The reference to Thai Sweet Chilli got me thinking about my favourite ever instant noodle dood. I’ve always been a fan of the Pot Noodle; it conjures up memories of playing text-adventure games in my early teenage years when I’d eat about 2 a night (Spicy Curry and Sweet and Sour were the regular favourites). I got out of them until the Bombay Bad Boy appeared, which is basically Spicy Curry flavour with fearsomely strong chilli sauce.
The sub-Loaded aesthetic pains me, but it has become a Sunday afternoon routine to eat one with a Nice Cup Of Tea and read the paper. It confirms to a long-held belief of me about the healing power of chilli to a boozed-out body. Which leads me to my favourite fast-food noodle of all time – Amoy’s Tom Yum flavour dried noodles.
It had lemongrass in, the noodles were suckable and swallowable as they were thin, and the chilli oil / past combo was off the scale of heat. The best about it, apart from it tasting very nice indeed, was that it was simply the best hangover cure I’ve ever encountered. On average, it cleared them within 90 minutes – I think it just made you sweat so much that you expelled the nasty booze quicker than your broken body could do by itself.
But then it made like Keyzer Soze and like that, it was gone. It was yet another product I loved that my foolish fellow consumers did not, and so was removed*. I was saddened and shocked and gutted etc. Yet I have the belief that distribution chains being what they are, there is still somewhere in the UK I can get them from, so I’d like to ask FT readers to keep their eyes peeled. If you see them (they used to be in a two-tone packet, with the tones in question being pale blue and red), let me know. If you too hearted them and have found a replacement, I’d love to know where other Tom Yummers get their chilli booze detox fix from.
* Determined not be caught out again, I bought lots and lots of Airwaves Blackcurrant and then Spicy Cocktail flavour when they were trialled to make sure that they did not get deleted. I won, and you can thank me for their continued presence on newsstands. I am not supporting the new cherry flavour, so don’t blame me if they get the green-light.