Nissin Soy Sauce Shrimps Pepper Shoyu Soup Cup Noodles

Another cup of the “Asian Blast” series of European cup noodles by Nissin. After the absolute disaster cup with “Roasted Duck Sweet Onion” flavor, I did not have very high expectations for this cup of instant noodles as well. While Nissin is without doubt the king of instant ramen in Japan, again and again, their European overseas products have been disappointing or almost completely inedible, with products from Asia showing a much better track record.

Although, what could go wrong with a cup with the very short name “Soy Sauce Shrimps Pepper Shoyu Soup”. Promises of a very classic style of shoyu ramen pop into my head, which does indeed work really well with a healthy dusting of black pepper. That’s for sure one of the reasons for black pepper being a staple on the counters of ramen shops in Japan. Shrimps are a rather unorthodox addition, but hey, whatever adds some flavor is highly welcome.

*There are exactly 4 mini shrimps in this noodle cup.*

Content

The cup is filled over the actual “fill water up to here” line with noodles, which are dusted with the soup flavoring. The noodles are topped with freeze dried shrimps, corn and pieces of shredded carrots.

I did count the mini shrimps. There’s exactly 4 of them in this instant ramen cup.

*The quite weak looking soup does not create a whole lot of excitement to dig in.*

Preparation

Look closely and find the actual fill line. Then fill boiling water up to there and wait for 3 minutes. Not sure why other European cup noodles in the past required 4 minutes. Maybe different noodles or a different production location?

*The European noodles are just so different from the ones in Japan. Not in a good way.*

Review

I am not so sure, why I am still surprised at how bad the cup noodle products by Nissin made in Europe are. They are truly one cup of disappointment after the other.

At least, the noodles here are not completely terrible, even though they do have a weird aftertaste to them. I also found them to be quite short and brittle, but I can’t say if that is from having been in my suitcase on my way from Europe to Japan.

My main criticism for this bowl comes from the soup, which is simply too weakly flavored. You taste basically nothing of the soup, when slurping the noodles. It’s almost like eating noodles out of plain hot water, with not flavoring added whatsoever.

After finishing the noodles, the leftover soup is not terrible for drinking by itself. But even then, the flavor is quite faint, as if you accidentally used the double amount of water for your Maggi broth cube. There is also an extremely faint black pepper flavor that is only recognizable, when you remember that the flavor is written on the cup. Otherwise, it would not particularly stand out among the mellow nothingness.

The flavor highlights are the 4 mini shrimps which immediately fall to the bottom of the cup, as well as the pieces of corn and carrot. But if pieces of corn and carrot are the flavor highlights of a Nissin cup noodles instant ramen cup, then something has really gone wrong.

Verdict: Edible, but not enjoyable.