Rah-Rah For Ramen!

Ramen noodles. How I love thee. Whenever I am hungry, whenever someone is nearly broke and needs to eat, whenever a deer needs a salt lick, you are there in a flash, like Underdog. If you merely look at Ramen for what it is, a thin plastic wrapper, a brick of twisted, intestine-shaped noodles, and a foil packet of flavored salt, then you're missing out on a beautiful, life-altering experience. This simple food can withstand nuclear radiation, it has a shelf life of approximately 10,000 years (they found some Ramen buried with Rameses II in Egypt; unlike Rameses, the Ramen was still edible), and it can satisfy your daily needs for sodium in less than five minutes. Where else can you find a satisfying, hot meal for less than a quarter, sometimes even less than ten cents? Answer: Nowhere else. So, in tribute to the phenomenon that it Ramen (that sort of rhymes...phenomenon...Ramen...phenomenon...nevermind), I have created a ranking of the top flavors of Ramen. This list is not open to interpretation. This list is the authority on Ramen flavors. This list was extremely hard, as all Ramen flavors are technically the same.

1. Creamy Chicken: This newcomer to the Ramen scene has taken the non-biodegradeable-brick-of-noodles world by storm since its recent inception. Unlike the runny, thin soup which results from other Ramen flavors, Creamy Chicken is actually creamy. The soup is thick, the noodles ooze among the gooey, delicious, chickenesque sauce, creating a tongue-titillating smorgasbord of salty wonderfulness with every spoonful.

2. Hot Chili: While this is runny, and therefore inferior to Creamy Chicken, it is very good. It actually has no flavor of its own, it's merely very spicy. But spicy is good. Spicy is very good. This little dose of microwaveable Tex-Mex is always sure to impress your friends who are Mexican, or who just plain old enjoy spicy foods. They'll be so impressed by your frugality and gourmet sensability, they'll probably bow to you.

3. Oriental: This tastes vaguely like Chinese food. Really bad, salty Chinese food, but Chinese food nevertheless. Still, it's very tasty, especially if you have a sore throat. The secret Oriental spices (salt, MSG, and sodium, to be exact) act much like chicken buillon in calming the raging pain which can accompany sore throats. Tip: Do not drink soup while it is still boiling. This will not help your sore throat.

4. Chicken: Ah, the one that started it all. There is nothing wrong with Chicken Ramen. It tastes pretty good. It's salty. It only resembles chicken if you use your imagination. But it is, alas, middle of the road. It has been surpassed by its more advanced sister products listed above, much like regular milk has been surpassed by chocolate milk. Watch out though, it goes downhill pretty quickly from here.

5. Beef: This tastes sort of like Chicken, only even saltier. Its only rival in the saltiness department would have to be Oriental. Unfortunately for all the cows who have given their lives to become Beef Ramen, saltiness is only part of the equation. The beef lacks flavor altogether. You could basically just dump table salt into the boiling noodles and get Beef. Still, it's better than the next two flavors.

6. Pork: They need to come out with more specific animal types for Ramen flavors. Pork is very general, and it's too bad, because Pork Ramen sucks. Now Bacon Ramen, or Barbecue Rib Ramen, that would be great, maybe even better than creamy chicken. But Pork? I imagine they use the entire pig to make Pork Ramen, so basically Pork Ramen is the hot dog of Ramen Noodle types. If anyone needs something to compare this with, read my hot dog article from July.

7. Shrimp: Ironic, huh? The flavor which, in real life, would be the most expensive to come across and would also be unquestionably most delicious is, in Ramen Noodle Reality, the most painfully inedible. The creators of this flavor are obviously undernourished children from a landlocked third world country, like Kentucky. They have clearly never tasted a shrimp, or even seafood. This tastes sort of like Beef, only a little bit more fishy, and not the good kind of fishy, the kind of fishy which makes your stomach hide behind your appendix in terror.

So here it is, the List of Seven. I know there are more flavors, but these are the most common, and they are the ones I've eaten recently. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to call poison control, I just ingested about triple the lethal dose of sodium.