New Touch Nagoya THE Taiwan Mazesoba ニュータッチ名古屋THE台湾まぜそば

The term “Taiwan ramen” is one full of misunderstandings. Despite the name, Taiwan ramen are a specialty of Nagoya. It was originally invented at the now famous Chinese restaurant "Misen”, where it was first a staff meal prepared by one of their Taiwanese chefs. From there, Taiwan ramen made its way onto the menu of Misen, where it became the most popular item. Soon, other restaurants in Nagoya started to imitate Misen’s Taiwan ramen, which made it available all over Nagoya and turned it into one of the famous dishes that people have to try when visiting the city.

But Taiwan ramen does not only exist in soupy ramen form, but also in the “dry” mazesoba mixing ramen form, which uses either no broth or very little, plus a stronger or sometimes thickened seasoning, not unlike yakisoba dishes. Some people might even make the comparison to pasta.

New Touch is tackling this Taiwan mazesoba style of ramen with this instant version, promising chewy noodles, a good spiciness and even “raw” egg yolk, which is a very common addition to mazesoba dishes.

For full disclosure, I received this bowl for free from Instantramenshop.com for testing purposes.

Content

Non-fried noodles
Blue sachet with liquid seasoning tare
Red sachet with furikake dried condiment
Yellow sachet with "egg yolk"

*You’re looking at only 363 kcal here. Definitely on the lighter side for instant ramen.*

Preparation

Open large lid and take all sachets out of the bowl.
Fill with boiling water to the line inside of the bowl. Close lid and put liquid seasoning sachet and egg yolk sachet on top of the bowl to let them heat up.
After 5 minutes, open second small lid on the opposite side to pour out water.
Add seasoning tare and furikake and stir well.
Enjoy your noodles. After eating half, add the egg yolk to switch things up a bit and increase the creaminess.

Review

The first impression after mixing it all up is “well, that’s not a lot of food”. Indeed the whole bowl only has 363 kcal, which puts it more in the snack category for me, especially without any toppings or sides.

The first disappointment quickly disappears after the first slurp. The seasoning is quite fragrant and punchy, which a good baseline spiciness, without being “too much”, as it is sometimes the case with other mazesoba or yakisoba instant noodles. While the taste is great, the noodles are the real star of this instant ramen bowl.

They have a really fantastic chew to them that is unheard of with other instant noodles. The noodles are quite thick for instant noodles and stand very well against the rich seasoning.

*Added “egg yolk” paste after half the noodles were gone.*

Finally, the instructions of the bowl itself recommend to add the egg yolk after eating half of the noodles, to have a so called “ajihen” flavor and consistency change. The result is…underwhelming? Sure, there is a bit of creaminess, but I would not be able to recognize the flavor or texture as egg yolk. I am not even sure what the yellow paste actually is. I am not sure I want to know.

Overall I liked this very very much, however the amount of noodles was simply insufficient and the fake egg yolk thingy was unnecessary in my eyes and did not add very much. As it is, this is more like a snack than a meal and needs to be seriously pimped up with toppings and side dishes to fill you up like a proper meal.