Review of the PLA 24 hour paratrooper ration

Reviews of rations from abroad - British ration packs, EPA, IMP, RCIR, etc.
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NorwegianboyEE
Posts: 26
Joined: Sun Dec 08, 2019 5:34 pm
Location: Norway

Review of the PLA 24 hour paratrooper ration

Post by NorwegianboyEE » Wed Mar 01, 2023 6:27 pm

Breakfast:
- 3 compressed cereal bars
- Boiled and seasoned peanuts
- Pickled Mustard Greens

Lunch:
- 2 compressed cereal bars
- Pulled Pork in Chili Oil
- Braised Beef
- Fried Rice

Dinner:
- 3 compressed cereal bars
- Fish Fillets in Seasoned Soy Sauce
- Bamboo Shoot and Shiitake Mushrooms
- Fruit cocktail


- (1) Breakfast -

Cereal bars:
The least interesting part of the ration, essentially a nutrient bar of compressed grain, sugar, oil and milk powder. The flavour is passable but the bar is hard to consume due to it's dense nature. They are very filling but will definitely give you constipation easily. Tastes exactly as you'd expect, sugary cereal with milk powder. The fact that this ration gives 8 cereal bars in total is ridiculous. Eating just 2 of these was enough to fill me up entirely until the next meal.

Boiled and seasoned peanuts:
An unusual snack, the peanuts are soft and give no crunch whatsoever due to how long they've been boiling. The flavour is 5-spice and tastes primarily fruity and of nutmeg.

Pickled Mustard Greens:
I'm usually a big fan of pickles but these were horrendous. Very salty chlorophyll flavour that only really works as an change in taste from the dull sweet cereal bars.

Breakfast verdict:
The breakfast was based mostly on the dull cereal bars, with the slight change in the monotony from the side items. Overall it was a very strange and unsatisfying experience.


- (2) Lunch -

Cereal bars:
Nothing different here, except there are only given 2 instead of 3 bars this time. Which is a slight joy because once you've had a couple of these bars you don't really want to eat more of them ever again.

Pulled Pork in Chili Oil:
An disappointing entrée, the chili oil isn't very spicy but just tastes like grease, and it drowns the pork in it so you'll taste nothing but oil no matter how much you try to drain your soaked pork pieces. Absolutely disgusting.

Braised Beef:
The first entrée I've actually enjoyed quite a bit. The beef is very tender and has a delicious flavour of soy sauce, a bit like teriyaki but done really well. There is a slight fattiness to the dish too, but it enhances the taste.

Fried Rice:
The fried rice is done very well, the vegetables and pieces of beef all have a satisfying bite to them, and the rice itself has that fried and seasoned flavour that characterizes a well made dish. The seasoning is 5-spice.

Lunch verdict:
An significant step up from the dull breakfast, mainly due to the fact that there was an abundance of actual real food, even if there was a couple more cereal bars to power through. However the greasy pork get's a big F- grade from me.


- (3) Dinner -

3 compressed cereal bars:
They really need to stop it with the cereal bars.

Fish Fillets in Seasoned Soy Sauce:
An surprisingly decadent fish. The consistency is like canned sardines, but the meat of the fish is absolutely delicious and gives a heavy umami flavour that masks the usual overbearing fishiness from these sorts of fillets. There is a bit of bone remaining in some of the fillets but it's not so much that it's an issue.

Bamboo Shoot and Shiitake Mushrooms:
I was surprised at how bad this was. The bamboo shoot is like hard foam and the taste is hard to describe in any other way than just disgusting. The slightly softer mushrooms are few and far between and don't taste much different from the already bad bamboo shoot. Don't know how they managed to screw this one up, but they did.

Fruit cocktail:
One of the best fruit cocktails i've ever tasted in my life. The only downside is that you get so little of it that it will be downed in about 10 seconds. According to the ingredient list there was a whole assortment of fruits included here, including banana and various exotic fruits.

Dinner verdict:
There was a fair bit of main items like the fish and fruit cocktail to make up for the addition of 3 more cereal bars, but overall this was another meal with hit and miss items. The Bamboo shoot was bad but the other side items more than made up for it.


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