Own brand v big brand
Okay as you can see from the photo, no actual poodles have been hurt or grilled in the making of this blog article. This was an experiment I did to see if the supermarkets own brand of '
pot noodle' could measure up to the
Pot Noodle made by
Golden Wonder.
Now for anyone reading this in the year 2100 (when hopefully we will have finally learnt to eat real, nutritional food), a
pot noodle is a dehydrated concotion of
noodles,
dried vegetables,
soya and a flavouring powder. Simply add boiling water to it and voila! Tuck in! Students and bachelors love them, ditto couch potatoes.
These things are hardly gourmet cooking, and you could be forgiven for thinking there wasn't much difference between the branded type and the supermarkets own. And you would be right! I bought one of each (see above photo) and did my own
Pepsi challenge. But more 'noodly'.
The real
Pot Noodle has a thicker consitency and comes with a sachet of
soy sauce but apart from that, the supermarket's own brand (in this case
Tesco) held up well against its more expensive brother. Especially when I added some of my own
soy. In fact I leant more to the own brand because
Golden Wonder's noodles taste saltier. (Something that branded '
cup~a~soups' suffer from also).
To put it bluntly as I always like to do, dehydrated grub is always going to taste the same, no matter what you pay so common sense should lead the wise shopper to the cheap seats in this instance. The price difference is big too so only a brand snob (see, 'idiot') would choose the more expensive one.
Pot Noodle cost around £1.49p while own branded versions are only 14p! (Again
Tesco prices). If my math is correct, that is a £1.35p difference. In other words, £1.35p of fool because you will struggle to find any
real difference in terms of flavour.
And looking at what is written on the sachet of
soy sauce belonging to the 'original'
Pot Noodle (see below),
Golden Wonder seem to be admitting their product needs flavour!
But if you happen to enjoy a few tipples, these snacks are great. No danger of setting the
chip pan or grill on fire while rustling up some drunken munchies, simply boil a kettle and grab a
Scotch Egg. (Check out the
Poet's Mudball elsewhere on this blog).
Is a Pot Noodle that bad?
Obviously there is a limit of flavours with own brands. And when I say 'limit' I mean just
one:
Chicken & Mushroom. (Or this is the only flavour I have come across). While
Golden Wonder's Potted Noodles feature a whole host of tasty and erm...'interesting' flavours. But a lot of them are a travesty to the taste buds (stand up '
Southern Fried Chicken') so the abundance of choice isn't so cool when all is said and
noodled.
A few flavours are missing too. Where for the love of
Glennfidich is the
Fish & Chip or
Lamb Vindaloo flavour? Or what about
Bacon & Egg and
Jagerbomb flavours? Hell these cant be any worse than some of them. *Points again at the truly horrid '
Southern Fried Chicken'* which tastes as much as
fried chicken as
cheese on toast tastes like
fried chicken.
But as I say, these are a handy pished up snack and not totally offensive to the palete.
Chicken & Mushroom is my preferred choice until
Golden Wonder reads this article and decide that my
Vindaloo and
Fry Up flavours are a great idea and start making them.
Music to eat to ~ just put the
radio on.
****
Anorak Metal Moment ****
Pot Noodle flavours:
Original
curry
Chicken & Mushroom
Beef & Tomato
Sweet & Spicy
Sweet & Sour
Southern Fried Chicken
Bombay Bad Boy
Sticky Rib
Tikka Masala
Chinese Chow Mein
Sweet Coconut
Chicken Satay
Doner Kebab
Chili Beef
Christmas Dinner (2010 limited edition)
and flavours which were sent to the food gallows:
Cheese & Tomato
Sausage & Tomato
Pizza
Bacon Sizzler
Barbecue
Turkey Stuffing (Christmas limited edition)
Hot Chicken Curry
Lamb & Mint
Mexican Fajita
Seedy Sanchez (basically same as
Mexican fajita)
