Nissin Gaming Cup Noodle Energy Garlic & Black Pepper Yakisoba / 日清ゲーミングカップヌードル エナジーガーリック&黒胡椒焼そば
The zany cup design clearly marks this as something for “cool gamers”.
Nissin finally acknowledged that gaming and cup noodles go hand in hand for many people around the world. Who has the time to prepare a full meal, when you need to climb ladders and 360 no scope beginners. The Gaming Cup Noodle by Nissin hit the supermarket and convenience store shelves in Japan in late 2023 to quite some online buzz.
The Gaming Cup Noodle describes itself as “energy garlic & black pepper yakisoba” that has added caffeine, arginine and niacin (vitamin B3), which are all common ingredients for energy drinks. Probably makes this the perfect cup noodle to pop open at 1am to keep gaming deep into the night.
The flavor combination of garlic and black pepper points to a quite ordinary yakisoba flavor combination. Looking at the ingredients, I could confirm that soy sauce is the main source of salinity. I am not expecting any flavor revelations from this, but of course I am wondering if you can actually taste the added “gaming” ingredients.
Full content of the Nissin Gaming Cup Noodle - no big surprises.
Content
The yakisoba style cup noodles container is filled with a fried noodle brick, which is topped by the standard freeze dried toppings that are well known from other Nissin cup noodles. Dried mini shrimps, minced pork cubes, cabbage and yellow egg blocks, no surprises to be found here.
On top of it all, you will find a sachet with the shoyu tare soy sauce seasoning, which is added at the end of the preparation.
The instructions are printed on the cup and easy to understand.
Preparation
The preparation follows the classic instant yakisoba preparation method.
Open the lid half, then remove the seasoning sachet.
Add boiling water to the mark and close lid for 3 minutes.
Remove lid from opposite side.
Strain the water through the mesh.
Add seasoning sauce and stir well.
Don’t forget that this is a yakisoba and not a instant ramen with soup!
The only tip I have is to stir the mix in such a way that not all the toppings end up at the bottom of the cup.
The prepared noodles with the added seasoning sauce on top before stirring.
Review
The first impression for all instant noodles for me is the aroma that emanates from the cup or bowl after you open the lid or stir the noodles for the first time. On this point, I would say the Gaming Cup Noodles are rather weak. The smell is quite light with hints of dried garlic powder.
The fried noodles have standard Nissin Japan quality. Good stuff.
After recently having had a couple of European cup noodles with really bad noodles, it was refreshing to have some Japanese made fried instant noodles again, which are definitely on a different level of quality compared to their international counterparts. These days, I prefer dried noodles over fried ones, but fried noodles still seem to be the standard for instant yakisoba type products, so I have no complaints here.
As the product description promised, the most pronounced flavors are the dried garlic powder and hints of black pepper. Without any additional knowledge, I think the dried garlic powder would be all anyone could recognize from this cup noodle. The black pepper is more akin to some pre-ground pepper that you forgot in the back of your spice cabinet a few years ago. Yes, there is still some pepper flavor, but the main aromatic components are long gone.
The seasoning sauce binds all of it together with some general savoriness, without pushing a clear soy sauce flavor into your direction. This might also be due to the addition of caffeine, which I think lingers somewhere in the background. Again, without knowing about it, probably nobody would be able to tell that caffeine is added. With knowing about it, I felt like I could somewhat tell. But it is hard to say if that’s just in my mind or if there is an actual flavor impact from the gaming ingredient additions.
This time, it’s not mystery meat, but rather just minced dehydrated pork.
As the toppings are pretty standard, I don’t really have much to say about them. They are fine for what they are, good Nissin cup noodle standard.
Overall, I would say that Nissin created a quite enjoyable instant ramen product with the Gaming Cup Noodle with a very inoffensive flavor that can be modified to your liking, for example with hot sauces or other seasonings. On the energy front, you will get 41 milligrams of caffeine, which is roughly half of what you would get from a cup of coffee or can of red bull. So it will probably not fulfill all your gamer energy needs, but could be a way for people who do not enjoy caffeinated drinks to still get their caffeine kick in food form.
6.5 out of 10
