The Ramen Noodle Diary

First of all, I had no idea there were nearly 1,500 variations of instant ramen in existence on this planet. Second, over the course of around 5 years, the YouTube user tontantin went ahead and reviewed all of them. You can see how far he’s come.

His first video:

Compared to his latest video…

You can tell he found his stride and style somewhere in between while making those 1,500 instant ramen reviews. So let’s see now… Five and a half-ish years. Fifteen hundredish videos. So take the 1,500 videos and divide that by 2,000 days. That gives you .75 ramen reviews per day, or a review every 1.33 days. I hope he visits his doctor often so he can keep doing this.

The Videos

Are you ready to see some of his videos? Although I haven’t seen all 1,452 of his  videos, one pattern I’ve noticed is his strict scoring. I think I’ve seen a 4-star rating once (before today, when I actively went out to search for high-rated ramen), and I somehow doubt there’s a 5-star anywhere in existence out there. It’s the unicorn of instant ramen review scores. Tontantin has high standards when it comes to instant ramen, just like anyone should (seriously, wtf Costco Ramen? Where are your standards?).

It’s hard to pick favorites, but these are some good ones. I’d watch all 1,452, but then there’d probably be five hundred more new videos he’s created in the time it took to watch all the old ones.

Videos are in Japanese, though the instant ramen itself is from various countries. There’s a lot of Japanese instant ramen (of course), but there’s also Korean, Chinese, and even ramen from Poland as well (and many, many more countries too). Before today, did you know Poland made instant ramen? Neither did I. It’s about as good looking as you’d expect.

Not even a Polish sausage in sight. To be fair, though, it’s not really ramen. But still…

Anyways, prepare to get hungry. Although I don’t eat much instant ramen anymore (all done with those days), I can’t deny that some of these look pretty good.

And, just because I love you, here’s some of those mystical 4-star ones. I couldn’t find higher ones, though if you’ve found one, be sure to share them in the comments:

American Instant Ramen, Rated

Let’s see how the good ol’ classic American instant ramen fares… I think it does about as good as you’d expect. Some of these are right up there with all those sushi abominations we Americans make as well… not quite as bad though… not quite… Still, do people eat these? I guess they must…

Even Cup Noodle in America tastes different from Japanese Cup Noodle. Seriously, where are our standards? Apparently Japan just sends us the Cup Noodle Japan dregs or something… or we just have a bad sense of what’s good in cup noodle. Probably a bit of both.

And… I’m pretty sure he was just being polite when he put any stars down at all for some of these.

Obviously, Tontantin has a ton more videos if you’re interested in seeing them. There’s a website (i-ramen.net) and there’s also the YouTube Channel (user: Tontantin). Each video is about a minute long (sometimes less) so you can expect to spend around 1250 minutes watching them all, if you plan to sit through start to finish (possibly in search for the mythical 4.5 star ramen?).

But, before I let you go, I thought I should teach you a thing or two about ramen. To be a true ramen master, you have to learn from the pros:

P.S. If you’re hungry for some sodium and noodles, feel free to let us know about it on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+

Over the last five years or so, I feel like I’ve noticed an influx in “instant gratification textbooks.” Everyone is trying to claim that they can teach you Japanese faster. One book will say it can teach you Japanese in 12 very easy five minute lessons, another will say they can teach you everything you’d ever need to know in a week. I’ve even seen some that say “Learn Japanese now!”

I think sometimes we forget that speed isn’t the point. Learning  Japanese FAST is like cramming for an exam. Maybe you’ll remember for a little while (a very little while), but in the end, you’ll just end up forgetting and burning yourself out. It’s not a race, and it should never be thought of that way.

I could be wrong, but I bet a lot of people get tempted into buying one of these “fast” Japanese language books. People want instant gratification, and when a book markets this temptation, they sell books, but people don’t learn very much. When I go to the bookstore, it feels like most of the books in the Japanese section are like this: Quick one-night-stand textbooks that steal your money on the way out the next morning. They must be making money.

Basically, all I’m saying is don’t get tempted! Take the high road! Learning Japanese takes a lot of time, but trying to skip steps to speed it up won’t help any. If you want to speed up what you are learning, just study more; that’s all there is to it. If you spend too much time trying to figure out innovative new approaches to learning Japanese, you’ll waste a lot of time that you could be using to study.

Here is a little video for you to watch, mostly just entertainment, and me making a fool out of myself. Besides being the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done, his video is dedicated to Erin, because she hates this song so much, and I love it.

[youtube:http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=AVg6uphc7iQ]