Knorr Fusion Noodles Doner Kebab Taste

*I do like the noodle-kebab fusion picture on the right side.*

Welcome to another episode of “Why are you doing this to yourself?” where I try random and weird instant ramen from all around the world. For today, I picked up a cup of Knorr “Fusion Noodles Doner Kebab Taste”. I like instant noodles, I like doner kebab, what could go wrong?

I grabbed this one during one of my recent trips to Germany, but you can probably find it in other countries around Europe as well, as they rarely just make stuff for one country.

Content

As with most cup noodles, this Doner Kebab taste cup from Knorr comes as a noodle brick, which is already coated with the soup-sauce flavoring. Additionally, there is some hot sauce in a separate sachet, which is to be added in the middle of the preparation.

Preparation

The preparation of the cup is not really difficult, but raises some question marks.

Take out the hot sauce sachet and add boiling water up to the line inside of the cup. Close the lid and wait for 2 minutes. It also says to occasionally stir, but how would you do that with a closed lid? Is the closed lid more important or the stirring?
After 2 minutes, add the hot sauce, stir and then wait another 2 minutes.

Review

I think it is not surprising anyone who has read some of my other instant ramen reviews, that the instant noodles produced in Europe are absolute trash. And I am specifically talking about the noodles themselves. I know that the technology exists to make delicious noodles, because Japan and Korea are pumping out instant products that make you almost forget you are not eating at a real ramen shop, that’s how good the noodles are. But in Europe, time seems to have stopped somewhere in the 90s and the executives do not believe that Europeans would care about eating good noodles, despite pasta having conquered all of the kitchens around the world. But I digress.

After getting the tragedy of the noodle out of the way, I want to say that I did not hate this product as much as I thought I would. The aroma that emanates from it is vaguely kebab-ish, at least close enough to be recognizable. The soup-sauce is of course a wonder of modern chemistry, includes no meat, but a long list of flavorings, oils, preservatives, stabilizers and flavor enhancers. It makes me feel like this is probably one of the most processed foods I have ever eaten in my life. Which says a lot, since I eat a lot of garbage.

But does not taste bad! All the chemistry paid of and you do actually taste quite a bit of the spices they added like cumin and paprika. Definitely enough to elevate it from trash-tier to just “not good”. At least for European cup noodles, it is not the bottom of the barrel.