Here’s all the noteworthy noodle news for May 2025! This month there’s an exciting, long overdue new flavor in the Maruchan Gold product line, some intriguing new Indomie flavors spotted in the wild, and a new ramen subscription service I spotted on Facebook.
Read more: Noodle News Roundup: May 2025A New Maruchan Gold Flavor… Finally!
The two products in the Maruchan Gold product line here in the US, Soy Sauce and Spicy Miso, are two excellent products from Maruchan in my opinion. They are export versions from Japan of Maruchan’s Seimen product line without meat extract in the ingredients. The problem is, they’ve been the only two entries in the Gold product line for a very long time now. That all changed this month when Maruchan suddenly announced a new flavor would be joining the lineup: Spicy Tonkotsu! Currently, the new flavor is exclusive to Amazon, with a nationwide retail rollout to follow sometime later this year. I’ll be buying these for a review real soon.
New Flavors from Indomie Too!
The Indomie US Instagram also dropped a surprise announcement of two new flavors available in H Mart stores for “a limited time” (although other global Instagram accounts show these are being made available in several export markets). They are a Spicy Mushroom flavor and a Fiery Chicken flavor. I’m not about to completely judge these ahead of time until I can find them for a review, but I think based on the images and the packaging that they look to be Indomie trying to cash in on the popularity of Shin Ramyun and Buldak Ramen. I don’t go to my nearby H Mart very often anymore, but if I find myself close by, I’ll see if I can find these to review. Should be interesting!
Buldak Fried Chicken Flavor in English Packaging!
One of the newer Buldak flavors that’s taken the Internet by storm is what we’ve been calling their Korean Fried Chicken flavor. If you check out that review, you’ll not only see that I absolutely loved it, but also that it was a pain in the ass to find in the USA. Well, it looks like this flavor has now gone global because it’s been spotted in bowl form in English packaging at an American supermarket, H-E-B, and a few Redditors in the UK reported spotting it in English packaging as well. As you can see, the official English export
Another Notable Noodle Subscription Service
Back in the March 2025 News Roundup, I talked about a couple of new subscription services I had spotted online. We can add another one to that list now: Project Ramen. I haven’t purchased a box from Project Ramen for myself, nor am I affiliated with them in any way, so let me be clear that this discussion of them is purely informational and is not to be taken as an endorsement:
I’ve seen them post from time to time on Facebook, and now thanks to a post and video from The Ramen Rater, we can see what’s inside one of their 16-pack Mystery Boxes. You can check out the video yourself on his YouTube channel to see the actual varieties, but it looks like for $45 shipped, you get 2 packs each of 8 different varieties from companies like Nongshim, Paldo, Kang Shi Fu, Ve Wong, Binh Tay, Acecook, and Mama. Now, there’s no indication that that exact assortment comes in every box, but let’s do a little math: $45 for 16 varieties comes out to about $2.81 per pack. Some of the smaller packs in the box you can find as single packs at your local Asian market for under $1.00, while the larger packs from Nongshim and Paldo you will probably see in multi-packs more often than not, running you anywhere from $7-$12 (generally) depending on where you live.
Is this a good value? It depends on your circumstances. If you live near a well-stocked Asian market, I would say no; you can score all of these packs for way cheaper than $2.81 each even if you end up having to buy 4-packs of the Korean brands. On the other hand, if you don’t live near an Asian market at all or you don’t want to deal with the hassle of buying multi-packs, then the $45 might be worth it to you. They do also have a couple things I would mark as a positive. I like that the boxes come with 2 of each variety, meaning you can share a meal with a friend or loved one; I’ve never seen any of these subscription boxes offer such a thing, so that’s a nice touch. As another plus, you don’t have to commit to only the Mystery Box if you don’t like all those varieties; they offer multiple boxes with different flavor profiles if you have more specific tastes, like a Spicy Ramen box, Seafood Ramen box, Beef Ramen box, or Chicken Ramen box. That’s pretty cool. And it looks like you can buy noodles a la carte by the case if there’s something even more specific that you want, although their options seem very limited at the time of this writing. If you do end up trying Project Ramen, let me know what you think of your box!
