I've been eating these noodles for some time:

Image title: Rice noodles 1          Dimensions:          3888 x 5286, 4327 kB Make a single page with this image Hide this image Make this image a thumbnail Make thumbnails of all images on this page Make this image small again Display small version of all images on this page All images taken on Sunday, 12 September 2021, thumbnails          All images taken on Sunday, 12 September 2021, small Diary entry for Sunday, 12 September 2021 Complete exposure details

 

They're are a moving target, and this page describes the journey. Current cooking details are on the noodle cooking times page.

The photo above dates from September 2021. At the time they didn't seem to have a name, but they repeated it in 5 languages. I like the French one best: « Preparation alimentaire a base de riz », or “alimentary preparation based on rice”. They also don't mention cooking times. Given that rice noodles can require from no cooking at all to up to 18 minutes, that's a serious omission. I first cooked them on 13 September 2021 for 4 minutes, which later seemed to be too long. On 9 October 2022 I tried cooking them again and came to the conclusion that 2 minutes in hot water would be sufficient, and on 24 October 2022 I discovered that some packages contain individual portion “baskets” of about 55 g.

Image title: Jack Hua noodles 3          Dimensions:          5184 x 3888, 2844 kB Make a single page with this image Hide this image Make this image a thumbnail Make thumbnails of all images on this page Make this image small again Display small version of all images on this page All images taken on Tuesday, 25 October 2022, thumbnails          All images taken on Tuesday, 25 October 2022, small Diary entry for Tuesday, 25 October 2022 Complete exposure details

 

In November 2022 I bought another package of these noodles. Now they have changed the French text, though they still don't state that they're rice noodles. But they now specify cooking times: 5 to 8 minutes in hot water.

Unit		Cooked		Factor		Recommended		Real
weight		weight				time		time
55 g		130 g		2.4 x		hot water 5-8 minutes		1 minute

Work in progress

Cooking the noodles for 2 minutes seems to be too long; they disintegrate in the serving dish. I'm experimenting with shorter times. See my diary entries for 26 April 2024 and 6 May 2024. I've been continually dropping the time, and in February 2025 I put them in boiling water, turned off the heat and left them for 1 minute. After leaving them for a while I rinsed them before use.

But is that right? I've heard that you should use them as soon as they're done. OK, on 25 July 2025 I did just that. But after one minute they were still hard. It took five minutes' cooking to get them to the stage where they were after one minute and being left for a while. Somehow I'm not closer to a repeatable method.

Finally, on 9 August 2025, I think I have found the best method: boil for 5 minutes, use immediately. The noodles are soft and slightly sticky, and they don't fall apart.