HIYA!

What can I say? It’s a Pot Noodle. Don’t expect the usual high quality writering here – well, that’s a low bar if ever there was one, but manage your own expectations, I guess.

Pot Noodles get a bad rep, which I think is slightly unfair – haute cuisine they are not, but what you expect from dried cupboard food? They are what they are – something that you buy, immediately forget about, and only get round to eating when you’ve been through the fridge and freezer – twice – then look in the “forgotten” cupboard.

For years, certainly in the 90s anyway, Pot Noodles were the subject of jokes – some poking fun at the perception that these were enjoyed by people with low incomes, like students and the unemployed (HAHAHAHA POOR PEOPLE! LOL!) – others took a slightly less arsehole approach and took aimed at the perceived quality of these snacks. I forget which edgy 90s comedian came up with “Q. What do you call a cup full of toenail clippings? A. A Pot Noodle!” but they’re probably cancelled now. Or in jail. Possibly dead.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been a fan of Pot Noodles since I was a kid – mainly due to the ads from the early 90s featuring the late Phil Hartman (Lionel Hutz/Troy McClure from The Simpsons). If you’ve not seen them – and given these were very much ITV at 3 in the morning jobs – then you’ve missed a treat. Luckily, YouTube to the rescue! Behold!

… you get the picture.

Of all the weird and wonderful flavours over the years, this isn’t Pot Noodle’s first foray into the Kebab flavour market. Back in the late 00’s, they done this:

Had Shawarma Police existed back then, we’d have reviewed it in very few words – it was awful. Tasted nothing like a kebab – in fact, it didn’t really taste of anything – slightly spicy (mainly due to the sachet of hot sauce, I might add), and flour. No surprise that this wasn’t on the shelves all that long, then.

So what of the new version, updated for the 2020s?

Well – it’s an improvement.

This doesn’t necessarily – out of the box – taste all that much like a kebab, but unlike its previous incarnation, it does taste of *something*, and that *something* is roast lamb – so that’s an encouraging start.

The instructions ask you to try it with and without the hot sauce – so I did. The picture above is pre-stir, which allowed me to do a with/without comparison in as many bites – and I really wouldn’t bother going sauceless here folks. This is fairly bland without it. Hashtag Sauce In or something.

I had a hard time trying to work out if these were bad or good, to be honest – I wanted to give it as fair an appraisal as I could – and the conclusion I came to was that these do a job. We’ve already established that these aren’t high cuisine, but for 60p out of Asda they were never going to be. Apparently, this flavour has returned off the back of a vote – begs the question, how bad were the other suggestions, I guess? My conclusion is that these are in fact not bad, but could be a lot better.

Being a pot noodle though, you can mod these to taste. Just as with the original curry flavour, where additional mango chutney from the jar really gives it a boost (thank me later), this can be vastly improved by a trip to the spice cupboard, and a liberal sprinkling of Lebanese 7 Spice (cumin and coriander will suffice) before adding in the boiling water up to the line. This being said, as is – they will do. They cost 60p, and they sit in the cupboard. Definitely worth trying, anyway.

Doner Kebab Pot Noodle

Exclusively in Asda, it says here. Regular price is 75p, but the month or so I’ve seen them, they’ve constantly been at a roll-back price of 60p.

6/10