Ramen noodle trope?

From a car insurance ad on tv, advertising inexpensive coverage: "Rachel is just starting out. She's on a budget -- like a ramen noodles every night budget." We all know that ramen noodles are about the cheapest food you can buy -- ranging from ten cents to a dollar a package. Allstate runs a national ad playing on that fact. Are ramen noodles a cultural icon? Dare I call this usage a trope? (Etymology of ramen is a topic of debate. Maybe from the Chinese, la mien, hand-pulled noodles, or laomien, , old noodles, or lumian, noodles cooked in a thick, starchy sauce or laomian, -- lo mein -- Cantonese, to stir.) By the way, Lori, if you're in the neighborhood, there's a Ramen Museum in Yokohama.