MAMA Cup – Shrimp Tom Yum

Pot

When in 2019 you had the legendary David Attenborough bring to the attention of the world the danger of Plastic pollution, it’s good to see in 2021 that MAMA have taken notice of this.

Oh wait! No for some utterly insane reason they have decided to encase their Noodle pot in a layer of throwaway plastic! Once you have removed the clear plastic sheath, you are then presented with an uninspiring card sleeve over a plastic container, with a foil top. I am still unsure why the plastic condom was required as trying to open the foil top of this snack, is near impossible as it appears to have been welded to the plastic, to make sure nothing can get in or out.

To add to its green credentials there is no easy tear strip on the card wrap to make it easier for the card sleeve to be recycled.

What’s Inside and how to prepare

After ripping the foil top open, as its near impossible to peal off you will see two extra sachets and a free plastic fork.

One of the sachets has your Tom Yum paste in and the other is shrimp flavouring. Once you have removed the three extra bits of plastic out of the container you can see the noodles, dried spring onion and what appears to be some hamster food. I did like the indent in the pot which acts as the water fill line.

Once you have followed the preparation instructions, you just need to give it a stir with the supplied fork. Unfortunately the fork seems to have the rigidity of a piece of string, making it utterly useless to be used for following the preparation instructions, but at least it is consistent with MAMA’s desire to see their plastic waste float across the ocean.

Taste

Using my trusted Spork, and taking my first taste, I was pleasantly surprised by the noodles, which had a good consistency with the taste of wheat coming through. The Tom Yum sauce coating everything in a slightly oily coating, gave the snack a good amount of heat, that accompanied the noodle flavour as opposed to overtaking it.

The hamster food once it had absorbed the water, had changed into pieces of foam packing material with no flavour, and just felt they were added to bulk it out. I was also puzzled by the fact that this was a Shrimp Tom Yum noodle pot snack, when the last thing you would say this had was any sense of Shrimp.

Strangely though as I ate more of this snack and the bits of hamster food had disappeared, leaving just the Tom Yum sauce & the noodles behind, you soon realise these two parts of the snack are all that should have been there in the first place.

Stats

Quick Summary & Rating

Very tasty tom yum sauce and noodles, that is negatively impacted with all the extra ingredients and plastic that’s just not required.