Pot Noodle – Chicken & Mushroom

A Review in Cuisine - 02/07/2014

Pot Noodle – Chicken & Mushroom Flavour
£1.00
All supermarkets
 

For those who’re not in the loop, Pot Noodle is exactly that… noodles in a pot. Similar to the instant noodles of Asian cuisine, you just add boiled water to the mix and gently weep that you can’t prepare a better meal.

I peel back the textured foil that seals the goodness within and already I’m being given orders.




Not one for disobeying direct orders from sachets of sauce, I dutifully ‘tear here’ and ‘add some soy sauce’ to the powdered dread that awaits below. After pouring in the hot water, I fold the foil back over the mouth of the tub and wait a few minutes for the magic transformation from dry to soggy to begin.

While waiting for my swamp of shredded Simpsons characters to fully realise, I had to search for that infamous notifier that states that the Chicken & Mushroom Pot Noodle is suitable for vegetarians.



And there it is. Great… there goes my protein. I must admit, I wasn’t expecting much from a product called Pot Noodle, and even less so when I first opened it and saw a scene reminiscent of vomit covered with sawdust at a drab fun fair.

The Experience

I was hungry at the start of this. Now, as I sit and count down the last few seconds of the required 2 minutes of percolation, I feel as if I’m being pulled in by its depressing lure. Like a Siren lulling my ship to crash on the rocks of abandoned hope.

I pronged up the gelatinous gloop with my fork and slurped it into my mouth. My initial response was ‘reasonable’ which then descended to ‘the purest form of shit’ at warp speed. “For Queen and country,” I muttered as I continued to eat.

If I were to jet wash the jellied, vegetarian chicken and mushroom powdered soup off of the noodles and then added the world’s most perfected ragù alla bolognese…it would still taste like an industrial plastic shavings factory floor sweepings. The only thing these noodles would be okay for is a cheap alternative to fiber-glass insulation, or to sabotage the prize soil of a farming community by placing it on the ground, laughing as I watch the sodium festival impregnate its way into the ground, making it sterile forever more.

I had to take a short break from forcing this down me as I could see my skin aging before my very eyes, such as the villain after drinking from the wrong chalice in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I needed water. Badly.
When I returned not long after, the ‘soup’ had already protected itself by growing a slimy, trampoline-like film that blanketed the surface. Maybe this was a forewarning from a higher power, but to hell with that; I whipped off that skin and dug into the rapidly solidifying tub of gloom.

Unimpressed by the flakes of dried-out, chewy mushrooms, and lack of any chicken, I had to wave the white flag after consuming 2/3′s of the contents. My stomach felt as if it had been pumped full of a sick whale’s bile and then left there to fizz out of my body. For two hours afterward, I still felt the same. My day had been ruined.

1

It’s as seeing your childhood home twenty years from now, unkempt and falling apart as a new, work shy family exist there only to sprout out more children for a bigger cheque from the government. A feeling of heavy disapproval for the rest of your life. I didn’t like it