Ever thought food could come in your very own construction set? No? Well, then meet this interesting and fun way to fill your belly!
Tadaa! Build your own meal!
Ever remember these Lunchables thingies where you can build your own “sandwich”? This is what this reminded me of, once I opened it.
Your very own meal construction set!
It even comes with a fork! Practical! I at first doubted the stability of the fork but after my rigorous stirring adventure it convinced me. It didn’t break and worked like a fork is supposed to work during my meal.
So how do you make Cold Noodles you ask? Well, you pour hot water over it of course! “It” being the noodles of course, we are going to assume we are clever enough to remove the flavor packets before pouring hot water over them. Oh, and we also remove the noodles from their plastic prison before we can even attempt pouring hot water over them.
Instructions for our meal kit!
I am not quite sure why it calls for 600ml of water because the box it comes with can’t hold 600ml. I tried. It didn’t work. So I filled the box with the noodles to the rim with boiling water and waited 2 minutes. Then I poured the water out again and added mystery ingredients number 1-3. None of the seasoning packets had labels, not even in Chinese.
Mystery Ingredients!
However after opening and due to coloring you can tell pretty easily what is in those packets. Number 1 contains the tomato sauce, number 2 the vinegar sauce and number 3 the vegetables. Here it is how it looks like once the noodles are drained and the packets are added:
So close to completion!
What I at first identified as dried carrots turned out to be bell peppers. Oops. Well, it is orange! What would you have thought it was?
So after a good stirring with my trusty fork friend our finished meal looks like this:
I stirred so well, the whole table had sauce stains!
I took a bite and… Tasted tomato. An overwhelmingly tomatoy taste. Like good old Italian tomato sauce. Only… There wasn’t much tomato to be seen. It didn’t taste bad though. I finished it.
One question remains: Why is this called “cold” noodles? After pouring the boiling water over it the noodles were everything but cold. Should I have waited longer? At best I would call this “warm” noodles.
So what is inside?
| Ingredients* (bring out the Es!): | |
| Noodles: | Wheat flour, tapioca starch, water, wheat gluten, salt, vinegar from fermentation, E270, E501, E471, E401. |
| Tomato sauce: | Soy oil, tomato paste (tomatoes, sugar, salt, E621), sugar, tomato aroma, onion powder, E621, E631, E627. |
| Vinegar sauce: | Vinegar from fermentation, fermented soy sauce, salt, sugar, pepper, E621, E262, Food Aroma(?). |
| Vegetables: | Bell peppers, peanuts, sesame seeds, salt, monosodium glutamate. |
| Net weight: 248g | |
The tomato sauce contains 3(!) different flavor enhancers. Three! Wow. That explains the strong tomato taste. And what exactly is Food Aroma?
All in all This really isn’t too bad for an instant meal though… I am actually surprised at the amount of “non-Es” in this food!
What the box doesn’t tell us is anything about the nutritional info. There is none on their homepage either as far as I could see. It either isn’t required by Chinese law or it got covered by the import sticker.
What the box does tell us however is that it is microwave oven and dishwasher safe. So you technically can reuse the plastic box. Yay for boxes!
I am not sure if I am going to buy it again though. While it tasted alright it still is a lot of work for an instant meal. While the fork is a nice touch you still need at least an electric kettle or a pot and stove to get some water boiling and some scissors or a knife to open some of the packets. Unless you have claws. Maybe it is good for a quick office snack? And the reusable plastic box is a nice touch.
If you like building your own meal and getting a free box out of it this is definitely the food for you!
If you want to know more about Nan Ji Cun you can visit their homepage. It is rather difficult to navigate though since it is mostly in Chinese. Even when translated into English. It really just is a very Chinese homepage. Have a look for yourself!
*translated by me
Living with Food 