Spicy Bung

Ah, yes.

There are many roads I could have gone down with this review. Many, many roads. Roads not taken. Roads passed by and gone forever. Two roads diverged in a mofo woods, and I said screw it.

I said “woods”, not Tiger Woods.

Yes.

When presented with choices, I inevitably choose the most difficult route. Or at least the one that annoys the most people. Here is a Shin Bowl by Nong Shim, one of those instant noodle and soup contraptions. I planned to review it a few weeks ago. But I couldn’t really think of what to say about it.

Scorched poo hole

I could have gone down the “Shin Bowl Is Connected To The, Knee Bowl” route. Easy peasy. But I chose not to confound you with Hokey Pokey. I could have gone down the “Tastes Exactly Like Cup O Noodles If You Add Cayenne Pepper” route. Because, it does sort of taste like a cup of Cup O’ Noodles. Sorry, I mean a Cup ‘O Cup ‘O Noodles. Hell, let’s just add another “cup” to it and call it Cup ‘O Cup ‘O Cup ‘O Noodles. That’s Cup Cubed Noodles. Haha, says the math major dropout.

As usual I’ve chosen the road of grade school goofiness. Playground puerility. As is my wont.

Wont wont wont. Wont. As a side note, I sometimes imagine a parallel universe where everyone only has ONE word in their vocabulary. If that universe were ours, I would hope my word would be “wont”. It would be so entertaining to run around and just say “Wont, wont wont wont? Wont wont WONT wont.”

Anyhow, I’ve already guessed you may not like this review approach. It’s so tired and abused. Not amused.

Anal ring of fire.

In fact, I’ll lay you ten to one that right about now, you are wishing this was a Youtube video of an ambitious cat trying to climb into a box. Go ahead - change the channel. I don’t blame you.

Truth be told, I’m no longer the fake-fried-instant-noodle aficianado I was in college. Still, I regularly eat another one of Nong Shim’s products. That one is called “Neoguri” Udon Type Noodles, and I get the “Spicy Seafood” variety. Not sure if that’s the only variety they have, but it’s the one they sell in a giant bulk pack. I decided to try out this instant Shin Bowl (hmm… why isn’t it called a “Shim” Bowl) for old time’s sake.

Holy hole of burning, Batman.

One difference with the Neoguri one is that it doesn’t come in a styrofoam bowl, so you have to cook it in a pot. Yes, a pot - those things you put on the stove and boil water in. It also has two seasoning packets as opposed to one for this bowl.

Overall, the Shin Bowl didn’t come close to the texture or taste of the Neoguri package. For one thing, the noodles do really taste like spongy Cup ‘O Noodle noodles. The flavor of the soup was not as spicy as the Neoguri either, but I wonder if that’s because I didn’t dump all of the packet in.

Raw and red flaming cornhole

The “vegetables” in these things are awful - I almost wish they didn’t put them in and just made the bowl bigger. It had carrots, shiitake (not shittake or shitocky) mushrooms and green onions. Sometimes for grins, I crack an egg in noodles like this. But that only works if they’re the type you cook on the stove.

I also felt like the amount of noodles wasn’t as substantial. But this could be because I was punch drunk hungry at the time.

Squinting, fiery turtle head poking out of it’s carapace

OK, I will stop with the rectum allusions. But I don’t apologize for them. To be honest, I couldn’t think of any other synonyms for bungholes. (PLEASE DO NOT WRITE IN TO TELL ME WHAT THEY ARE. THANK YE)

You see, I want people to read this review and think, “This is NOT the intelligent, musings of a high-bred (or in-bred) college student having fun with a blog.” I want people to read this review and think, “These are the projectile vomitings of a prickly, gross thirty seven year old idiot loser who eats instant noodles for breakfast lunch, dinner and dessert and then talks about how he has to take a spicy crap.”

Indeed.

Price: $0.99 for 3 oz bowl
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10

Another year, another poll. Ever eat food dropped on ground? Please answer at top. See you later.

What. You were expecting a long and drawn out discussion of the winner of our previous poll: “Food Makes Me Feel…”?

[Editor’s Note: Today’s post and discussion analysis will be brought to you entirely inside of this editor’s note. Why do people attach these stupid, italicized things to posts anyhow (he asked himself rhetorically)? Well, I know why I do. Since my memory is slowly fading away like so many 37 year old twinkies, I often forget to talk about important things in the main body of the post. And it takes too much of that fading brain power to rewrite the post to include that all-important tidbit. So I just tack it on at the end.

No, I wouldn’t know anything about that.]

Man, what a day.

I mean, man what a week. Hmm… let’s extend that to, man what a month. Man, what a year.

Man, what a life.

Et cetera, exaggerated and so on.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am very, very old. I once had a reader tell me that judging by the way I spake (speaked, spoke?) I was probably a 55 year old crotchety wizard living in his parent’s van down by the river, typing grumbly food review posts by day and selling Depeche Mode T-shirts to ex-New Wave disc jockeys by night.

I THINK he was being insulting, but to this day, I’m not sure.

He will never know how close he was to the truth. Actually, he’ll never know because I deleted his email, blocked his IP, ISP, erased his face. Excuse me, I mean erased his Facebook. Whatever that is.

But enough about trolls. Let’s get back to the heart of the matter, the kernel of the nugget of truth, lies and videotape.

And that is that yeah, I’ve been around for awhile. I remember Back In The Day™, we had these things called Fruit Roll-Ups. All these Johnny-come lately frou-frou fruity bogus bars make me laugh. Back In The Day, we actually had to harvest our fruit rollups from our brown paper lunch bags.

That’s right. Oh, it was hard times back yonder, moseying down through dusty playgrounds and school hallways. I remember a fellah, what was his name… I think it was Samson. Nice guy, but near dang didn’t make it through past recess. Had a jonesing for some Fruit Rollups, so he tried to harvest ‘em early from his sack. Teacher caught ‘im and strung ‘im up on the fence as an example. But we was always doin’ stuff like dat back in dem der days. And our rollups was all flat an’ simple-like. Plain fruit for plain folks. None of this Scoobie whatchee-callit printed on it.

Tough times, and so on.

But seriously, it’s been awhile since I’ve had Fruit Roll-Ups. I just remember that they seemed to show up in my brown bag lunches quite a bit. Before I go on, I just wanted to show everyone a pic again of my good friend “Better If Used By“, which appears on the new box:

This still makes me laugh out loud. It makes me LOL, man. Or is that “Lots of Laughs”? Sorry, I failed BBS Abbreviation class Back In The Day. I also failed Leetspeak 101, though I did manage to figure out that 55378008 typed into a calculator actually meant something.

These new fruit rollups are packed individually in a new-fangled metallic cellophane or mylar wrapper. I don’t know if it stays fresher that way, but it sure allows me to see a reflection of my aged and ancient face squished in disturbing, carnival-esque ways.

A note to self and/or others: when they say “Peel from cellophane backing before eating,” what they reallly mean is “No one, not even Bryan, would make the mistake of forgetting to peel off the cellophane before eating, but just in case he is having an off day, let’s remind him.”

I think the size of these fruit rollups may have gotten just a little smaller. I don’t have one from the 1980s to compare it to, so I’m not sure. One thing that I definitely did not remember was just how many Pears exist in a Fruit Roll-up. This is somewhat disturbing, considering that these are “Strawberry” Fruit Roll-Ups. Also, there is no mention anywhere else on the packaging of pears, pear-like substances or pear shaped things. (By the way, try and google “pear shaped girl”. It is amazing how many non- Sissy Bar references are returned, since that is that only reason I know that phrase.)

So I guess the biggest surprise is how these rollups are imprinted with edible ink featuring the likeness of fricking Scooby Dooooo. Don’t get me wrong. I dig him and his pot-smoking buddy Shaggy (I call him Scooby Doobie, hahahaha). But, Like Wow, I’m just surprised to see Scooby show up on my fruit roll-up, especially since there was no mention of him on the packaging. Not that I’m complaining. It’s all “Ro Kay!” to me.

I’d forgotten how sweet this stuff is. Kinda like dropping a few chunks of sugarcane into a glass of sugar water and then pouring in some sucralose. Or Stevia. Or whatever it is they’re using nowadays. No wonder I loved this stuff as a kid. We used to barter with Fruit Roll-Ups. “I’ll trade you my mint condition plastic R2D2 windup toy for your fruit rollup.” Guess who got the shite end of that deal…

I got a small pack of them with four roll-ups inside. I think this isn’t the typical number you get, but that’s what they had at the dollar store. Not too bad for a quarter each, I guess.

I have to admit, I didn’t find them as fun as I probably could have. Oh, I did try and stretch the fruit rollup and see if it would mold around my hand. Actually, I would like to make myself some hockey gloves out of fruit rollups. You see, they’re so sticky that they’d help me keep a hold of my hockey stick while being checked into the boards by all the goons that come after me since I’m a small 5′5″ defenseman with no slapshot.

Go Kings. And so on.

Price: $1.00 for 4 0.5 oz Rollups
Found At: Dollar Store
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10

Hi there Cheap Eaters - sorry for the unannounced posting delay(s). I had a few products lined up for review, but one thing after another has conspired to keep them from being talked about. Actually, my shoulder-back issue has been acting up as well, so that’s another reason I’ll be staying away for a bit. I might return to posting before the Ticktockman ticks (and no, I will not repent), but if not, I’d like to wish everyone a happy new year! Thanks again for reading Cheap Eats ~ Bryan

Greetings from the Land of Macaronia.

I bring you good tidings in December. Nutmeg cheese dip parties and Santa Claws Hats.

Fa la la la la, la la la Not.

Well, OK, I’ve just been a little slow on the uptake. Again. It began with getting some sort of wacky stomach ailment the day after Thanksgiving. Monty Python Turkey’s Revenge or something. That put me out for a few days and dampened my holiday cheer. The gastro-problematicos also knocked me off drinking coffee which does not a happy camper make me.

It has also affected my vocabulary skills. (Laughing in the background are readers who insist that nothing has changed: run-on sentences have always run wild, spelling eeror saarienens are everywhere, I make up words and grammatical trees. And snow on.)

Thusly and thus, I will keep this short. I’ve reviewed a few Macaroni and Cheese products on Cheap Eats previously, but they’ve all been of the dry variety. The kind you just add hot water to and pray that all the artificial cake-like preservatives and elbow joints will congeal in an approximation of noodles and sauce.

This is actually the second variety of Fresh & Easy Macaroni and Cheese products I’ve tried. This particular one is called “Classic” Macaroni and Cheese and comes in a box in the frozen food section. The other one was of the “fresh” variety that they produce every day in the prepared foods section. The latter is “decent” as far as sauce goes, but the noodles suffer, like most F&E fresh pasta creations. It is also, surprisingly, more expensive (pound for pound) than this “Classic” boxed variety that I decided to try the other day.

I wasn’t expecting too much with this macaroni and cheese, so I was surprised it actually seemed to have real grated cheese on the top. The enormous two pound serving comes in a large plastic tub that has plastic wrap film over the top. You pop holes in that and nuke it from frozen for like 10 minutes or something.

One of the other things that surprised me is that the noodles were of the larger variety. I’m actually an equal opportunity pasta shape eater when it comes down to it, but I kinda prefer the larger ones for Macaroni and Cheese. So that was nice. After nuking, the whole chittybangbang came out pretty decent looking.

I was pleasantly surprised that the noodes did not suffer the same issues that haunt most Fresh and Easy “daily” pasta items. The macaroni wasn’t mushy and had a tiny bit of bite to them, but it wasn’t raw on the insides. The sauce is light years better, and I mean LIGHT YEARS better, than the orange cheese crud in dry macaroni box packets. I have to admit that there are some days that I like the radioactive orange powder, but I’ll take this kind of macaroni and cheese almost every other time.

The cheese sauce isn’t completely silky. I think part of it has to do with the sauce thickening a bit when cooking, and the external cheese melting down into it. It’s not so much the “custardy” version of macaroni and cheese that you get at restaurants, but it’s not smooth either. I actually like this better than some of the more solid varieties I’ve had. The flavor is pretty good, extra cheesy, but not too overpowering.

The best news was that this was a TON of food. Two pounds of noodles. I know there are big eaters out there, but if you weren’t eating this as the main entree as I was, you could easily get two or more meals out of it. I only managed to finish about 1/2 of it.

I’ve made many a homemade macaroni and cheese simulacrum in my day, and you can probably make it cheaper - but not by a whole lot. Assuming you like this stuff and don’t have a problem with dairy, this is pretty much a home run bargain at under $3. I usually buy one as a backup in the freezer for those late nights (or early mornings, or afternoons) when I’m trying to write up a lame review like this one…

Price: $2.87 for 24oz
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 8/10

[Editor’s Note: This stomach issue is bugging me because now I feel like eating Macaroni and Cheese. I also feel like drinking eggnog. With a side order of beer. P.S. note to self: I wonder if anyone got the spelling eeror reference. P.P.S. note to self: stop writing notes to self, it does not bode well.]

Happy Th’Day.

As in th’day that we all ingest dumptrucks full of food.

I’m not going berate people for overlooking the “true spirit of Thanksgiving”. I know this is just the way it works. I’d be more of a hypocrite than usual if I said that for this Th’Day post, instead of pteranodonic turkeys and gigantic bowls of mash-po, I’m going to go with simple Leftovers for Lunch.

Well, I’m going to do it anyway. That’s how I roll, and idealistic droning.

Long time readers (the eleven of you) may remember that I’ve posted about fried rice many, many times previously. It’s just difficult to get away from because it’s a great money and time saver for lunch.

To me, Leftovers for Lunch represents one thing we should be thankful for as far as food goes. That is, there is actually leftover food to eat. Most people waste a ton of food every year. I’m as guilty as the next person of that. I’m probably even worse, because I buy a lot of junk food at the dollar store just to review it, and I end up chucking half of it.

I’m not really the type of person who goes down and volunteers at the soup kitchen. That’s just not me. But I guess I’ll try not to waste food and to re-incorporate leftovers into meals whenever possible.

How noble.

Anyhow, this Th’Day Fried Rice is actually made up of two different types of leftover rice. The first is leftover portion of Spanish Rice from a dinner at a Mexican restaurant. The second is a leftover portion of rice from a takeout lunch of Beef Stroganoff (I know, weird, it comes w/ rice instead of noodles). I cut up the beef into pieces, cut off some of the corn on the cob that came with the Spanish Rice, added leftover onions and bell pepper pieces and fried up the whole thing with an egg scrambled into it.

I know, I know - tomorrow I’m going to go eat turkey, stuffing, ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie until I burst just like everyone else. It’s hypocritical, stupid, lame and a downer to post about eating leftovers before the big meal in order to make other people feel guilty.

But hey guvnor, I’m just a right bastard.

[Editor’s Note: Actually, if you would like to feel even guiltier this Th’Day, you might investigate what Thanksgiving represents to many Native Americans groups.]

I have something to say. Here it is:

I am a Sucker.

Yes, a sucker. Maybe an unintentional, half-baked or day-old sucker, but a sucker nonetheless.

I reminisce. I nostaligicize. I ponderificate. I make up words. I think back to the Day.

Back to the Day when you had to be a nerd kid to use a computer. (Commodore 64 programmer, thank you very much. 40 characters across the screen was a luxury. Run-stop Restore that bizatch.)

The things you did in your wee moo-cow childhood dayz will always float to the surface like Dexter’s trash-bagged, hacksawed body parts in the bay.

Ok, maybe that’s going too far. Especially when talking about meat products.

We used to eat Hormel Corned Beef Hash on camping trips. This fleshy, fattening substance, studded with Rubik’s Cube corner chunks of potatoes was the highlight of breakfast. Fried up crispy and usually with scrambled eggs, this kind of corned beef hash reminds me of our clunky, yet reliable, motorhome. If you can believe it, my parents still have the SAME motorhome from the early 80s rusting in back of their house. The floor of the motorhome still smells faintly of motorbike dust and packets of Lipton instant cream of chicken soup.

I absolutely think Hormel knows that I’m a Sucker for old timey meat-in-a-can. I think they’re watching me from a spy satellite orbiting the Earth. Like that Simpsons episode. They have special punch cards in their satellite (yes, they use punch cards in case they need to burn the incriminating evidence) that contain food preference data on every single American citizen. I think they sent word to their flunkies on Earth that I was due for a corned beef purchase and thusly they moved quicky to place their product in the aisle I was walking down last week.

I am not paranoid, he sayeth as he dons his foil hat.

Corned Beef Hash in a can is an interesting experience. I’ve earlier reviewed Hartford House Corned Beef and if memory serves me correctly I didn’t like it very much. I wish I had a can of that to test side by side with the Hormel variety today, to see if my old score still stands up. Because I’m wondering just how different it can be from the Hormel variety.

Incidentally - who the hell is Mary Kitchen? I know Hormel has been around since 1891, and Mary Kitchen has been around since 1949. But I’m not sure when Hormel bought the brand. I’m trying to think back to the 1980s and remember if the old cans had the Mary Kitchen name on it. Strange, I don’t seem to recall it. I’m sure old fart out there will remind me. Or a new fart would be fine, someone who thinks that he knows stuff because he can read Wikipedia.

Back to the corned beef hash - I’m actually a pretty big fan of this stuff as a special occasion treat. I wouldn’t eat it more than a few times a year. If you do decide to take a trip down memory lane, or if you’re a newcomer to the wonderful world of canned meaty products, I would suggest you do NOT go and smell the unfried stuff straight out of the can. That would be unwise.

You just put it in a frying pan, flatten it slightly, and let it crisp up. I don’t really put oil in it, I just use a nonstick pan. Flip it once and then crack some eggs onto or around it. The best part is the crispy edges, so make sure it’s really flattened. Some people dislike the little Rubik’s Cube potato chunks, but I find that they actually go well with the corned beef. If that’s not enough potato for you, cut up some baked potato from the day before, fry that ahead of time, and then just add it in.

Hormel Corned Beef has a sort of roasty taste to it, but I’m not sure if that’s not from me nearly burning it to get the crispy edges. I paid over $2 for my 15 ounce can, but I think that it’ll occasionally go on sale. Like I said before, it’s not something I’d eat every day, but it’s worthwhile to pick up a can for the pantry. (Do you hear that, Hormel Sky-Watchers? I’m going to buy some more cans, so you better go put them on sale soon.)

And all you dieting nay-sayers out there will be glad to know that they have a “reduced fat” variety. If you still feel guilty, throw some veggies in there for god’s sake. Work with me here, people.

Price: $2.35 for 15oz
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10

[Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, I never learned how to solve the Rubik’s Cube. I think I could’ve done it if I applied myself, but for some reason, the instructions my friend photocopied for me didn’t make any sense. So instead, I learned an ancient, time-honored secret method to solve it: it’s called the Screwdriver…]