Thursday, January 29, 2015

Campbell's Hot and Sour Hearty Noodles Review

More noodles from yet another brand. This was much more expensive at twice the cost of the stuff I usually bought -- not that great in absolute cost, but still.

Campbell's Heart Noodles Hot & Sour Packaging
Overview
A bowl of noodles with soup powder already inserted into the noodles. Additionally, there were bits of corn and what looked like carrots -- like frozen mixed vegetables. The only seal was a thin lid that pealed off. It cost about CAD$ 1.50, which was almost double the cost of the packages of noodles that I usually bought. Premium was the cost of the bowl?

Cooking
This was an interesting adventure for some reason. The first thing I did was move the contents of the bowl of noodles into a glass bowl -- this was when I found out that the soup powder was already mixed in with the noodles. Then I decided to add room temperature water and try to microwave it before just chucking everything into a stainless steel pot. Ended up cooking it on the stove and everything came out surprisingly good. No, I didn't follow the instructions. Everything was eyed. Aside from water, no other flavoring or ingredients were added. The noodles were served in a glass bowl.

Campbell's Heart Noodles Hot & Sour: Inside
Taste & Verdict
Going to split the taste test into two parts starting with the noodles and then moving to the noodles with the soup -- essentially the soup, really. How were the noodles? I thought they were good with a good texture and thickness. They didn't have any off-putting flavors in my view and were fairly neutral in taste. It didn't take center stage but played a good role on the side or in the back.

Moving on to the soup and noodles, a few short words summarized their taste: hot stuff coming through. I thought the soup was hot as in very spicy, even more so than the Mr. Noodles package I had recently. The fact that I just took everything off the stove didn't help. My initial thought was that the temperature was too high and then I realized that it was both. Letting it cool down didn't cool the taste or feeling down all that much. Instead of a more neutral, general salty flavor, the soup came off as a bit sour to me. I didn't really sense a sweet or salty flavor in the soup. In short, it lived up to the label on the package: hot and sour. The entire package, noodles and soup, were okay, but they were not my cup of tea in the end. There was no desire to drink any of the soup on its own when the noodles were finished. What I did really like were the bits of vegetables.

This meal was eaten more as a snack after I finished lunch. It looked about the same size as the regular packages of noodles I bought, so my guess was that it wouldn't be that filling on its own. Would I get it again? On the basis of content and flavor alone, probably not the hot and sour flavor because it didn't work with me, but maybe others.

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