Simply Asia Honey Teriyaki Take Out (10.6 oz. box)

Item Purchased: Simply Asia Honey Teriyaki Take Out (10.6 oz. box)
Location Purchased: Caribou Coffee / 1328 S. Halsted / Chicago, IL
Price: $3.19 + tax

Review: I was extremely wary of this lunchtime convenience food. Simply Asia packages their microwave noodle dishes in a container that resembles a Chinese carry out box in size and shape. Usually a cute package delivers a overly processed and dehydrated meal. Not so with these teriyaki noodles.

Preparation of this dish demands a bit more effort than most noodle dishes since there are four separate packets of varying degrees of immortal foodstuffs. One packet each for the noodles, the honey teriyaki sauce, the dehydrated vegetables and the sesame seed topping come neatly packed in the box. The noodles are surprisingly fresh and wet, the sauce is plentiful and the vegetables are more for seasoning than sustenance. In addition to the individually packaged ingredients, you also must add two tablespoons of water. How many people have a tablespoon in their desk drawer at work? Maybe Emeril has one, but I certainly do not. Unfortunately, there is no fill line on the inside of the takeout box so I winged the water level by giving the takeout box a few squirts of the water fountain. This worked just fine and after the two minutes in the nuclear food box, I had a fantastic tasting noodle meal. I like my teriyaki a little stronger and the honey could have been toned down, but I would most certainly buy this box-o-starch again.

The most baffling and amazing part about this product, however, is not the food at all, but the eating utensil that comes with it. Packaged alongside the ingredients, was also what appeared to be a mangled piece of white plastic. Upon further inspection, this mangled piece of plastic turned out to be a plastic fork that was folded over on itself. Far from being a mishap mangled factory reject, this was actually a compact plastic eating utensil designed to be folded. This wonder tool actually had a hinge and locking mechanism so all you had to do was unfold the plastic fork until it clicked into place as a fully-formed state-of-the-art utensil. Speechless, I must have folded and unfolded this molded wonder twelve or thirteen times before showing it to several of my co-workers. Even more appreciative than their "wows" was the recurring thought in my head that someone in the world holds a patent to this disposable fork design and is sitting pretty on the royalties. The folding fork is someone's pet rock.

It is discoveries like this that keep feeding my love/hate relationship with convenience foods.

The folding fork's one major flaw is that when you stir your noodles, the fork often comes unlocked and limply folds back in on itself, making it impossible to combine all of the meal's ingredients evenly. Despite all this, the folding fork is now sitting on my shelf at work, laying in wait for the next person to walk by and ask me what it is. It is things like this that spur the interesting conversations in life. Things like this are also responsible for prompting complete morons to invent something so useless and inane as the folding plastic spork.

Ben Franklin is kicking himself for not thinking of this one.

Rating: 4 / 5

Buy some Honey Teriyaki noodles from Amazon.com: Consume.
Image from Amazon.com