What the hell am I doing this for?
Or, if that question isn’t good enough, which Pot Noodle goes with which wine? The line up is as follows: 2008 Dr Loosen Riesling, 2008 Stoney Vale Semillon Chardonnay and 2008 Ascheri Dolcetto d’Alba verses Beef & Tomato, Chicken & Mushroom and the new Donner Kebab Pot Noodles!
We started off with the Beef & Tomato Pot Noodle. The food is a bit like cheap tomato juice with an Oxo cube dissolved into it. We had to put the Dolcetto with this, as it did have a tomato element to it, and whilst it was a bit big for the Pot Noodle, it does give the food a bit of sweet fruit and the herby, spicy flavours of the wine makes the Pot Noodle a bit more tolerable. To be honest thought, this was the worst of the pairings.
Next up, avoiding the Donner Kebab flavoured Pot Noodle for as long as possible, was the Chicken & Mushroom. As I’m sure you are aware as it appears to be the nation's favourite, this Pot Noodle tastes of cheap chicken soup out of a vending machine, with boiled peas and a little, and I mean a tiny amount, of mushroom. Pairing the Aussie Semillon Chardonnay with this actually improved the wine, which is, at best, mediocre! The wine gives the Pot Noodle a bit of sweetness to compliment the very sweet pea flavour and the mango pith and lemon cuts through the very savoury chicken flavour. It actually is a pretty good pairing proving that the sum of two bad parts can actually produce something that is OK!
Finally the truly horrific Donner Kebab flavoured Pot Noodle. The Donner Kebab itself is a food crime but to take this flavour and put it in a pot of freeze dried noodles is bordering on culinary murder. The Pot Noodle tasted of cheap chilli sauce, with a little lamb like sweetness, but it was totally unpleasant with a lot of cheap spice and a burning finish of chilli sauce. It was really bad. However, pairing it with a German Riesling improved the Pot Noodle to merely ‘terrible’ rather than ‘repulsive’. The sweetness masked the flavours of the Pot Noodle and the limey spicy elements complimented the sweet chilli from the food. Despite this being the most horrific of the Pot Noodles, the pairing with the wine made it the most tasty pairing of the three.
So, in conclusion, the Dr Loosen and the Ascheri wines were the best, and the Riesling improved the terrible Donner Kebab flavoured Pot Noodle, but the main conclusion is that I wasted 20 minutes of my life doing this tasting.
And that only the Chicken & Mushroom Pot Noodle is worth eating.
Pot Noodle Website
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