Dried noodles!

BOSTON - To eat or not to the Baby Star Chicken-Flavored crispy noodle snack?

This tasty treat has been sitting on top of my refrigerator for four days now. Here's a top view of the bag:



It doesn't look too bad. Those giant brown noodles resemble crunchy angel haired spaghetti. The mascot is a cross between the karate kid and a Martian. I especially love the way there is a dialogue bubble with the text "Chicken Flavored" in it. The title is labeled, and so is the "crispy noodle snack" part, but apparently the "flavored" was only added as an afterthought.

Perhaps I'm reading way too much into this. As you can see from the front, I purchased these noodles for $1.09 from the Sun Sun Grocery Store in Chinatown. I was on assignment - taking a short interview from the owner of the store behind the main cash register - and looked around for a small morsel to eat on the subway. I bought these, and right as was about to open them on the way back, I saw this:



It's the back of the package. Telling me that consuming these noodles will add 600 calories, and 88% of my daily saturated fat allotment. That's a lot to ask for a snack that's only chicken flavored, and not actual meat. It means cutting out the hamburgers, steaks and real chicken for the rest of the day, all because of some salty yet slightly soggy meat substitute.

What were these people thinking? Or specifically what was the Oyatsu Company in Mie, Japan, thinking when they invented this snack? Did they possibly think it would be an acceptable substitute for the all-conquering and far-too-tasty Doritos (especially the Cool Ranch variety)?

Or maybe they have their own marketing strategy. I turned my attention to the bottom of the package:



Three ways to eat? That's crazy! Doritos only usually offers #1, considering that their triangle-shaped morsels are way too big to shove right into the mouth. Usually I'm not in the mood for dried noodle-y things when I'm drinking tea, but next time I am I'll be sure to try this.

Maybe these will getting eaten after all. I'm bound to be too cheap, lazy, or hungry at some point to leave them just hanging around the dorm room.

Update (11/26/06): I never ate these.