Shin Light Ramyun & Brown Sugar Boba Ice Cream Review

Are we still trying to do the New Year’s resolution thing? Well, if yours was to eat healthier, this post is probably not for you, but if you’re looking for instant ramyun/ramen noodles with less calories, this is it!

Nongshim just came out with Shin Light Ramyun, and for a slightly smaller noodle packet (97g vs 120g), it has 75% less fat and 25% less calories. This comes out to 2.5g vs 16g of fat and 340 calories vs 510 calories. To boot, in terms of sodium, we’re talking 1800mg vs 1970mg. Still high, but it’s better than nothing.

Cooking-wise, it’s similar except Shin Light comes with a small packet of spicy seasoning oil. Since the noodles are air-dried as opposed to fried, this adds some body to the soup.

Now, does it taste as good? I’ll say it’s almost as good. The noodles are definitely lighter in taste because it isn’t fried, and the soup feels thinner, but it’s definitely not watery. These noods still had flavor! The spice level seemed a tiny bit higher also, but it’s still very manageable.

In terms of cost, the regular Shin is always on sale at my East Village HMart for around $4.99/5 packs. Shin Light, probably because it’s new, is 3 dollars more expensive at $7.99/5 packs. So if you have a few extra dollars to spend, and are looking for less guilty instant noodles, this is worth a try!

Shin Light Ramyun
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Spice Level: 3/5 peppers
Amazon: https://amzn.to/304Neoy

If you need something cool after your spicy ramyun, I also found these Haitai BaBambar Bubble Tea Bars at HMart. I know the Taiwanese boba ice cream bars are sold out everywhere, so I was happy to see this Korean version. I haven’t tried the Taiwanese ice bars yet, which I assume are better, but these were mighty tasty. It tasted just like a less sweet brown sugar milk tea in ice cream form.

As for tapioca balls, the first one I tried had about 5 balls throughout. The second and third, sadly only had about 2 each, which I didn’t mind too much. Being frozen, the bubbles don’t give you a satisfying bouncy chew anyway.

The bars were $7.99/8 bars, and since we’re talking calories in this post, one bar is 95 calories. Again, not bad.

You definitely won’t be skinny after eating ice cream and instant noodles, but if you’re planning to anyway, these are baby steps.

Babambar Bubble Tea Bar
Rating: 4/5 stars

HMart (multiple locations, I visited the East Village location)
35 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10003 (map)