Noodle Journey Episode 83: Ramen Talk Pepper Crispy Pork Noodles

I’m closing out this Ramen Talk series with their Pepper Crispy Pork Noodles, the only dry noodle option in their current US lineup. After several soup-based varieties, this one promises something entirely different: a saucy, intense, and potentially crunchy experience. The packaging shows plump pork nuggets and a thick coating of sauce, which sets high expectations. I’ve really enjoyed Ramen Talk’s inventive takes so far, so I was looking forward to this one despite my hesitation around the “crispy pork” concept.

As with the others, this retails for around $6.80 and can be found on Ramen Talk’s US and UK sites or, if you’re lucky, in select Asian grocery stores. The pack includes wide, grooved noodles, a pair of liquid sauces containing a thick sweet-and-spicy base and a sesame Sichuan peppercorn sauce, pickled mustard greens, and a sealed pouch of crispy pork nuggets. Visually, it looks impressive – everything you’d expect from a premium, restaurant-style dry noodle dish.

Noodles:
These are the best noodles I’ve had from Ramen Talk so far. The shape and thickness give them a hearty, chewy texture, and they do an excellent job of grabbing the sauce. The noodles are the star of the show here.
• 10/10

Spiciness:
I found the spice here to be modest. There’s a touch of chili heat and a noticeable floral numbing from the Sichuan peppercorns, but nothing I would consider overwhelming.
• 3/10

Overall:
This one just doesn’t come together for me, and it pains me to say so given how much I loved the other flavors from Ramen Talk. The sauce is a strange combination of competing flavors, including cumin, sesame paste, and floral peppercorn. To my tastebuds, all of that together just clashed instead of harmonizing, feeling more like a mala sauce mixed with something closer to Tex Mex in spice profile. I just could not get into it. The pickled vegetables might work in a different context, but here they just add more sharpness to an already chaotic flavor profile. The pork nuggets are dry and felt stale, not crispy, and certainly not flavorful, just disappointing. It’s a shame, because the noodles themselves are outstanding. But everything else pulls the dish in too many directions at once. It’s a rare miss from Ramen Talk, and the only variety in the lineup that I wouldn’t buy again.
• 2/10

Notes since filming:

This is currently the only review where I’ve second-guessed myself after. Did I get a bad bag? Is what I tasted what it’s supposed to taste like? Either way, it’s the only Ramen Talk flavor that got a bad review, bad enough to end up on my first bottom list.

One of these days, I feel like I have to revisit this one, because my experience doesn’t appear to be typical for this flavor.