Noodle News Roundup: February 2025

Here’s all the noteworthy noodle news for February 2025!

Ramen Talk Gone?!

If you’re a fan of premium instant ramen, you might have heard of Ramen Talk or seen some of my reviews of their products. They’re expensive, but they provide a complete noodle meal in a bag, including some amazing noodles and, in most of their products, real meat and seafood. While I’m lucky enough to have an Asian market near me that carries their products, what made them even more special was that you could just order their products directly from their website – no need to hunt down a special retailer or ask on Reddit where to find them.

Unfortunately, sometime within the last month, their UK website went offline completely, and their US website stopped selling all of their products with the exception of their Tom Yum flavor. Hopefully this isn’t the end of Ramen Talk, but if so, it’s a heartbreaking development. If you spot any of their varieties in your local Asian grocery store, give them a try in case you never get another chance.

Otoki Jin Isn’t Pescatarian Anymore (At Least in the USA)

Last month, I reported on Ottogi’s global rebranding to “Otoki,” along with a colorful redesign of their flagship Jin Ramen products, but what I wasn’t expecting to happen was that they would change the Jin Ramen recipe here in the US. A helpful Redditor shared that the new Otoki Jin recipe contains beef bone broth now in the ingredients. Previously, Jin was pescatarian-friendly in the US; there was oyster extract buried way down in the ingredients, but the beef flavoring was entirely artificial.

You may wonder how it is that Otoki is able to do this without having a manufacturing facility in the US (the back of the label still says “Product of Korea.” Normally, the USDA bans imports of beef products from Asia, however there is a loophole to that rule if the beef is sourced from a country that is not banned. So for example, Otoki could purchase American beef, have it imported to South Korea, produce Jin Ramen with that beef, and then export it back to the US. It’s convoluted, but I’ve been told that’s how it works when you see any meat-containing product made in Asia sold in America. So this must be what Otoki has done here, and that means that I’ll need to revisit my original Jin Mild and Jin Spicy reviews and see how this change has impacted the flavor and quality.

This is a big win for those of you who love real beef broth in your noodles, but a huge bummer for those of you pescatarians that enjoyed Jin Ramen.

That’s all the noteworthy noodle news I saw for this month. If you have any news to add, leave a comment below!