Re:Nourish + Restore Soup in a bottle [@NLi10]

 My partenr picked up a few pre-made lunches for home - one of which was this soup.  I'd already tried to review it once but it got lost at the back of the fridge and was well out of date when found.  This time I jumped right in.

 

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I love green coloured drinks (Shrek Juice) but even for me this is an odd combo.  Pea and Leek soup just doesn't appeal!

I nuked the lot, and then added a generous amount of apple balsamic - and quite enjoyed it!  I think the flavours were a lot milder than I'd feared, and with a wholesome crusty bread (that needed using up) it worked pretty well. 

That felt too boring for a whole review - so here is Flo trying to persuade some of the creamy mash to come her way!

Covent Garden soup co - Pumpkin Spice [@NLi10]

 Spooky season is over - but autumn is still in vogue. Harvests have been harvested and pumpkins carved and discarded. But wait - what if we actually ate some?

The Covent Garden soup company seem to agree and have these lovely long dated special edition pumpkin soups - and they have lots of lovely bits in them.

Lightly spiced with warming chilli - perfect

Well with a dash of balsamic and a handful of chilli pumpkin seeds to add some more crunch.

More please! 🎃 

MI SO TASTY - Silken Tofu Miso Soup by @NLi10

I like Japanese food, but I don't really like mushrooms.  This means I tend to avoid things that use them as the ingredients in large ways.

I do like Miso soup though - even though I understand that Real Dashi contains mushrooms.  I blame my time as a teenager in the Japan Cultural Centre near Totenham Court Road buying the cheap Miso soup with fish food (tempura batter flakes) as it was the only way I could eat there.

Aged mushroom water - yum...

You get some cubes, & some paste

And you get a nice hot drink for a Feb evening starter before dinner.  Just the right amount of salty and tangy and umami and 'mouthfulness'.  Great split between two as a starter, or you could probably have one solo as an alternative to a nice cup of tea.

Have to bring your own flakes, but this tastes pretty darn close to the real deal!

Aka Red Miso Soup (@DegustaboxUK) By @SpectreUK

At last the rains have come back and there is a bit of a chill in the air. To warm my bones this morning I’ve decided to try this Red Aka Miso Soup, produced by Miso Tasty. Thoughts of quotes from the movie Full Metal Jacket™ asides where the manufacturer’s name is concerned; reading the box this Aka Miso soup is popular in Hokkaido and northern parts of Honshu, in Japan.

As you can see in the photograph this Aka Red Miso Soup comes in two sachets; one full of Japanese Shichimi Spice Mix and the other Miso paste. Made from twelve month fermented rice and soybeans the Aka Red Miso Soup paste is sported on the box as having a rich umami taste. I’ll take their word for it of course, as I’ve tried Miso soup in plenty of restaurants, but not a red variety before, so this is a first for me. Their Japanese Shichimi pepper spice mix is packed with Wakame seaweed and spring onion, and citrus spices. Miso Tasty Aka Red Miso Soup promises a “warming mix of chilli, mandarin peel, sesame, nori (I thought that was a dwarf in the Lord of the Rings™!), sansha pepper, and ginger.”

So I prepared my trusty work mug (wiping the tea stains out a bit) and boiled the old works kettle. I usually use the dirty great boiler for tea, but that seemed wrong for this somehow. After squeezing out the gooey orange coloured contents of the yellow sachet of Miso soup paste, and shaking out the Wakame seaweed and diced spring onions into the bottom of my work mug, I added freshly boiled water and stirred for a short time. The contents had the consistency I’m used to of a regular Miso soup, whilst being slightly reddish in colour instead of the usual off-green.

On taste this Aka Red tastes like a rich Miso soup. Of course there’s the seaweed and spring onions dominating the flavour, but there’s also the warming spices underneath brushing up against that traditional Miso soup taste. This is a really tasty healthy feeling soup. I couldn’t fault it in a mug, asides drinking it made me slightly worried I’d choke on some of the seaweed and spring onion pieces. I’d recommend a spoon and some bread for dipping. Otherwise, just as good as any restaurant Miso soup I’ve tasted in restaurants... In fact in some cases, even better!

Information on the box;

The box consists of 4 x 20g servings, each with 45.78 calories (very precise), 1.77g of fat, 2g of sugar, and 2.06g of salt. Rich in protein and antioxidants, and with vitamin K and B12, see photograph for ingredients.

Soup of the Day - @BM_AG - Winter Warming Spiced Pumpkin & Sweet Potato (@NLi10)

Museums can be spooky places, so technically I can do a halloween reviews there right?

Especially if they serve up pumpkin on the menu!

As we tend to do when in Birmingham at the weekend we ducked into Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's Edwardian Tearoom to see what we had on offer.  Here we see the Soup Of The Day is Spiced Pumpkin & Sweet Potato, both things that I love AND packed with nutrition AND a lot warmer than the streets of Birmingham in October.  You also get two little chunks of bread, which initially seemed quite skimpy, but turned out to be spot on.

Here is a case full of scary monkeys - this looks like Tim Burton's toy chest.

And here is the soup!  It's pretty thick and clearly actually contains all the things that you'd expect (Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, and spiciness) and really really good.  It was warm and filling and hit all the right spots.

The breads were also really posh, full of bits of spice and tomato and all kinds of wonderful things.  It tasted like it was freshly made and was probably the highlight of the whole meal.

In combination they were exactly what we needed and set us up for the remainder of the shopping and the bus ride home.

And as long as you can escape from the clutches of Lucifer in the Round Room on the way out then it's well worth a trip away from the shops and into the warmth.

Covent Garden Scream of Pumpkin Soup (Sainsburys) [By @Cinabar]

As Halloween is coming we thought we'd try out the new seasonal soup from Covent Garden; Scream of Pumpkin. Loving the name! Just for good measure the other main ingredient other than pumpkin is blood orange, just to keep things up with the theme.
The soup is a lovely orange colour and although the there aren't pieces of pumpkin in it, it is still quite a hearty thickness. The taste wasn't what I was expecting at all. The dominant taste was that of curry and spices, it isn't hot with chilli, but the warm of Indian style spices shone through. The next taste to appear was a citrus twang, not sweet like you might expect from the aforementioned blood orange, but sour and bitey. The autumnal taste of pumpkin only came through as a bit of an aftertaste, hidden because of all the complex flavours.
The first spoon I had of this didn't work for me. I was expecting that wholesome pumpkin flavour and it didn't appear and I was left trying to work out what my taste buds were interpreting. By the end of the bowl I had grown accustomed to the spices and sour taste and was really enjoying it. Strange I know, I did really like the soup, it just didn't taste at all like I was expecting. I would happily have this again, despite my initial reaction. It would probably be fun to have this on Halloween night, it might not be aimed at children's tastebuds, but adults could have some fun with the theming and trying to guess the flavour.

By Cinabar

Chinese Style Hot Pot (Aldi) [By @SpectreUK]

This Chinese Style Hot Pot with mushrooms and rice was handed to me by my parents, who were in turn handed it to them by my sister. None of whom seemed to want to try it, despite my sister buying it on a whim. So it fell to Cinabar and I to eat this Chinese Style Hot Pot after a night at the Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton watching the excellent and very funny Mikado, by D’Oyly Carte.

On opening the huge can the sloppy brown liquid inside had a tomato and soya smell to it. I must admit on first sight I could understand why this Chinese Style Hot Pot had been handed over. I shared the contents out into two bowls. Cooking consisted of three minutes with a stir in the middle for each dish in the microwave. The sloppy brown soup had what looked like diced bits of onion, celery, bell red pepper, soya beans and mushrooms. On first taste Cinabar liked it, which was a good start. She stated it was nice, tomatoey and had an air of chilli con carne.

Once my bowl had cooked I instantly found this Chinese Style Hot Pot excellent for dipping in pieces of torn bread. I could see what Cinabar meant about the chilli con carne feel, but the strong taste of soya took that away for me. There were chunky pieces of mushroom and plenty of rice, amongst the other bits and pieces. I used up my two slices of bread pretty quickly. There were generous sized bits of red pepper, onions and soya beans. The brown rice soup had a medium tangy lip licking spice to it. I found this Chinese Style Hot Pot very tasty and we both really enjoyed it. It felt filling, warming and healthy, and we'd certainly have it again.

Information on the huge can;
800g can with two 400g servings at 252 calories, with 18g of sugar and 6g of fat. No artificial colours or preservatives. Contains milk, egg, celery, soya, wheat, gluten and mustard. For ingredients see photograph.

By Spectre

Heinz Cream of Tomato soup with Fiery Mexican Spices (Asda) [By @SpectreUK]

You know that feeling when you're doing something that pushes your limits and you have that moment you think; "If I stop now I think I'll die!"? For instance recently Cinabar convinced me to go back to the gym, either that or my ever increasing waist size convinced her to convince me to go back to the gym. It had been the first time in ages and I thought; I'll see what this fat ageing tub of lard can do. So I found this skiing climbing running machine of destruction (I'm not sure if it was called that, but bear with me) and put fifteen minutes on the clock. Fifteen minutes doesn't sound that bad, I hear you say, but for someone whose primary exercise for three months had been XBox and watching movies, this was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. I started off running like hell. I didn't know why or what I was running from or where I was running too, but I knew deep down that I wasn't going anywhere. Two minutes forty seconds in and I thought I was going to die, but I figured if I stopped I would probably fly off the machine in a random direction and do serious damage to a random beefcake or busty gym babe.

I've had enough hot chilli snacks and "fiery" meals to sink a battleship. Hence why I was back at the gym. This new Heinz Cream of Tomato soup with Fiery Mexican Spices is one of a pair, the other is Cream of Chicken Soup with Aromatic Thai Spices which was recently reviewed by NLi10. We decided to have this soup with a selection of goodies to see how they would fair taste wise. We usually have a big bacon sandwich with soup, but this time a huge loaf of Tiger Bread was just about to go out of date, there was some Brussel's Smooth pate which was also going the same way, some German Salami curtesy of Aldi and a couple of weird sounding cheeses that we had picked up somewhere.

On opening the can I noticed that there were flecks of red chilli dotted in the creamy tomato fire engine red soup. On first taste there was a slight chilli con carne feel mixed in with the usual thick Heinz tomato soup. The Tiger bread was lovely dipped in; perfect really as the bread didn't drop apart either. The soup drew out the garlic in the German Salami leaving a pleasing aftertaste. The soup also drew out the ginger in the Wendlseydale with Ginger cheese. The best cheese to go with this soup was the Applewood Smoke. The soup really brought out the smoked flavour taking my mind straight to a Mexican restaurant somewhere smelling the smoky spiced barbeque foods, whilst enjoying my own lightly spiced tomato chilli con carne meal. It's certainly convinced me to give grated smoked cheese a try on my next chilli con carne dinner. Grated cheese should not be kept souly for pasta dishes so it seems. The worst food to go with this soup was the Brussel's Smooth pate. The pork liver and tomato just didn't match at all and there was just too much liver flavour for my liking in the pate anyway! Blargh!

I would say this Heinz Cream of Tomato soup with Fiery Mexican Spices had a winter warming feel with it's very mild chilli heat and spicy seasoning. I couldn't say it was "fiery" though as it didn't make me sweat like the skiing climbing running machine of destruction or think if I stopped eating it I would die. The soup was very tasty and it did warm me up though. And let's face it without gyms if we tried to exercise outside in the British climate we'd probably freeze and drown in a massive puddle!

By Spectre

Heinz Black Label - Cream of Chicken Soup with Aromatic Thai Spices [review by @NLi10]

I'm a big fan of Heinz Cream of Chicken soup so when I spotted this combo with Thai spices added as part of a new Black Label range in it went straight in the trolly. I don't eat much soup these days but as mentioned I got soup bowls for Christmas so am making an effort to rediscover this food group.  I must remember that it only fits HALF a can of soup without getting messy.

The soup itself looks like the regular version but as soon as you lift the lid it smells incredibly Thai.  There are all the usual spices and it's got a hint of both Tom Yum and yellow curry to it - and it packs a good little kick which fades quickly to leave the aromatic flavours behind.  All of this is balanced on top of the Heinz Chicken flavour I've been loving since being a tiny person back when we had to heat these on the hob due to not having microwaves.

This better not be a limited edition.  I know there is a full range to try, but after the (Heinz) Mulligatawny soup sparked my newfound love of spicy soups this replaces the standard Cream of Chicken in the cupboard as the emergency lunch tin of choice.  Of the remaining flavours two are spicy tomato (Mexican Spices or Chilli) which I may get around to, and the fourth contains mushrooms so will be avoided at all costs.

Ainsley Harriott Spanish Chorizo & Paprika Soup [review by @NLi10]

I got a soup bowl for Christmas - celebrity chef Ainsley Harriott has a new range - and so we combined it all into one.

I've had a lot of lovely soups recently, mainly spicy ones which is something I'd never expected to like. This is like that, but is one of those newer style soups that isn't in a can and is presumably fresher.  The container has two portions which is nice, but also annoying as the lid is shocking - you couldn't carry it about.  I cooked it in my new bowl (with it's lid on) and had a tea in my I love gaming mug.

The soup was thicker than expected, but with no real chunks of ingredient that you could identify.  The picture is a little different.  This would have been an issue, but it was really really nice and filling so I couldn't complain too much.  I think that the taste was restaurant quality, but the texture and contents wouldn't be quite up there.  A good lunch with a bread and drink (for the heat) but not a must buy.

Pop Up Soup – Spicy Lentil & Coconut [By @SpectreUK]

I’d been saving this Spicy Lentil & Coconut Pop Up Soup, which Team Grasshopper had very kindly sent me, for a cold and rainy day. It came to lunchtime on my own one Saturday with cold dollops of rain washing the morning frost away for me to select this soup from the Foodstufffinds shelf, and make a hearty doorstep ham and mustard sandwich as an accompaniment. I popped open the lid and pulled off the plastic cover, added freshly boiled water and stirred well whilst the concertinaed plastic container slowly rose. The powdered soup mixed well together into a thick creamy concoction. There was a definite initial punch from the lentil, chives and onions in this creamy mix of coconut, mushroom and spicy pepper soup. It tasted fantastic and I really enjoyed the complexity of flavours blended together in this smooth mixture with the added warmth from the peppery spice, which followed through into every lip smacking aftertaste. The size of this soup pot was perfect for a lunchbox. I would definitely have this soup as a spicy warming starter to an evening meal or again as an accompaniment to a sandwich or some bread and cheese for lunch.

Information on the label:
The 25g recyclable Hopper Pot of 100% natural soup had a cardboard sleeve to slip over the Hopper Pot whilst eating on the move. The Hopper Pot contained 100 calories, with 5g of sugar and 2g of fat. The vegetarian friendly ingredients included; potato starch, lentil four, fat powder, potato powder, maltodextrin, caster sugar, dried mushroom, yeast extract, oat bran soluble fibre, salt, onion chopped and powdered, garlic powder, chervil, chives, black pepper, caramelised sugar powder, and white pepper

By Spectre

Heinz Big Soup – Steak and Guinness Casserole (ASDA)[By @SpectreUK]

Recently I enjoyed the HP Sauce flavour Heinz Big Soup, so I was looking forward to trying this Steak and Guinness Casserole. I decided to wash it down with a can of Guinness. The label on the 410g plastic pot boasted that this soup was low fat and one of the 5 a day; it had 260 calories, 6.5g of fat and 6.2g of sugar. Made by Heinz in Germany and containing no artificial colours, the ingredients included; potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, beef, onions, garlic, and of course Guinness stout. After a couple of minutes in the microwave and a further couple of minutes to cool, I was able to tuck into the juicy beefy gravy like soup that had a decent bitter twang of Guinness. There were plenty of vegetables, soft potatoes and succulent chunks of beef mixed into the dark brown gravy. Like the HP Sauce Big Soup all the vegetables and potato pieces were cooked perfectly and complemented each other, as well as the creamy pint of Guinness. I also dipped in a couple of pieces of bread to mop up the moist stout gravy. This Big Soup felt like a healthy and filling meal. I shall definitely have this and the Big Soup HP Sauce flavour again. I found them both to be tasty, satisfying and healthy meals, and just as important for me; they were quick and easy to cook!

By Spectre

Miso Cup Soup – Vegetable Flavour (Day In Supermarket) [By @SpectreUK]

This Miso Cup Soup was produced by the Excellence Food Biochemical Company, in Taiwan, which sounds more like a place from some sort of horror movie, than a food manufacturer. There were two sachets inside the 43g cardboard container, of which had 50 calories, with 0g fat and 2.5g sugar. One sachet was full of a liquid Miso soup base, containing rice, soybean, and salt. The other sachet had finely cut pieces of vegetable, which were celery, carrot, bok choy, endive and cabbage. I replaced the free plastic spoon with a metal one, as I have seen what happens to plastic cutlery in boiling water. I added freshly boiled water to the cup, the vegetable sachet and then the Miso soup base. I stirred briefly and then replaced the plastic lid of the cup and left for a few minutes. On removing the plastic lid there was a lovely Miso soup smell. I stirred the soup a little more and gambled a taste. I was strangely surprised to find that this Miso soup was easily the match for any of the Miso soups I have previously guzzled down in restaurants. I say “surprised” because this was supposed to be a cheap and simple cup soup, manufactured by a scary sounding biochemical company. I would definitely have this healthy and tasty Miso soup again and can’t wait to try the Bonito flavour I have in the Foodstuff’s tasting cupboard.

By Spectre

Mighty Miso instant organic soup (Red Kite Foods) [by @NLi10]

It's cold again (although I do love the snow), so out come the boxes of soup!

I bought these some time ago from Red Kite in Bromsgrove, but I never actually reviewed them.  To be honest I was quite surprised to find them in my desk draws (I'd been having a clear-out and they were right at the back) as I enjoyed them first time around too - but obviously not enough to drink all 12.

The red miso one on the left has little tofu floating in it which give it a more exciting chewiness, the white miso one on the right has a mistier appearance.  I really couldn't tell you more about the flavour as they both taste very similar to me - I guess if I had them one after the other then I could.  They are a bit salty for that (especially if you don't stir enough - the curse of the packet soup) but otherwise an enjoyable experience.

Also this particular Miso is made with aspergillus oryzae  - a fermenting mould which is commonly found in Japanese cooking which is pretty cool.  While the health benefits are dubious the taste benefits are proven beyond doubt.  A nice change from the minestrone packet soups.

Heinz Squeeze & Stir - Minestrone Soup [By @NLi10]

 Previously we discussed how soup was a generally mistreated snack, and found that the Tomato version of this seemingly odd soup was pretty nice and well worth hunting out. If you haven't seen that one, it's worth a click as this is essentially a part two.

It's not usually worth digging into a range unless the basic product is done well, and even then you kind of guess that the rest will be similar and carry on exploring the snack aisle. Today's review primarily exists as I'd no idea how Heinz would cram pasta into a tiny little sachet and still make it edible.

Squeezing the soup made the following unappetising splooge. Fortunately as with a lot of food prep the lovely smell overpowers the oddly wormy sight and most people will carry on to the next step.

This is of course the stir! Following the two stage preparation algorithm and taking into account that my work mug is a good chunky one by not over-filling it gave me a good strong soup that as mentioned is basically half a can of the Heinz varieties that they mimic.

The particle size in the minestrone soup is a little small, and the pasta is more like a lentil size but is no less nice for it. I seem to remember that Heinz Minestrone has little hoops in it which I'd have preferred but the texture of the real thing is similar to this. The flavour is spot on - this is basically a paste version of the tins of soup we've all been having for years.

I need to remember to hunt this out next time I shop. The people in the office I go in to nick the boiling water have already started buying these too (mostly the unadventurous tomato but it's a start!) so they must be out there. I can't imagine a leek & potato or similar Heinz 'BIG' soup in this, but I'm almost positive the range doesn't stop at two varieties so joined their facebook (one of those silly ones where you have to click like to get the info so feel compelled to unlike it again as you leave), and found there is a Tomato & Basil (Pizza flavour) and a Mediterranean vegetable which I can also try. I find their lack of Chicken disturbing, but maybe that will appear next winter.

I can't wait to see if they manage to do squeeze and stir Heinz baked beans...

By NLi10

Heinz Squeeze and stir Cream of Tomato Soup (Asda) [By @NLi10]

Of all the convenience foods that we see regularly soup is probably the one that is subjected to the most abuse. It’s most commonly canned for years at a time, powdered and put into mugs, and condensed into a variety of forms. Recently a few companies have tried to push for better soups where it’s refrigerated in a carton or see through plastic tub and has so many varieties and odd flavours you’d suspect that those Innocent people are behind it. Cup-a-soup and it’s variants used to be a great thing to grab for winters at work, but I’d not bought any for a good while when I spotted the Heinz Squeeze and Stir range. I’m sure these must have come out before Winter, but I missed them.

This is a small pouch that looks like it’s a cooking sauce or maybe art materials, but it claims to be a rich instant cup-a-soup and 1 of our 5 a day. From directions it makes up about half a can of soup so seems like a snack sized portion. To be fair to the brand I picked up an easy win Tomato soup, and a far more complex Minestrone (I’m not sure how all the pasta will be the same proportionally in a 70g pouch) and today it’s the turn of the tomato one.

Squirting the contents out of the plastic really is like spreading some acrylic paint – it’s good fun and you can smell the tomato as it fills up the bottom of the cup. Unfortunately I was in a rush and didn’t have my phone on me so no pics of this, but I’ll try to grab one of the Minestrone soon. I did the soup as instructed by the instruction and put the boiling water in over two stages, stirring in-between. I think I overfilled it at the 2nd stage as I have a pretty big mug so I think the final flavours may be stronger.

Flavour wise I didn’t expect much. Cream of Tomato is nice, but not my favourite. Turns out it tastes pretty much the same as the canned variety. There is a good chance that soups are usually made from concentrate anyway and this just brings that final process a lot closer to home. For some reason I also thought that it wouldn’t be as hot as a regular soup. It was certainly hot enough to scald my tongue! It was a nice afternoon snack (once it had cooled a bit) and I was left feeling like I could eat the other half of the can too. Maybe two pouches could fix this. The paste at the bottom of the cup was a little thicker than at the top meaning the flavour intensified throughout which was nice, but as I mentioned I think I overfilled.

Can’t wait to try the Minestrone, and I hope there is a Cream of Chicken one to try too.

By NLi10

Heinz Big Soup - Steak and Potato with HP Sauce (Asda) [By @SpectreUK]

April showers are never much fun and with the added misery of Britain’s inability to shake off the winter chills, I found myself in search of a warming soup one wet and dreary afternoon. At 410g, 286 calories, with 7.6g fat, and 9g sugar and with no artificial colours, I figured this soup would probably fill me up on its own, but the greedy devil on my shoulder suggested I have a roast chicken sandwich with lashings of grainy mustard and a packet of Royster’s T-Bone Steak flavoured bubble crisps, all washed down with a lovely dark pint of Murphy’s Stout. The soup’s ingredients included; HP Brown Sauce (5%), potatoes (20%), beef (9%), vegetables (33%), of which included peas, carrots, and onions, as well as black pepper and vegetable oil, amongst other things. A warning on the outside of the bowl stated that this soup contained gluten, wheat, barley, rye and sulphites. I heated the bowl for two and a half minutes in the microwave. The soup had a beefy gravy texture with a good hit from the HP Brown Sauce. There were numerous potatoes with plenty of vegetables mixed liberally in with the small chunks of succulent beef, which was all perfectly cooked and just melted in the mouth, whilst lovingly wrapped by the gravy type soup. The sauce mixed in with the “gravy” was an excellent treat, and I would definitely add HP Sauce to future roast beef and potato gravy meals. This was easily one of the best microwave pot meals I’ve tasted in recent years; filling, warming and most welcome against the chill rain outside.

By Spectre

Vifon – Tomato and Chicken noodle soup (Birmingham Indoor Market) [By @SpectreUK]

This Tomato and Chicken noodle soup was produced by Vifon, in Poland. You’ll see in the photograph that there was a free plastic spoon, but I used a metal fork instead in order to curl up the noodles (and I’ve seen what boiling water can do to plastic spoons in the past), there was also a vegetable sachet, a soup base sachet and a tomato and chicken metal soup carton. There was 40% stewed chicken in the metal meat carton, and 35% canned tomato, amongst other things. Other ingredients in the noodle soup included; spring onion, pepper, paprika, garlic, celery, carrot, and leek. I decided to watch Ironclad, which is a siege film set just after the Magna Carta was signed by Bad King John, in 1215. The preparation instructions on the cardboard bowl were a little confusing for my tender hungry brain, so I dumped everything into the bowl with the noodles and poured in the required 300ml of boiling water, leaving to stand for a few minutes whilst I watched heads and arms and legs being hacked off in the gory movie. I then stirred the blood red noodle soup, mixing in all the noodles, vegetables, soup base and stewed chicken. The soup smelt very much of tomato with a subtle meaty spicy hint. There were lots of vegetable bits in with the pieces of stewed chicken and thin stringy noodles. The soup felt very healthy and had a heavy tomato flavour with a definite meaty spicy mention. It was a messy soup to eat so I had to lean, shovel noodles into my mouth and mop my chin with a tissue on the odd occasion, but it tasted absolutely great. I drank the rest of the soup off after eating all the noodles, vegetables and meat. I was impressed at how well all the ingredients from the sachets had mixed in together with no residue in the bottom of the cardboard bowl. This was a very thick tomato noodle soup, not watery like some pot noodles can lean to. I loved every minute of the stringy meaty spicy tomato noodle soup and would definitely have it again. If you like a good sword, armour, blood and gore yarn I’d definitely recommend the film too! It was my favourite movie so far this year! ;-)

By Spectre

Nong Shim Hot and Spicy: Shin Cup Noodle Soup [By Spectre] (Day In, Birmingham)

I recently found out that I like pot / cup noodles and decided to have a little quest to find the best brands in the world. This Nong Shim Noodle Soup was recommended by a regular reader. The idea of a Hot and Spicy flavour meant I just had to hunt a pot down. On adding the boiling water to the solid noodles they took quite a bit to soften and mix. I noticed bits of carrot, coriander, mushrooms, red pepper and onions were floating around amongst the thin stringy noodles. I ripped open the red coloured sachet and mixed in the powdered paste. The soup went a lovely orange colour whilst the noodles absorbed much of the fluid. On tasting I noticed an extra spicy Tom Yum taste that made my taste buds tingle with chilli heat bouncing around my mouth pleasantly. This noodle soup is full of flavour, with hints of soy sauce, garlic and black pepper, and is one of the best I’ve tried. The hot noodles didn’t burn my lips, which meant that it wasn’t too messy to eat, but there was some slurping. Trying to stay with the oriental theme I gulped down this cup noodle with a glass of Ozeki Sake. The dryness of the Sake complemented the Tom Yum spicy taste very well. I’ll definitely hunt down another Hot and Spicy cup noodle from Nong Shim, and take a look at what else they have in their range. The teensy bottle of Sake didn’t last any amount of time though, so I’ll have to find a bigger bottle!

By Spectre