Nissin Ramen Masters Takumi, Special Miso Ramen Cup Noodles

The nicely designed Ramen Masters Takumi cup noodles with special miso flavor by Nissin — *The nicely designed Ramen Masters Takumi cup noodles with “special miso” flavor by Nissin*

Nissin Europe has started teaming up with ramen chefs, or more specifically, ramen chains in Europe to create new and exciting cup ramen. The first shop to take the deal has been Takumi, a ramen chain with 39 ramen restaurants all over Europe.

This is what the Nissin Europe website has to say:

Under the ‘Nissin Ramen Masters’ brand, Nissin is partnering up with various Japanese ramen restaurants across Europe as the inventor of Cup Noodles. The idea: we transform each restaurant’s best-selling dish into an instant-noodle cup which you can enjoy at home or at the office.

Takumi, one of the most famous ramen restaurants in Europe, is the first to join us in the new Nissin Ramen Masters product series.
This cooperation resulted in a unique ramen creation with an unforgettable Japanese taste. Delicious noodles in an authentic miso-based broth, garnished with mini Narutomaki, will most definitely make your mouth water.

It has been a while since I had cup noodles or any instant ramen made in Europe, so I was quite excited to find out if the ramen game has stepped up to the same level as in Japan. Also, pairing up with Takumi promised a certain level of quality. Were my expectations too high? Let’s find out!

*“Herr Ober, da sind Karotten in meiner Suppe!”*

Content

Opening the lid reveals a mix of freeze dried cabbage, carrots and lots and lots of narutomaki fish cakes. The amount of short broken noodles on top is surprising at first, but makes sense, since I brought this thing all the way from Germany to Japan in a suitcase, so some breakage is to be expected. The rest of the noodles are normal long noodles, which are coated with the “special miso” soup powder.

*Yes, I get it. Naruto. Like in the anime. And lots of it.*

Preparation

Fill in water to the line and wait for 4 minutes. Curiously, Japanese Nissin Cup Noodles are done in 3 minutes.

*I’ll be honest, the Ramen Masters Takumi cup looks pretty good when presented like this.*

Review

Visually, Nissin is trying to score points with the Naruto weeb crowd by adding as many small narutomaki fish cakes as possible. Sure, they look nice, but don’t really add anything, flavor or texture wise. In my opinion, narutomaki fish cakes are probably the most overrated ramen topping out there in general.

Also, there’s carrot pieces floating around. From Instagram and other forms of social media, I know that people outside of Japan, especially in Germany, seem to like (or at least get served) a lot of raw carrots on their ramen. I would also add that to the list of overrated toppings, if it wasn’t already on the list of things that only appear on top of ramen outside of Japan. For a good reason, in my opinion.

On the cup. it says special miso ramen flavor, but no miso is on the ingredients list. The soup tastes like you vaguely described miso ramen you had 5 years ago to a German food chemist, who then tried to recreate it in a laboratory without actually using any miso. And the result would be you saying “No, that’s not it.”. There are hints of artificial ginger and soy sauce flavor, but the dominating aroma is “brown water”.

The noodles are chewy, but not in a good way. They definitely use different noodles compared to the Japanese Nissin Cup Noodles. Nissin Europe, shame on you for downgrading to an inferior product. Or maybe they have to because of EU regulations, who knows. The noodles aren’t the break point of this cup though, they’re just not particularly good.

I have been to Takumi in Germany before I really got into ramen and I thought it was alright at the time, certainly better than anything else that was available in Germany back then. How they signed off on this awful monstrosity of a cup ramen, I will never know. But the same goes for Nissin Europe. I can’t imagine anyone at Nissin Japan signing off on a cup like this. Eating this cup actively made me an unhappier person. If this is still available, don’t buy it.