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Alex:
"Soto Mie" is the name of a common brothy fare, popular in many of the peninsular and island nations of southeast Asia that I would liken to pho in taste and clarity. The Indonesian varieties have a reputation for impressive flavor, scaled by the complexity of preparation. This 3-seasoning sachet from Jakarta-based Indofood is no exception.
Distinctive ginger and coconut milk flavor take the spotlight, with pleasing highlights of lime. The chili tends to lurk in the back of the throat. The size and power of the flavor dwarfs the physical quantity of seasoning. I appreciated this frugality.
The thin soup was both rich and smooth, and as pleasing to smell wafting out of the bowl as it was to sip. Olfactory potency further evidenced by my involuntary urges, in 2 minute intervals over the past hour, to smell whatever of the oil remains on my hands.
The only obvious room for improvement is in noodle quality. The gauge of the noodle is, to use the Japanese classics as a benchmark, close to Nissin's Top Ramen. Something closer to the girth of Sapporo Ichiban could easily have made this a five-stick meal.
Anne Marie:
I actually would not purchase this Ramen variety a second time. It's not that I'm not a fan of ginger, I just appreciate it as an accent flavor as opposed to the main event. The overall Ramen quality was good for what the flavors were, but it just did not please my palate. I found the lime tasting like a lemon and I spent most of the time trying to figure out whether I really was tasting citrus or if the ginger had just gone bad. The chili added a bit of a bite, but not enough to counteract the main flavor. The taste also lingered in my mouth far too long, overpowering the other flavors in the soup. If you love ginger, perhaps you'll appreciate this manufactured ginger flavor, but it wasn't my cup of tea.
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