Pokemon Noodle Soy Sauce Flavour ポケモンヌードル しょうゆ味

I am back to blogging after my husband caught a cold, gave it to my 2 year old son and then when they were over it, they had given it to me! So I spent a week trying to look after a busy toddler and feeling utterly miserable. There was no incentive to blog because I had lost my sense of taste. :(

I'm back now though with a cup of Pokemon Noodle to review. This will be attractive to fans of Pokemon or Japan-o-files. The packaging is a little scary, with two large dark grey owls in the background and what looks like fire, and Pokemon has his mouth open in an angry expression.
I don't know much about Pokemon so I don't know if this is normally a scary story.

The flavour is "shoyu" which is soy sauce. To eat this pack of cup noodle is simple. Just take off the outer plastic wrapping, unseal the lid half way and pour boiling water inside up to the line near the top. Then cover with the lid and wait 3 minutes, peel back the lid and eat!

 

In terms of flavour I thought this was just ok. What set it apart from other cup noodles is that it had flat pieces of kamaboko (fish cake) hidden amongst the noodles with images of characters from Pokemon. They were really quite cute and it was exciting to uncover all the little discs of kamaboko.

My husband also ate some of the cup noodle and on a scale of one to ten he gave it a 5. Average in flavour but because of its cute factor it would probably be quite popular with the young ones and otaku, so would possibly rate higher to others.

In all this was a fun product to try and I thank Oyatsu Cafe for letting me try it out. It's not something I would normally buy so it's been great to try something out of my comfort zone.

You can buy this product from Oyatsu Cafe now at their online store, along with lots of other great Japanese snacks.

The maker of Pokemon Noodle, Sanyo Foods, have a great website dedicated to this product with lots of cool interactive games and characters that move.

Nissin Cup Noodle Curry カップヌードル カレー

Picture borrowed from the Nissin website.

Cup Noodle is something I think of as "otaku food", it's the essential food of those kids that start off with an interest in Japan and then develop a full-blown obsession with it. It's sold alongside hentai manga, sailor uniforms and black black gum at Anime conventions.

Seriously though, it's my husband's favourite easy meal. It combines two elements of popular Japanese food into one small bowl - Curry and Noodles.

All you need is a means to heat water, and 3 minutes. It's as easy as boiling the water, pouring it into the cup, shutting the lid closed for 3 minutes and then the noodles are cooked and it's ready to eat.

I've seen Yasu consume copious amounts of Cup Noodle over the years and wondered what the attraction was. Seeing as I have a Japanese Snack blog I decided to review it because it does fit well into the snack category.

When I opened the lid on the cup noodle the smell of curry that wafted up was quite pleasant. It reminded me of House Vermont Curry. The taste was mild, rich and sweet with an undertaste of beef stock. There were small cubes of vegetables floating around in the sauce such as spring onion, carrots, potato, and corn. The noodles were flat and soft, and went well with the curry and vegetables.

I really enjoyed this and tasting it today made me totally change my mind about it. I thought it would be something I would never eat, but I could see this being a great snack for myself too.

I found it interesting to read the ingredients list on the pack which among other things mentions cheese and peanut butter! I'm not sure what they bring to the party or how much is contained within but it's certainly funny to see them listed.

I will definitely buy and eat this again soon!

The Cup Noodle website is quite interesting and has all the flavours listed as well as downloads and games.

Brand: Nissin Calories per cup: 404 Website: http://www.cupnoodle.jp/