UFO Powerful Pork Garlic Shoyu Mazesoba / UFO パワフル豚にんいく醤油まぜそば

UFO Powerful Pork Garlic Shoyu Mazesoba, that name alone is quite a mouthful. There are at least two big promises here. The promise of a strong pork flavor and the promise of punchy garlic flavor. And maybe the promise that you will look like the pig on the cover if you eat this thing as your main diet, but that’s just a guess.

UFO are the main brand of yakisoba or mazesoba style instant noodles by Nissin. Please don’t ask why a bowl of instant ramen is called “Unidentified Flying Object”, you will not find any meaningful answers.

With this pork garlic shoyu bowl, Nissin is jumping on the ongoing trend of pork and garlic flavored instant ramen in Japan. Probably fueled by the rising popularity of Ramen Jiro and and shops that make very similar bowls of ramen like Butaboshi. Many of these shops also offer mazesoba, or “mixing noodles”, which are a style of soupless ramen. They often have no or very little soup at the bottom of the bowl and more akin to a bowl of pasta than regular ramen, although they retain many of the features and flavors of ramen. So my hope with this Nissin product is that they go for a similar flavor profile. Let’s see if the above mentioned promises are kept!

Content

Dried noodles, pieces of meat and some green veggies, probably cabbage
Sachet of thick soy sauce based seasoning sauce
Sachet of dried garlic flakes

Preparation

Open the big lid and take out the sachets.
Fill up with hot water to the line and close lid. Put sauce pack on top to warm it up and keep lid closed.
Wait for 5 minutes.
Open second lid on the opposite side and discard water.
Remove top entirely and add sauce. Stir vigorously. Then add flakes. Stir or no stir from here on is a question of philosophy.

Review

From the moment you open the sachet of dried garlic flakes, the aroma of dried garlic wafts through the air and fills your nostrils. It’s this familiar, slightly artificial smell of freeze dried garlic, just like when you buy garlic in powdered form. That’s also what it tastes like, so there’s very little garlic bite and zing. You don’t even have garlic breath afterwards. Disappointing?

On the other hand, the noodles were quite excellent in texture and tasty. Slightly on the thick side of things and quite slurpy. The shoyu tare seasoning was also quite good, striking a good balance between sweetness and salty tang. It also adds a somehow almost buttery flavor and coating to the noodles, which was very a bit surprising, but very enjoyable. Unfortunately the “powerful” pork and/or garlic taste does not punch through as much. My recommendation therefore would be to add some freshly grated garlic yourself or some garlic paste, if you like that flavor more. I can also imagine adding some chashu cubes for more porkyness and some green onion for crunch and freshness.

In the end we are left with an instant mazesoba that has good seasoning and noodles, but disappoints on the things it promises in name and style. Yes, I think it can easily be turned into a great instant meal with some additions. But so can many other instant noodles. Therefore, Powerful Pork Garlic Shoyu Mazesoba ends up very much in the “meh” territory of mediocre instant noodles for me.