This year, I’m celebrating the year of the snake with my own tribute to slippery, slithery goodness – noodles! I kicked off the first round of Glenn’s Instant Noodle Competition with the selection below. For the past two months, I’ve been sampling various candidates from Li Ming’s expansive noodle aisle, with the hope of finding a worthy successor, or at least substitute, for my beloved Neoguri. Each package gets two scores (x,y) – x for soup base, y for noodles. Here’re the candidates:

1. Mama Shrimp (Tom Yum) Flavour (8,7): Spicy, flavorful tom yum soup with light-textured deep-fried noodle, worthy of the mama’s cooking. Don’t overcook and add an egg.
2. Fuku Superior Soup Instant Noodle (8,7): The umami broth is worth drinking alone, let alone paired with springy deep-fried noodles. Advertised as edible 3 ways (+/-soup or raw), it’s truly superior!
3. Oh! Ricey – Hu Tieu Nam Vang (5,6): Bits of chunky freeze-dried meat flakes & veggies barely rescues the uninspired soup base. The pho is surprisingly resilient.
4. Kung-Fu – Instant Oriental Noodle Soup (Artificial Beef Flavor) (6,5): Use kung fu to fend off the more oniony than beefy soup while slurping average-quality noodles.
5. Ve Wong – Vegetarian Noodle (Mi Chay) (7,7): Can’t go Wong with a hearty broth of assorted dehydrated veggies and faux meat. Noodles are generic, but springy.
6. Wai Wai – Oriental Style Instant Noodle (4,2): It you like crunchy but rubbery noodles drenched in bland, salty soup base, then this one is right for you.
7. Six Fortune – Instant Noodles (Seafood Flavor) (8,7): Nong Shim called and want their recipe back. Otherwise identical to Neoguri, the only difference are little fish cake bits. Not quite the original.
8. Six Fortune – Beef Noodle (5,6): The strong star anise aroma is overpowering, despite freeze-dried meat bits and scallions in the soup base. Noodles are average.
9. Nissin – Ramen Noodle (with Sesame Oil) (6,6): The traditional sesame broth and noodles taste like what I remembered. Nostalgic, but really just so-so for the name recognition.

For those of you who may feel bad for me because you look down on MSG and dehydrated noodles, rest assured I did also manage to mooch off a friend’s New Year dinner party, and even contribute some store-bought nian gao to the spread of fried pork buns, spring rolls, and tofu salad. The shindig gave me a good break from starting my studying for my written board exam in April.