Sunlee - Tom Yum Shrimp Instant Vermicelli [By @SpectreUK]

Reading the cover of this plastic bowl I couldn’t help thinking this could be a slightly different experience to the other pot noodles I’ve tried in the past few months. The directions sounded easy enough: Put soup base and oil into noodle bowl, pour in boiling water, cover for three minutes, open lid, stir then serve. Tearing off the lid made me think again on the ease of this soup (see photograph). This is definitely the laziest manufactured pot noodle I’ve tried, or is it? Asides the free fork, there is a soup base (which is powdered flavouring) and oil (which is Tom Yum soup paste), which must of taken some making. The noodles are a shiny dried bunch in the bowl. I must admit on first glance I didn’t think that this would all mix together well. There was also a few seconds where lazyitous almost kicked in and I thought about throwing the whole thing away and eating a Pot Noodle.

I followed the instructions; left the bowl covered for a few minutes, stirred and was quite surprised how easy the noodle soup was to mix up. The thick Tom Yum paste and powdered soup seasoning quickly turned to liquid once the hot water was added. The shiny pile of noodles filled the bowl once wet and the fork helped to mix everything together. I left the soup to cool a while before tasting. There were small bits of herbs floating amongst the noodles, but no meat or vegetables. Although this is a very spicy peppery tasting soup, I had the distinctive feeling that it was missing substance. There was certainly no hint of shrimp in the taste. The noodles helped to give me something to chew on and the soup made a good starter, but for a main meal or lunch I would have had to dip a large amount of bread in to help fill me up and to mop up all the excess liquid. When I began to eat to start with I ended up like the Chinese guys leaning over their soup bowls on the TV, slurping up bunches of hot noodles, but after a time the soup cooled, and I could pick up the bowl stopping stooping and slurping. As I reached the bottom of the bowl the peppery taste became stronger, almost overpowering and I had the feeling that I could have done with mixing this soup up with a spoon rather than a fork to start with. Although this isn’t the best or most filling pot noodle style product I’ve tried, I did enjoy making and eating it. I’d recommend it as a very tasty experience, but not if you’re in a rush for a quick filling lunch.

By SpectreUK