UPDATE: This is the post that got my Stitch pillowcase and my boyfriend’s hands forever immortalised on Buzzfeed – check it out here (#35!).
Oh 7-Eleven. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
I love that you’re never more than 5 minutes away from any given location. I love that I can now buy crisps and ice-cream whenever the hell I want, preferably in my pyjamas. I love your cute collectible promotional toys that I will never spend enough to obtain all of (but I’ll lose my mind trying), and friends and colleagues will harass me for the tokens regardless.
I love that school kids frequent ‘Club 7’ to get their first illicit taste of alcohol, stand outside in the streets drinking it and that staff actually open their bottles for them. I love that we then do exactly the same thing in a loosely ironic fashion and it probably ends up being more fun than a night out in Dragon-I. I love that living it large outside Club 7 is practically a rites of passage in Hong Kong (see above photo for reference, taken in my second month in HK!).
But recently… I love your noodles. Not as much as my boyfriend does though.
Some of the larger 7-Elevens have a hot food counter (or even a stand-alone hot food shop), serving up re-heated street food without having to go to the trouble of wandering around the streets for it. We’re talking curry fish balls, char siu bao, shao mai and strangely-shaped things on cocktail sticks, all washed down with an artificial food-colouring abundant slushie drink. There are even microwaves in-store to heat up the ready meals that are available.
But it’s all about the lo mein. I first tried these when a group of my dancer friends came over to Hong Kong for work and quickly discovered the cheap and cheerful joys of 7-Eleven hot food on the go, especially the garlic noodles, which they chomped down regularly as they explored our fair city.
Fast forward a year later when I casually mentioned this to my boyfriend and he wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I think he’s averaged one a week ever since.
You’re basically paying $7 for someone else to make and season a pack of instant noodles for you. It’s quick, it’s cheap… and it’s bloody tasty.
Noodles in cha chaan tengs often come scattered with a plethora of distracting ingredients you didn’t even want in the first place – char siu, egg, onion, green pepper… and my mortal enemy, bean sprouts. Well there’s none of that nonsense here. 7-Eleven lo mein are salty, spicy (you can tell staff to what degree) and only given a light dusting with bits of yummy dried garlic/onion. Well, I think it’s dried garlic/onion. I hope so anyway.
The sauce is the kind that comes out of sachets and it’s left to the lap of the 7-Eleven gods what kind of 7-11er you get – someone who’s generous with the sauce, someone who knows how long to soak your noodles for, someone who isn’t going to do all this with a scowl on their face.
So yummy, so more-ish, so probably not very good for you at all. Prepared, eaten and thrown away in less than five minutes, no effort expended, no washing up afterwards. It’s the perfect meal, right?!
Cheers to that!
Through The Looking Glass 
Oh man, I need to get me some of that.
You’ll have to fight Richard for them!
(I didn’t mention in the post, but he’s now taken to ordering two – for himself!) x
I miss the late night pork buns too!!! Get me back to HK soon! x
thanks for the tip. instant noodles are my guilty pleasure. need to get down to the nearest 7-11 pronto !
Hehe thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy as much as my boyfriend does (although that may not be possible!)
Didn’t know 7-Eleven served noodles! I’ve only been here for 5 weeks, still got a lot to discover! :-). Good tip, thanks for sharing!
hongkongbadger.blogspot.com
Let me know when you try them – it’s only bigger 7-Elevens that have the hot food counter, but there’s all sorts besides the lo mein too!
Definitely plenty for you to explore in HK – I love it here and hope you do too! Thanks for reading,
Rach
x
Love this post!! What would we do without 7-Eleven?!
Thanks for the comment!
The answer – cry! Can’t remember how I ever lived without it to be honest!
love love LOVE these noodles!! One a week?! He’s no real noodle lover, haha. I try to restrict myself to only one a day when i go to hong kong, but am not usually successful with this. Usually minimum two. My record was either 4 or 5. I’d even lost count myself by the end of the day. But it’s an easy 1 for breakfast, 1 for lunch, 2 for dinner, and possibly snacks in between, haha.
Love the ode to 7/11 too though. 🙂 The drinking outside is classic. Sure does make for an unexplainably good night, haha.
Also… fyi… apparently the brand has been identified, so you can locate them if/when you leave honk. See https://rachttlg.com/tag/garlic-noodles/
(i currently live just over the border, in Guangzhou, China, and the 7/11 noodles here are an utter disappointment, so the packaged version is necessary to be found in my life!)
Hey Nikki
Haha thanks for the comment! Yeah – we discovered they’re Indomie instant noodles, so now my boyf has probably doubled/tripled his intake with the DIY version! His top tip: mix one packet of regular with one packet of chilli spicy! Good job we discovered them as a lot of 7/11s seem to have closed their hot food sections recently – sad times!
I love these noodles. I had them at Stanley Market for lunch & dinner. They taste so good!
I just wanna thank you for writing about these. I’m sad right now cos I’m not eating some
Haha – you’re welcome! Hope you get your noodle fix soon 😉
it’s literally indomie tho lol