My friends Justin and Oliver got me weirdly interested in Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Mac’N’Cheese. I couldn’t find the boxed version they were raving about, so I bought a pack of four cups from Safeway.
A Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Mac’N’Cheese cup works like instant ramen. You pour in the flavoring powder, fill to the line with water, microwave and stir. The biggest difference is that the fill line is lower, generating almost no soup.
Each cup contains 220cal of pasta. It doesn’t feel like much, but was a decent side. My biggest complaint is that the macaroni is not cheesy enough; my brother Chris agrees. I also feel that despite being labeled as “Flamin’ Hot,” the cup wasn’t all that spicy. (For me, that’s actually a good thing.)
Trying out the Cheetos gave me the idea that instant ramen could be a part of my regular diet. The first instant ramen I tried was a pack of Nongshim Shin Ramyun. The Nongshim felt like a lot more food compared to the Cheetos, even though its calorie count was only 380cal. It was also a helluva lot more spicy.
I finished the whole bowl. To my horror, I started regurgitating large amounts of mucus afterwards. It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly to blame: dinner ramen vs afternoon fruits vs lunch Indian food. Right now, I wanna say the fruits. Watermelon is tasty + easy to swallow, but often leaves pieces stuck in the throat.
Anyway, instant ramen will get another test, but next time I’ll eat it earlier in the day and go for a less spicy variant.
PS: the Cheetos I bought were discounted to $6.49 from $7.99. Dad laughed and said it was a giant ripoff (citing Asian ramen prices for comparison).
