ITS 10P!!!! How bad could it honestly be?!? (Sainsbury's Basics Instant Chicken Noodles)

Member Name: Lucius86

Product:	Sainsbury's Basics Instant Chicken Noodles
Date:	03/06/09 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 10p!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!! Actually not that bad in taste...

Disadvantages: ...if you add your own flavouring! Small portion

What can you buy for 10p these days? Not an awful lot unfortunately - maybe a few penny sweets, perhaps a photocopy from a newsagent, or a tomato sauce sachet from your local chippy. Nothing substantial. So when I saw these Sainsbury's Basic noodles, chicken flavour, for 10 English pence, I just had to buy them for comedy value alone. Can I honestly hope that they taste any good??

Packaging is kept to a minimum. The product is wrapped in a thin white plastic bag, with the traditional orange writing we know from Sainsbury's Basic range describing the contents within. The product weighs 65g, which contains a block of dried noodles and a flavour sachet. To cook, you just put the noodles into pre-boiled water, add the flavour sachet and then simmer for around 4 minutes until it has absorbed most of the water. Simple, fast and effective!

I decided to have a quick taste at the four minute point whilst my cooking pot was still on the hob to see how it tasted - and boy was I disappointed, even for 10p! The problem was not with the noodles itself, as that actually tasted fine (believe it or not!), but the chicken flavour sachet was so weak - you would be hard pressed to recognise any hint of chicken if you hadn't known! Imagine extremely diluted orange squash, mixed with a gallon of water and that is the chicken flavour here. Not happy with throwing away the noodles, I promptly added a Sainsbury Basic chicken stock cube to try and rescue the masterpiece. After stirring away furiously, the noodles finally tasted of chicken, and I set about eating them properly.

You don't get an awful lot of noodles with this packet, so don't consider having this on its own for one of your main meals in the day - you get a lot more from Super Noodles. Fortunately I had this as an afternoon snack! The noodles themselves were actually quite moist and tasty, and I half-enjoyed my bowl of 10p noodle goodness. Just make sure you add your own stock cube to the pot!!!!!!!

Overall, for 10p these are a bit of a bargain. It is quick, effortless food to prepare and eat, and I am sure it will be a hit with many students towards the end of their student loan. Just make sure you add your own flavouring, because Sainsbury's have clearly forgotten to add any!

Summary: If you really are strapped for cash, these will fill a hole if you don't have high expectations.