Wattie's Chicken Chow Mein
I can't recall ever eating chow mein, and to be honest I don't even know what it is. The description on the package informs me that it consists of "Tender chicken, vegetables and noodles in an asian style sauce." An asian style sauce, that's helpful I guess. Asia's a pretty big place, with a huge variety of cultures and variation even within the countries themselves. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and assume it's a chinese dish. Let's see what google turns up:
"Chow mein is a Chinese term for a dish of stir-fried noodles, of which there are many varieties."
Right, so again, very helpful. Just calling something "chow mein" and saying it has an asian style sauce is possibly the broadest generalisation in the history of food. Oh well, onto the meal.
250g serving for $2.99, yes please. I'm hoping and praying at this point that it's not going to be as bad as I imagine. Frozen, the "meal" resembles vomit-covered ascariasis, ie a mass of worms. The broccoli is a nice bright shade of green, which is reassuring I guess. I can see cubes of carrot, some green beans, and what I assume is cubes of chicken. I'm not holding out much hope for enjoying this, but we shall see. Cooking time in the microwave is 5-6 minutes on high - seeing as it's chicken I'm dealing with, I'm going to err on the side of caution and nuke it for 6 minutes.
(Fun frozen chow mein fact: contains oyster sauce)
Ok so I'm ready to eat but cannot just yet. Let me explain this new principle that I've come up with while working here:
Any time work is quiet enough that I can prepare and eat a meal, the instant I am about to raise a fork to my lips many customers will come in at once, and the phone will ring.
I'm not exaggerating when I say this happens every single damn shift.
Ok, I'm ready, there's no one left here. Let's do this.
The cooked meal doesn't look much different to uncooked, other than that the sauce has now seeped down into the noodles. I must say it smells different than I anticipated - more savoury, when I was expecting sweet. I don't know if it's a Wattie's thing or not, but it smells rather bland to be honest. Is this what chow mein is supposed to be?
The first mouthful doesn't exactly give me much to write about. I can barely pick out any flavour other than soy sauce. There is a hint of sweetness to it, perhaps honey. The noodles are pleasantly plump, better than ramen at least. It's not quite as dreadful as I had anticipated. If I hadn't thrown out the box already I would be checking to see if it contains MSG. I'll try to be more thorough next time.
The chicken tastes ... strange? It almost tastes too much like chicken. I'm suspicious at this point that perhaps the chicken has had flavouring added to mask the low quality. The texture of the chicken is inconsistent in that one piece may be "tender" and the next chewy and stringy. I count five 1cm^2 pieces of chicken - disappointing!
The broccoli literally disintegrates in my mouth, which I'm not too keen on. I guess that's what happens when you freeze, and then nuke it. Beans and carrots are bland, uninspiring. There are a few token pieces of red pepper, but they add nothing to the taste and the texture resembles that of wet tissue.
So my first chow mein experience could have been worse. I was expecting something more "chinese" tasting - eg ginger, some spice, any kind of kick really, but alas. The hero of this dish is the noodles, they were plump and juicy and absorbed the flavour of the "asian style sauce" quite well. Having said that, the sauce was nothing that any average person could whip up in their kitchen with a bit of soy sauce and honey (and MSG?).
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