I’ve been meaning to review this since 2006 but I’ve never had a camera that would take photos that actually look like photos, so I had to wait. This is my favorite soup cup in the whole wide world, marketed by the Instant Noodle King brand this is a huge cup of soup for not a lot of money.

Why review an instant soup cup? Well there are several reasons for this particular choice. One is that in the Midwestern United States you just don’t see lobster soup, more or less ever. The bible belt has a tendency to shy away from products they deem to be gross or odd (like kimchi, unagi, abalone, wakame, etc.) so before I’d made my first Asian Food Grocer order, I’d never had it before in my life.

The reason I take so many photos of packaging and not just the food is because when I visit food blogs that review products, especially Asian products, the packaging is my favorite part and I always wish they’d take more photos of it!

This noodle soup is in a big, hefty bowl (about the size of two ramen cups put together) and is made up of a delicious fatty lobster base that has a dreamy warm, savory taste that I could drink by the cup and not get tired of. Into that we put a really fine egg noodle that softens even in hot tap water (which is all I had, so that was dreamy as well) and some delicious veggies like cabbage, wakame, corn and chives.

The soup only has to stand about two minutes to be edible but I’d leave it in for a full 4 or 5 if you’ve used tap water. As you can see from the photos I didn’t fill it up to the inner line (I left about a half an inch), and the reason was that the last portion I had tasted a bit watered down, but this particular cup was perfect so I’ll be leaving that much room every time from now on.

For those of you who can’t buy these at the store, you can get lobster egg noodle soup at AFG along with a bunch of other deliciousness, and they’re about a buck 70 a cup with savings per unit the more you buy. They’re definitely worth the price and the week-long shipping wait!

As you may know if you know me personally (since I can’t stop gushing), Laota and I purchased our first Asian Food Grocer package in almost two years this month, and it’s been agony waiting the 6 days for it to get here! We followed it closely on the FedEx tracking website, like children follow the Santa Tracker at Christmas time, and today it finally arrived, as always, packed methodically and undamaged – as is Asian Food Grocer‘s way.

We got some of our favorites that you can’t buy here, like prepared azuki, five spice powder, spring roll skins, bamboo chopsticks and white peach Yogu Time yogurt soft drinks. But we also got our favorite soup in the world, Noodle King’s Lobster Egg Noodle Soup, which is so addictive we tend to spend way more on it than we should!

Some new-to-us finds were a kind of low salt miso (with no MSG, which will be rectified when I prepare it lol), honey spiced umeboshi pickled plums for our onigiri and mix fruit mochi.

Today was actually the first time I’d ever had mochi and now I’m addicted! You can see some crappy photos below of all the fun things we bought – we’ve purchased through Asian Food Grocer since 2005 or 2006, and can’t say enough good things about them! We’ve never had a lost or misdirected shipment, never had missing goods, never had to pay too-steep shipping (the shipping for everything was about 7 bucks FedEx ground).

I reviewed this restaurant in November, I believe, because I’d gotten to treat there for my birthday (which is in November) during their grand opening and had nothing but nice things to say about the place.

Well, my tune hasn’t changed. In the last several months I’ve had take out from them a few times but this is the first time I’d been back to dine in since November.

China King isn’t a chain, or at least I don’t think it is. It’s Americanized Chinese food at it’s best. It’s clean, the staff is SO courteous, patient and nice and the food, as always, is to die for.

I went with Laota, Mom and her Hubbs and we sat in the well lit dining area (flanked by two big-screen TVs tuned to Discovery and History channels) and had a great meal, here’s some of what we had:

The only issue I have with China King is that it’s so small, and I think that limits their appeal to the locals but I love the place. The food is hot, served fast and fresh, the staff are wonderful and they have the best crab rangoon – probably the best Chinese restaurant I’ve been to in Missouri, period.

Curious? Check them out:

Tel: 660-425-8884
604 20th St.
Bethany, Missouri USA 64424

Product review, product review! Okay, so that’s obvious by the title, lol.

The product I’m reviewing today is a Dollar General brand named Clover Valley (I’m sure some of you have CV products!), which are often as good as the national brands. This time it’s their condensed Bean and Bacon soup.

First of all at 70 cents, it’s a great price for a condensed bean and bacon, with some of the nationals here being in the $1.50 range per can, so it’s a great money saver at less than half the price of a national brand soup. Secondly, it’s got a great flavor to it. Bit sour, very sweet, very bean-y lol. The bacon flavor could be a tad stronger, but this would be a great soup for a casserole because it’s flavor is so good.

It’s so cold right now and we just had some (yum!), it’s enough for four small portions or two large – can’t beat that! Overall I recommend it at 3.5 out of 5 stars – go get you some!

Well, I won’t take it back, because that’s the way it HAS been every other time I’ve ever gone, but we went tonight (my mom loves the place) and I have to say, it was absolutely fun. The food was good (crab legs, BBQ pork short ribs, shrimp, roast beef, green beans, and so on), they had these little flaky napoleon things that were delicious and we got the best server – sweet guy, very polite, very courteous. It’s the single best visit I’ve ever had, and I can’t figure out why?

But it did deserve a good review, 3 out of 5 stars for good food, good service – would be 4 stars if it didn’t usually suck.

It was awesome, very clean and friendly with a great atmosphere. We bought some of their famous orange chicken, I had a pepsi and Laota had a tea. We sat and took some pictures then grabbed a bottle of their orange sauce (very good, we’ve had it as a glaze on roasted chicken since). It even has a little outdoor spot with a few tables to eat – pardon the bad pics, had to take them with my phone! Out of five stars, it easily gets four – check it out if you have time!