I spotted this Roland Beef Flavor Noodles Cup in my local Grocery Outlet a couple months ago and decided to pick one up. I’d never heard of Roland Foods before and I’d never seen this in my life, but let’s check it out and see if it’s worth your while!
Read more: Review: Roland Beef Flavor Noodles CupSo apparently Roland Foods is a global food importer and they’ve been in business since 1934! How have I never heard of them before now? You can read their pretty interesting history if you like, and apparetly they sell an insane variety of products, but of course I only care about their noodle products specifically. The only one I could find in person is this Beef flavor, but they also sell Chicken and Vegetable noodle cups, as well as “ramen” packs that come in Chicken, Beef, Crab, Shrimp, Mushroom, and Pork flavors. All of them are made in Singapore for export to the US market, meaning the Chicken, Beef, and Pork varieties are are artificially flavored.
This was only $0.79 at my Grocery Outlet, so that’s a fairly decent price if this turns out to be good. I’m not hopeful given how amateurish the cup label looks, but I’ve been wrong about that sort of thing before. I’m guessing you can find this at other Grocery Outlet stores nationwide as well as other supermarkets.
This normal-sized cup contains a relatively medium amount of sodium, 1100mg.
The ingredients are pretty simple here: thin wheat noodles with a broth powder packet and a very basic assortment of dried veggies, also in a separate packet. The broth contains salt, sugar, soy protein, artificial beef flavor, onion, powder, chives, and “spices.” And those dried vegetables are carrots, peas, and corn. Based on the ingredients label, this appears to be vegan, but check for yourself to be certain if that concerns you.
Noodles:
The lid advises steeping these noodles for 2-3 minutes, so I opted for 2 minutes because I like my noodles relatively firm. After steeping, I found them to be perfectly average, pretty much in the same ballpark as Cup Noodles or Instant Lunch, but just a bit thinner with a slightly better bite. The same oily aftertaste that accompanies similar cheap noodle cups is there, but they’re not a complete disaster or anything.
- 5.5/10
Spiciness:
None.
- 0/10
Overall:
If you’ve had any cheap beef-flavored cup of noodles in the last twenty years, you know exactly what you’re getting out of this. It’s a totally serviceable but completely unremarkable cup of salty, artificial beef broth with a few vegetables here and there to liven it up. There’s not much nuance to the broth beyond salt and artificial beef flavor, but thankfully it isn’t overly salty. You’ll notice the lid proudly touts “NO MSG,” so once again we find ourselves in a situation where just a tiny pinch of MSG would’ve given this a welcome little bit of extra umami. I counted three peas and three kernels of corn, which is kind of insulting, but at least they rehydrated well. The unexpected star of the show was a very generous amount of carrots, which added a nice pleasant texture throughout the cup. All in all, if you like cheap beef noodle cups in the same vein as Nissin and Maruchan, you’ll find this one to be a worthwhile purchase, but don’t expect anything fancy except for a healthy amount of carrots. Inoffensive, but nothing I ever need to buy again unless I need something fast and cheap to stash in my desk at work.
- 5.5/10
