another kind of rendered fat? Because my mind immediately went to like, I don't know why my mind went here, like a steak with like chicken skin, like rendered chicken skin is where my mind went. Maybe that's not the right direction. Maybe that's not what they're talking about. Any fat that cooks is rendered.

Yeah. In a way. Are they talking about like you have a plate of roasted broccoli and you're topping it with some tallow or some pork lard? They said protein. Well, then they said, oh, they said protein? They said protein. Interesting. So like, yeah, just hearing a steak and beef tallow, I guess. Topping it with some beef tallow? Topping it with it. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think it's repulsive. Definitely not repulsive. Is she talking about mixing animals? I think they're talking about mix. In my mind, that's where I went. Yeah.

I don't know if that's what they're talking about. Next time you call us, can you be a little bit more specific about what you're talking about? I love that you said how much you love us, though. Because right now, I'm really confused. And because I love you so much, I just want you to be better, okay? Need more clear communication in our relationship. Howdy, Josh. Howdy, Nicole. Howdy. Whatever guest there may or may not be. It's Maggie. Miss Maggie. Hey! Miss Maggie, if you're nasty. This is James from Dallas, Texas. My opinion, Casserole, it may not be a hot take, but...

We'll be the judge. Soft scrambled eggs freaking suck. Yes, yes. Soft scrambled eggs are just bad and not good. Give me a hard scramble all day. Yeah, yeah. I don't understand the whole Gordon Ramsay with the soft scramble. How does it be nice and light and creamy? No. No. No. Throw some eggs in there with a bunch of butter, salt, pepper, hard scramble. Correct. Coming down my throat. Correct. Okay, bye. Love y'all.

Go ahead. I love hard scrambled. Same. My whole life. I like when there's a little bit of browning on my eggs. I do. Yeah, same. But let me tell you, there was a phase. I went through a phase where I was a soft scrambled girl. And also, David and I went on a vacation one time to the Rio in frickin', I don't know, somewhere in Mexico. And he emphasized that he wanted his eggs to be softly scrambled. And he said no browning on it. He was being very particular about it. And then I also learned...

to be more particular about it. And I liked it whenever they were a little bit runnier. But now I'm pivoting back to hard scrambles. Yeah. So I think it's a phase. I also think sometimes like with soft scrambles, a little bit snotty and boogery and vomity.

It's just... Do you know what I mean? 100%. But this is... Bavuz. Bavuz. Dogs drool. I think... What is it called? Like the Dunning-Kruger effect? I don't know either of those people. Those who know the most about something and those who know the least about something are going to be the most confident about their knowledge in something.

It's like the dumbest 10% and the smartest 10%. So are you Dunder or Kruging? Am I Dunder or Mifflin? So you get someone like Gordon Ramsay who is cooking very French soft scrambled eggs that are for a very particular dish. You all see him putting them on toast or something like that or to go with a full English where you have toast and starches and whatever. But then you get some internet hardos who have watched that one video where...

and think that that's how every scrambled egg in the entire world is supposed to be or how every omelet in the entire world is supposed to be. I posted a picture of an omelet that I made on Twitter like five years ago and someone, like a bunch of people just went, that's overcooked. It's like, you didn't eat it.

I was trying to make it like that because that's how I like it. So if you look at like a perfect French omelet or a Japanese omurice, which is based, it's Yoshoku, it's Western cuisine. So anyways, you look at a perfect French omelet. That is a marvel. It's delightful. You get a perfect American diner omelet that also is bomb. You get a Thai omelet that is almost wok fried and it's crispy and cloudy and it's brown and crunchy omelet.

that's also good. There's no wrong way to cook an egg. The only wrong way to cook an egg is the way that you don't like it. Yeah. So soft scramble...

If you don't like it, great. Eat a hard scramble. I prefer, if I make scrambled eggs at home, I have a very particular way that I like to do it. Tell them what you do because I know what you do. I don't know if you do. I get it to like a soft scramble consistency and then I kind of let it sit for a second because I love when they're hard scrambled but they're not small curds. Oh, same. Yeah, big curd balls.

Yes, yes, yes. Big curd, like hard, medium scramble. Yeah, 100%. So you have to go under the fork and get big chunks off it. I can take a giant bite of like a whole scrambled egg in one. That's the only way to eat a hard scramble is large curd. Small curds with a hard scramble makes absolutely no sense. I don't like that. I don't like getting it. It feels like grains of rice falling off my fork. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's the beauty about eggs, man. There's no wrong way to cook an egg.

I love it. But people who insist that soft scramble is the only way, that's a weird thing. It's a fun, weird, like warm custardy thing, but I don't want it all the time. Excuse me. Hey, Josh and Nicole. Hey, Brian. My weird food habit is eggnog rice. Yes. So you take leftover rice. Yes.

Add whole milk. The freaks come out. Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg. Okay. And the secret ingredient is rum essence. Just a single drop. Put it all in a bowl. Put it in the microwave for a minute. You should definitely try it. Are you like a little depressed? I'm just wondering. Very monotone in your delivery.

And also making eggnog rice. Eggnog rice tastes good. Oh, yeah, that's great. That, to me... It's rice pudding. That, to me, is some, like, generational cooking, right? That sounds really good. That, like, five generations from now, your children, their children's children, their children's children are going to be like, remember... I don't remember your name, if it was Andy or not. I'm going to call you Andy. Remember Uncle Andy's microwave eggnog rice, right? They're going to be extraplanetary. They're going to be orbiting the rings of Jupiter, and they're going to be trying to recreate Uncle Andy's...

Opening the Rings of Saturn. Talking about Uncle Andy's eggnog rice. That's like, that's the essence of cooking, right? It sounds delicious. That's just right. It's bootleg rice pudding. I would eat this without any problems, without any concern, without any sort of judgment. We listen and we don't judge. And we would never judge your eggnog rice, Uncle Andy. Do we address the fact that he called it allspice?

It's okay. Allspice? He called allspice allspice. It's okay. I know I say... You say hospice or hospice? It's ho-spice, actually. Add a little bit of ho-spice to your eggnog, right? Some people just have different ways they say it. Like star anise and star anise. That's true. I say paprika instead of paprika. Yeah, you have no... Get off your soap!

Get off your soapbox, young man. Get off my soapbox? I've just never heard, I've never in my life heard somebody say allspice. That's okay. And I think I might adopt it as a silly affectation. I don't think you will. You're being silly. Now that she's said that, I am going to exclusively say allspice for the rest of my life.

I would eat the heck out of that. I would eat it too. Sounds really good. Don't doubt yourself so much, cutie. Smile a little. Come on, sugar plump. Stop sexually harassing our callers. It's not sexual. Hey, don't smile a little more when talking about Jagna grace. It's not sexual. It's sensual. On that very specific note, thank you all so much for stopping by the podcast. We got new episodes out. Audio platforms on Wednesday. New videos out on Sunday.

If you want to be featured on opinions or like casseroles, give us a call at 833-DOG-POD-1. It'll just sensually bother you. And if you want to be sensually bothered by Nicole Moore, check out the Mythical Kitchen channel. That's basically all she does. See y'all next time.