College food supplies

October 1, 2005 7:49 PM

Where to order ramen noodles online?

I've searched various sites for imported ramen noodles. RamenDepot has a great selection, but prices inflated way beyond reasonable. RamenCity demands larger purchases of single flavors or "samplers", and still tends towards pricier territory.

Other places like Yifanmall, Veryasia, and Indokiosk seem a bit better in both price and piece-by-piece orders, but are slightly lacking in the choice department.

Preferrably, I'd like a choice between various Korean, Chinese/Taiwanese, Japanese, and Indonesian noodles, without a need to buy "by the case" or at inflated ($2+ apiece? No thanks.) prices. I burnt out on Maruchan long ago, and I've yet to find an Asian market in the OKC area that stocks more than Sapporo Ichiban and a few Nong Shim varieties.

I know this is pretty picky, so any alternative suggestions would be appreciated. My primary concern with variety is that most places charge a shipping fee, so mutiple orders wind up being rather inefficient. Anybody out there with a bit of experience and information to be had?

posted by Saydur to food & drink (14 comments total)

Amazon.
posted by duck at 8:16 PM on October 1, 2005

I've ordered from KOA Mart before, to great success. Huge variety. Definitely try out my favorite: Shin Ramen! It's vegan and super spicy.
posted by deneiges at 9:13 PM on October 1, 2005

Actually, deneiges, I have come to the sad conclusion that Shin is not vegetarian and contains beef extract. They have just left it off the english packaging, by accident or something. The Japanese packaging says beef extract, and so do the english ingredients on the cup noodles. If anyone has proof otherwise, I would be glad to hear it.
posted by emyd at 9:52 PM on October 1, 2005

The 신 라면 deneiges links to is a pretty good one -- it's one of the brands I sometimes buy here in Korea, where there's an embarrassment of junkfood noodle riches. It's hard to go too far wrong with most Korean ones, many of which are actually spicier than the Shin Ramyeon. Also, for what it's worth, I strongly doubt that that one is truly vegan.

Note that 'ramen' is the Japanese word, where 라면, correctly romanized 'ramyeon', is the Korea one.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:58 PM on October 1, 2005

Ah, I forgot about KOA Mart, that looks as good as any for Korean noodles in particular. The prices definitely make up for shipping cost.

I've tried most of these kinds before, Shin Ramen is about right in spice if I use half the suggested amount of water. A little bit boring compared to stuff like Spicy Cuttlefish.

Still looking to get varied types without getting nailed on the shipping, good suggestions so far.
posted by Saydur at 10:29 PM on October 1, 2005

Actually, deneiges, I have come to the sad conclusion that Shin is not vegetarian and contains beef extract. They have just left it off the english packaging, by accident or something. The Japanese packaging says beef extract, and so do the english ingredients on the cup noodles. If anyone has proof otherwise, I would be glad to hear it.

The web page that deneiges links to also says that it's beef-based. They list ingredients (no beef listed), but those ingredients are clearly incomplete -- note that the spice packet ingredients are "salt, glucose, garlic, monosodium glutamate, sugar". None of this would make ramen hot (presumably there is some hot pepper in that spice packet(s)), but it's not listed in the ingredients.
posted by duck at 10:58 PM on October 1, 2005

On the other hand, most brands of Ty Ling, particularly Original Flavor are vegan. In addition, it's extremely tasty. I recommend you splurge [39 cents a packet at my local Kroger's] on them.

I like to buy those, then mix them with some vegetarian chicken i buy from the Asian market. Best 5 minute meal ever.
posted by cloeburner at 11:57 PM on October 1, 2005

Jesus, you weren't kidding about the shipping. 3 boxes of Shin Ramen cost a tad less than $40--or 0.67 each. With shipping it's bit more than $60, or a buck a pop. Shipping should (generally) not cost 50% of the product price.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:08 AM on October 2, 2005

Ramyeon, damn it.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:35 AM on October 2, 2005

Hm. I've seen it romanized as "Ramyun" not only on packages, but by the Korean restaurant in town. Is yeon closer to phonetic pronunciation?

Man, now I'm craving kimchi and egg ramyun from that place.
posted by Saydur at 4:18 AM on October 2, 2005

Hm. I've seen it romanized as "Ramyun" not only on packages, but by the Korean restaurant in town.

No doubt. Koreans are about as bad as foreigners at romanizing their language. Worse, probably.

That's why I linked to the revised romanization article. This is getting way off-topic, but the official, government-approved way of romanizing the character 'ㅓ' is 'eo'. The sound is similar to 'uh', pronounced at the front of the mouth. There is no precise analogue in English. It is commonly romanized in a wide variety of different ways, only one of which ('eo') is the one currently mandated by the Korean gocernment.

The letter 'u' is (officially, but in practice we see complete randomness) to be used for the character 'ㅜ', which sounds much like the vowel sound in the word 'too', depending on your accent.

Romanization of Korea has always been and still is inconsistent and haphazard, but there is a (new) standard way to do it, and I try to promote it where I can, because I'm fussy that way.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:30 AM on October 2, 2005

Sorry, I should have mentioned that the sound in question is actually the modified vowel 'ㅕ', romanized 'yeo' and sounding like 'yuh', as opposed to 'ㅠ', which we'd romanized as 'yu' and sounds like 'you'.

I also meant to add that anyone familiar with the revised recommended romanization would read 'ramyun' as 'ramyoon'.

Have a look at the package here. You can see the word 라면 on it.

Let's not even get into whether '라' sounds more like 'ra' or 'la' when ryul is in the initial position.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:38 AM on October 2, 2005

asianfoodgrocer has a pretty good selection, as well as noodleson.com. Here are a few sites with some more info.
posted by edjusted at 11:37 PM on October 2, 2005

oops...forgot to mention that the last link on my response is my own web site.
posted by edjusted at 1:33 AM on October 3, 2005