You may have noticed the last handful of reviews were photographed in a kind of black void. That’s because I’m using a photography box to document some of my reviews when I’m not home. And not being home means that the easiest thing to review is Cup Noodles (and other noodles that come in a cup, of course). This Cup Noodle take on hot & sour soup is a limited time offering from Nissin that comes back around every so often due to its popularity. I snagged one a couple months ago, so here is a proper review for your reading pleasure!
Read more: Review: Nissin Cup Noodle BIG Hot and Sour SoupThis particular flavor is described by Nissin as a slight modification of the Cup Noodle Original recipe, which is far from my favorite Cup Noodle flavor, but it is something I do buy on occasion. Nissin has added pepper, chili oil, and vinegar to the quintessential original recipe to create this new product.
This has a super-high salt equivalent of 6.3g, making the sodium count (after conversion) about 2480mg. This is categorized as one of the “BIG” Cup Noodle products, but that is a lot of sodium for a single cup. Be warned.
Inside, this looks quite a bit like the Original flavor, but there’s that liquid packet on the top that is supposed to change up the flavor a bit. The broth contains a mixture of chicken, pork, and seafood extracts with various seasonings including vinegar & black pepper, and I know from my experience with the US version of the Original flavor, that includes some savory background notes of soy sauce and sesame. The dried toppings are bok choy, egg, Nissin mystery meat (made with pork and soy), and wood ear mushrooms. The liquid pack is a sesame chili oil.
Noodles:
Standard, unremarkable Nissin noodles, but there sure are a lot of them!
- 5/10
Spiciness:
The included chili oil has a little kick to it, somewhat spicy compared to other Japanese offerings, but not nearly as spicy as the sort of heat you’d get from a Korean variety. The oiliness coats your lips in tingly chili heat just a bit while you slurp. There’s also a surprising amount of black pepper in this, so you’ll want to stir it all well to make sure the spice gets evenly distributed. If you can handle the hot & sour soup from your local Chinese takeout place, this will be no sweat.
- 3/10
Overall:
What a difference the subtle addition of two simple ingredients does for that original Cup Noodles flavor! In this case, the additional tinge of chili oil and vinegar really kicks this into high gear. The savory, sesame/pork/soy flavor you expect from the original recipe gets a nice bump of heat and an additional sour element blended into it, and smartly, it does not veer into too spicy or too sour territory. It’s excellently balanced. The toppings are pretty excellent too; while I don’t really give a hoot about the spongy eggs, the mushrooms, bok choy, and mystery meat work well with this broth. You can see in the pictures above that some of the bok choy pieces are downright huge, and there’s something extra delicious (probably MSG – Making Shit Good) and fatty about the Japanese rendition of Nissin’s mystery meat that’s lacking in its American counterpart. Working and stirring my way down to the bottom of the cup, there was a nice amount of the aforementioned black pepper settled near the bottom, which just amplified the flavor even more. Combine all of the above positive notes with the huge portion size, and this might be one of my favorite Cup Noodles ever. It’s completely transformative and works amazingly well. I’ll be stocking up the next time Nissin brings this flavor back. Or maybe I’ll just keep some bottles of chili oil and black vinegar on hand to add to the regular Cup Noodle Original from now on.
- 9.5/10
