Make instant noodles the spice of your life

Life can get pretty boring. It’s easy to fall into a routine, waking up at the same time, eating the same breakfast, going into the same job, seeing the same people, watching the same television shows… it all makes us very tired and bored with life.

Living an exciting life is not easy, especially when mediocrity is so easy to accept. How can we remove ourselves from such an unsavory predicament? How can we experience more of what life has to offer? Well, to tell you the truth, we don’t have a lot of options, which sucks.

As we grow up, the world forces us to make decisions. What pursuits should we have? Where do we go to college? What do we major in? What career should we have? What city should we live in? Do we marry? Do we have kids?

Each decision corrals us into a smaller and smaller box where it becomes harder and harder to move around and nearly impossible to change and get out of, to the point where the only highlight of our week is when we visit the grocery store and buy a treat or two for ourselves.

Although, if buying food is the highlight of your day or week, that’s pretty fucking pathetic. But you can try to make the most out of the situation by seeking out strange, new flavors. As they say, variety is the spice of life, and there isn’t a more cornucopia of flavor than what’s found in the instant noodle aisle in supermarkets across the country.

Salted crab noodles with seasoning and vegetable packets

Crab Salted Egg noodles

Wander into any Asian grocery store and you’ll discover all sorts of weird and unfamiliar products ranging from unusual candy and drinks to strangely packaged foods and instant noodles.

Among the shelves of exotic and unexpected edibles, you might come across a Crab and Salted Egg instant noodle from a Vietnam company called, Cung Đình Kool.

The flavor immediately piques your interest. Crab and salted egg? What the ‘eff kind of flavor is that? And in an instant noodle form? Crazy. But there’s no need to question the ways of the world. Just throw a couple packs into your grocery basket and hurry home.

The noodles come with three packets. There’s a wet packet containing the crab flavor, which isn’t actually crab but mostly shrimp, anchovy, and artificial flavors. Another is a dry packet that has your dried egg and various chili, garlic, ginger, and other powders.

The vegetable packet is very scant and has dried scallion, carrot, and onion. It helps to serve as a meager soup base but not much more. So, be sure to add your own vegetables to the meal.

The vegetable packet that comes with salted crab noodles is meager so be sure to add your own

Now comes the moment of truth. Do crab and salted egg instant noodles taste good? Has our curiosity worked itself up into a frenzy only to be disappointed by low quality food standards and cheap flavors? Well…

Do crab and salted egg noodles taste good?

The noodles themselves cook up nicely and have a good texture and bounce to them. But if you look at the ingredient list, the noodles have far more ingredients than what you might want. They’re heavy on the salt and other preservatives.

Traditional noodles prepared by hand have just three ingredients: flour, water, and salt. These noodles by Cung Đình Kool have fifteen ingredients, most of which you have to Google because you don’t know what the hell it is or why it’s in your noodles. Propylene glycol alginate? Butylated hydroxyanisole? Ugh.

However, once prepared, the crab and salted egg instant noodles do indeed taste as their name implies; crab and salted egg, which is rather surprising, actually.

Crab and Salted Egg instant noodles with extra tofu, radish, and green onion

The wet sauce packet adds an oily texture to the noodles. It’s thick and heavy and sticks around in your mouth long after you’ve finished the meal. The dry sauce packet, on the other hand, gives you the salted egg flavor and adds a cheese-like creaminess to the noodles.

There is definitely a fishy taste to the noodles but it’s not so overpowering that it’ll turn you off. You can taste it but it’s just sitting comfortably in the background.

Where can I buy Crab Salted Egg noodles?

Cung Đình Kool’s Crab Salted Egg noodles are only sold in Asian markets and not available from our usual places like Amazon.com, Walmart, Costco, and so on. You can, however, find them in Asian grocery stores that import instant noodles from overseas.

Snoop around your city and see what you can find. You might get lucky and find these or maybe another creepy flavor that tickles your spine or makes you hop from one foot to the other.

You might find other brands of instant noodles without the crab flavor on Amazon. Oriental Kitchen sells a Stir Fried Salted Egg instant noodle, but that’s not quite the same.

Final Thoughts

In the cheap arena of instant noodles, there are loads of flavors waiting to be discovered. With new flavors and products arriving frequently, instant noodles are a safe and easy way to keep your meals fun and exciting.

I mean, it’s sad we have to rely on cheap food to put a little zest in our day, but so what? We do what we can. And who knows? Maybe our little jaunt into the world of instant noodles is a spark that ignites something greater, of trying new things and of new experiences?