It’s a rainy day here in New Jersey, so I figured it was the perfect time to try some instant phở.

The packaging is similar to most of the cup ramen I have had. The container is a styrofoam bowl filled with seasoning packets and dry noodles. The only difference is that this time they included a teeny little fork! Having an included utensil is really handy and a nice touch. The packaging design is typical for an instant soup or Ramen. It uses bold colors, images, and text. While I wasn’t wowed by the design, it is very functional.

I added all of the packets and the hot water, then I let it sit. Once it was ready, I noticed that it smelled very salty. According to the nutritional info this serving contains 82.8% of my daily sodium intake! Wow. (A lot of instant ramen and soups are VERY high in sodium.) Once I got past the salty aroma, I can also smell artificial chicken and a citrus-y oil. (Maybe lemon? Lime? I’m not too sure.)

I tried to eat it with the fork included, but it was extremely difficult. The noodles were heavy and fell right off the fork. After a few attempts I ended up switching to chopsticks, which worked much better.

This phở is very salty. I went through several glasses of water to try and balance the salty flavor and I didn’t even make a dent in the soup bowl. I can taste artificial chicken, some sort of flavored oil that I can’t quite place, and bits of dried veggies. I am not sure what the little peppercorn shapes actually are…because they are soft and spongy. (They absorbed the salty chicken flavor.)

While I like the convenience of this instant soup, the utensil supplied is almost useless, and it is extremely salty. I couldn’t even finish my bowl.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!

Toasted Corn Ice Cream - Franklin Fountain : Philadelphia, PA

That’s right! Toasted corn ice cream! Sorry there wasn’t much of an update yesterday, but here is something really unique to make up for it. My friends Brian and Kevin told me about a place they had been to in Philadelphia called the Franklin Fountain. It’s an old fashioned soda fountain where the employees dress retro, the menu has classic malt-shop recipes, there are retro candies and soda…but they have some crazy out-there stuff. (Like this flavor!) 

The shop is adorable! It is really small and the decor is vintage. They can only take cask too because the cash registers are vintage! They have wooden drawers and a bell rings when they open! It was so cool!

The flavor of the day was toasted corn and I had to try it. When was I ever going to see corn ice cream again?

There were corn kernels speckled throughout the vanilla-bean-based ice cream. It smelled kind of like movie theater popcorn, when I took a taste..it was a LOT like popcorn actually! The corn kernels had a freeze-dried texture to them. The mouth feel made me think of the little bits of corn inside instant ramen cups. The salty corn mixed well with the sweet vanilla ice cream, and I thought this was a really successful flavor!

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!

Meiji Chelsea, Salty Mix- Asian Food Market, NJ

After falling in love with Chelsea’s patisserie mix I ran out and grabbed other flavors to try. Now, I couldn’t tell what flavors were in this bag, because there isn’t any English. I google’d them and found out that this is the “Salty” mix bag with salty milk and salty chocolate.

The bag has the beautiful flower patterns associated with Chelsea. I love it! It seems retro, but graceful. There is no image indication that this is the salty flavor pack, no images of salt or mention of it in the ingredients list. Without looking this up online, I’d really have no clue what the flavors were supposed to be.

In classic Chelsea fashion, each candy is individually wrapped in a patterned wrapper. Red is salty-chocolate and light blue is salty-milk.

The salty-chocolate flavor smells like chocolate instant pudding. When I first taste it, it seems like a typical chocolate hard candy. It isn’t as deeply flavored as the chocolate mousse from the patisserie mix, but it is very satisfying. After about a minute you start to taste the salt. It isn’t overwhelming, but it’s a mild saltiness that helps cut the sweet chocolate taste. It really tastes like instant pudding with a bit of salt sprinkled on top. Not bad, but I prefer the chocolate mousse flavor from the other bag.

Time for salty-milk. The name alone isn’t appealing, but maybe this candy would be delicious! (You never know.) This time there is o0 scent at all to the candy. The first thing I taste is a classic butter scotch with warm toasty sugar notes. Then that fades off into a sweet milky taste. It reminds me a lot of warm milk with honey. After a minute or two a salty flavor starts to appear, but it is mild. The overall flavor reminds me of a butterscotch ice cream topping.

These were yummy, but I prefer the variety of the patisserie blend flavors. Salty candy is interesting, but I wouldn’t buy a bag of these again.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!

Savory Snack Pack - Asian Food Market, NJ

I am so excited for these! This is a (mostly) savory snack pack I grabbed from the Asian Food Market. After eating so many sweets it’s nice to have a variety of savory things to try!

Reviews coming up!

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!