Nongshim KPop Demon Hunters Shin Ramyun Cups Mega-Review | Noodle Journey Episode 215

These Nongshim KPop Demon Hunters Shin Ramyun Cups are brand new and long-awaited by the KPDH and instant ramyun community, and I’m willing to bet a lot of you who clicked on this review have been waiting for these for months. They’re finally here, but there is a major issue you should know about, so make sure you read through the whole intro (or watch the video linked above) and I’ll talk about it. Welcome to the mega review of Nongshim’s KPop Demon Hunters Shin Ramyun Cups.

KPop Demon Hunters is a global phenomenon, and if you didn’t know that, I hope the rock that you live under is comfortable. I am personally a fan of the movie and so are my kids especially. I found it not only entertaining but I really appreciated the allegory between Rumi’s character arc and the impossible standards imposed on KPop idols by society, and I think the soundtrack’s pretty great too for the most part. But if I have to hear Soda Pop one more time, I will jam an ice pick into my eardrums. But I’m not the only one who likes the movie – of course it’s one of the biggest animated movies of all time now – but Sony and Netflix clearly were not prepared for how big it was going to be because there was basically no merchandise or any tie-in products available when the movie came out. We had to wait months to get KPop branded stuff here in the US, like these cups, but there is some major deception here on Nongshim’s part.

Bear with me here. If you’re one of the dozen people who haven’t seen the movie then you need to know that within the universe of KPop demon hunters the three lead characters, Rumi, Zoey and Mira all have their own specialty ramyun cups that they eat near the beginning of the film. Rumi has Superstar flavor, Zoey has Hamburger flavor (called Burger Hero here in the US – we’ll get to that in a little bit), and Mira has Spicy Queen flavor. And of course as soon as the movie picked up in popularity the internet started clamoring for actual reproductions of the special flavored cups from the movie to the point where people were selling fake cup covers on Etsy that you could slip over your real noodle cups.

Now fast forward to September of last year, and Nongshim announced that they’d be releasing Demon Hunter noodle products, except at that time they were just repackagings of existing products with Demon Hunter characters on the labels… which is fine, but it wasn’t the cups from the movie – it was just the same products that Nongshim normally sells with Demon Hunter artwork on it. So clearly they needed more time to formulate the new recipes from the movie right? So fast forward again to December of 2025, and Nongshim actually announced and released the three flavors from the movie – Superstar, Hamburger, and Spicy Queen – but only for sale in South Korea. The press release said that we would get those special cup flavors in the USA in January with other markets to follow. We did not in fact get them in January.

Fast forward one final time to two weeks ago and I saw these three cups were made available at Walmart, and I bought all three excited to review them right away. My friends, I was duped by Nongshim. Check out this nonsense. The actual special flavors from the movie, Superstar, Hamburger (Burger Hero), and Spicy Queen are currently only available at Amazon and in HMart stores and possibly other Asian grocery stores in the US. The Walmart cups are just plain old Shin Ramen with different packaging. The ingredients in all three of the Walmart cups are identical. You have to find the ones that specifically say “Superstar,” “Burger Hero,” and “Spicy Queen” on the front, otherwise they’re just Shin, Shin, and Shin. I guess it’s ultimately my fault that I bought the Walmart cups without noticing the subtle difference in packaging but considering there’s already been a Shin Ramyun cup with Demon Hunters packaging, I didn’t think they’d make yet another trio of alternate packaging at the exact same time that the real cups were coming out. And now here I am wasting time in this review to warn all of you fine people not to get bamboozled the way that I was.

So if you are just after normal Shin Ramyun cups and special packaging and don’t care about the special flavors go ahead and buy the ones from Walmart that don’t show the name of the flavor on the cup. If you want the special flavors from the movie, purchase the ones that actually show the name of the flavor on the cup, Superstar, Burger Hero, and Spicy Queen.

And now with that out of the way, onto the review.

Rumi Superstar Flavor

The Verdict:

I figured that it’s only fair that I start with the movie’s central character, Rumi, and her Superstar flavor. And just calling this Superstar flavor doesn’t really tell you much about what this is, so what the official item description from Nongshim says is that this is a combination of savory ham and other meaty flavors in a deep spicy broth. And at the bottom of the cup label, it says “spicy & smoky.” There are also star-shaped fishcake that you can see on the packaging along with some other cool flakes.

Inside the cup, we’ve got some pretty standard looking Nongshim cup noodles, we’ve got a broth powder packet, and we’ve got those unique flakes that I was talking about. The noodles are wheat flour and potato starch, which is typical of Korean noodles. The broth powder contains stuff like salt, sugar, MSG, soy sauce, garlic, onion, red pepper, and various spices. The flakes are the star-shaped fishcake, a different kind of fishcake that looks like ham, kimchi cabbage, and bok choy. Despite the promise of “meaty flavors” this does actually appear to be pescatarian funny enough, so those meat flavors they mentioned in the official product description are artificial. The sodium for this entire cup is 1850mg which is 80% of your daily allowance and is kind of on the high side. Adding the broth powder, it does indeed smell smoky and I know exactly what it reminds me of.

The aroma I’m getting off of this reminds me of three different products I’ve had over the years: Nongshim K Army Stew, Nongshim’s Budae flavor (which recently came out and replaced K Army Stew… kind of), and Samyang’s original ramen in the orange packaging. And for those of you who’ve never had those flavors before, it kind of smells like you dropped a hot dog into a chili broth. I love that aroma and flavor, but for some people that aroma and flavor is a little off-putting.

Noodles:

For Nongshim’s pack noodles, I typically score them at an 8 out of 10 because I like their thicker gauge and chewy texture, and here we still have a nice chewy texture but these noodles are maybe 30% thinner than the pack version, which is necessary for cup products due to the cooking methods; but to me, that is a slight negative from a texture perspective. I generally like thicker noodles. There are times when a more delicate recipe works better with thin noodles; I don’t think this is one of those times. So I think the noodles are just slightly less good because of the loss in volume but they’re still way better than a lot of other cup products out there. That score is going to apply to the other two cups as well unless there’s some weird shenanigans with those noodles.

• 7/10

Spiciness:

As far as the spiciness is concerned, this does have a good kick to it. If you buy this thinking that just because it has KPop Demon Hunters on the label that it’s going to be a cakewalk with the spice level, it’s not. This is a very solid medium spice. If you’ve had any of the other ramyun flavors that I mentioned above, it is kind of similar to those. For reference I put original Shin Ramyun at a 6 out of 10 on my spiciness scale. I think this is maybe a step a step and a half below that. So if you’re not used to spicy foods or you don’t like spicy foods, this will burn you. It’s definitely got some burn on my tongue.

• 5/10

Overall:

The three ramyun products that I already made reference to are things that I liked a great deal, and in turn I really like this. It does deliver exactly on what it promises: spicy, smoky, and meat forward, which is funny because there is no actual beef, pork, or chicken in it. If you’ve had Shin Ramyun before or similar products, you already kind of know what to expect with this. It is a chili-forward, umami, salty, oniony, garlicky flavor. The additional smokiness, which might come from smoked paprika (I’m not entirely sure), does give it a little extra character and I really appreciate that about it.

The flakes are pretty interesting. The bok choy and the cabbage kimchi are great. The kimchi has a nice crunch to it – perfectly rehydrated. What’s kind of neat about the star fishcake and the ham fishcake is even though they do taste the same – if you’ve never had fishcake before it’s just kind of a mildly sweet seafood flavor very reminiscent of a crab stick – they have different textures. The star one is a little bit soft and supple (at least the one that I tried) and the one that looks like a little slice of ham actually has kind of a firmer texture to it almost like a piece of actual ham or hot dog. So I really like this. I think the smoky flavor of the broth is great. I think the included dried toppings are excellent and I like that it reminds me of an instant budae jjigae which is one of my favorite Korean flavors.

• 8/10

Zoey Burger Hero Flavor

The Verdict:

And now we’ll move on to Zoey’s flavor, Burger Hero, and I think this is probably going to be the one that people are the most interested in because, I mean, hamburger-flavored noodles right? That’s pretty unique. What is also interesting is the original Korean version was actually called Hamburger and this is Burger Hero in the USA. I believe the reason for that is that the FDA does not let you legally put the word “hamburger” in a product name if it has no beef in it, which this doesn’t. You can call it “burger” or say that it’s “hamburger taste” or “hamburger flavored” but it seems from my reading that you can’t use the word “hamburger” in the actual product name if it’s artificially flavored.

So yes, this is a beef-free burger flavor, which I find a little bit disappointing because these were manufactured in California for the US market, which means there is no reason that these shouldn’t contain beef other than Nongshim chose not to put it in here. What Nongshim does say about this flavor is that it has a “bold richness and a gentle smokiness reminiscent of a freshly grilled hamburger.”

Inside, this one looks a little different – more noodles and flakes, and this time we’ve got two broth packets. There is a lot of overlap in the ingredients from the last cup including salt, sugar, MSG, garlic, onion, soy sauce, and various spices, but we’ve also got some different vegetable extracts listed like radish, green peas, and parsley. And there’s artificial hamburger pieces as the flakes, which are either made from wheat gluten or possibly a fish and soy protein blend depending on how you interpret the written ingredients. The sodium for this entire cup is 1530mg, which is much better than the last one but still pretty high.

Opening the first broth packet, it smells very convincingly burger-like. There’s an obvious grill flavor in there along with white pepper or black pepper. The second packet smells horrible. Almost like a like a really funky kind of powdered sour cream or something.

After cooking, it doesn’t quite smell of the funky edge that that second packet had. It smells more like a Salisbury steak gravy. I know in Asian cuisine – particularly in Japan, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s also in Korea – hamburger is typically served as a ground beef patty with a rich brown gravy on top of it. I’ve had loco moco in Hawaii which is kind of a similar thing from what I understand, so that’s kind of what the smell of this broth is reminding me of.

Noodles:

Same noodles as before no change in score. The one thing I will say is that I noticed them get pretty soggy towards the end in that last cup, so just eat them reasonably quickly.

• 7/10

Spiciness:

As far as spiciness is concerned, this is actually a very tiny bit spicy. It’s got a little bit of a lip tingle and a little bit hitting me in the back of my throat, and I did not see any chili pepper or red pepper listed specifically on the back of the cup, so I’m kind of inclined to think it’s more of a black pepper tingle. But it is a tingle regardless, so not too terrible.

• 2/10

Overall:

That second packet that smelled a lot like a funky sour cream – I think I’m starting to realize it was probably a combination of artificial beef powder and mushroom extract. There is a lot of mushroom umami on the back end of every bite of this. It’s not the most pleasant mushroom flavor I’ve ever tasted, and it’s actually a little bit weird to me, but it does sort of taste like what I was talking about earlier; it’s very reminiscent of a very mildly spicy brown gravy in soup form. The first bite, I was not really convinced that this worked but after a second bite and after drinking the soup on its own, I kind of get what they were going for here… but there’s definitely an off-putting aftertaste with each sip of the broth. I don’t know that this is necessarily going to taste like what people think it is going to taste like.

As far as the fake grill flavor, that does come through and it does taste like grilled meat – kind of a vague grilled umami flavor with a little bit of smoke. The little “hamburger” pieces definitely have fish in them. They don’t quite have the right texture of hamburger; they’re a little bit chewy rather than ground beef texture. There’s a definite very mild fish aftertaste which I don’t mind, but I think more than a few people who are buying this with a promise of hamburger flavor are going to be disappointed that these little “meat” chunks kind of taste like fish. This is weird. I want to like this more than I do. Just as a first impression right now, I don’t love it. That super-odd aftertaste is just really prevalent in here and I don’t necessarily think it’s bad or inedible, but I’m not that impressed with the execution of this. I wish they had used real meat in this instead of this kind of cop-out artificial flavor.

• 5.5/10

Mira Spicy Queen Flavor

The Verdict:

And we are going to wrap up this mega review with the Mira Spicy Queen flavor, and yes I saved the best character for last – you can fight me on that. Nongshim is describing this as “bold heat meets savory richness with a spicy broth that defines Shin Ramyun’s flavor,” and I think that is all marketing jargon meaning this is probably just Shin with a different label. I’ve been reviewing noodles for a while, and I can spot the ingredient list of Nongshim Shin Ramyun probably a mile away at this point, but even more conclusively, as we established at the beginning of the review, the impostor cups from Walmart are just plain old Shin Ramen. And while the serving sizes are different, the ingredient lists are, to my eyes, completely identical. So I’m reviewing this anyway, but it looks like this is just Shin Ramyun yet again. And look, I’m not saying that Shin Ramyun is bad, but this is yet another very lazy repackaging instead of Nongshim giving us a new recipe, so I’m not thrilled about that.

Inside it looks like Shin Ramyun and there’s a single broth packet. We’ve got the noodles in here, plus dried ingredients which are carrot, mushroom, green onion, and red pepper, and the broth powder has things like salt, sugar, MSG, beef fat, beef bone extract, chili pepper, soy sauce, garlic, and onion. Opening up the broth packet, it smells like Shin Ramyun – a very peppery, very comforting smell to me, and something that I eat on a pretty regular basis, so this will most likely be pleasant but it won’t be very innovative.

Noodles:

Noodle quality is the same as the first two cups. While the noodles are thinner and get softer faster, I don’t find them particularly bad enough to warrant giving this anything less than I gave the pack version all those years ago.

• 7/10

Spiciness:

I originally graded Shin Ramyun’s spiciness as a 6 out of 10 because I just think a lot of people who see Shin Ramyun in Target or Walmart may be unprepared for how actually spicy it is. I would consider it a little bit higher than a typical medium-spiced American food product. For me, it’s something I’ve gotten very used to over the years, but it does objectively burn quite a bit, especially if you have a lower spice tolerance. There’s red chili pepper and black pepper in it so that makes it a solid heat level.

• 6/10

Overall:

Despite the noodle gauge, I still thoroughly enjoy the flavor of this cup. You get the beef, mushroom, onion, garlic all working together to give it a bold, comforting, savory flavor with just like a little touch of sweetness. There’s real flavor behind the spice, and I think it’s a solid flavor – just a ton of umami with the right amount of salt and spice in my opinion. The flakes are pretty good. There’s just not a lot of them, and that’s pretty typical of Shin Ramyun. There’s only a few pieces of mushroom in this entire cup, but there’s more carrot and green onion, and they all rehydrate very nicely. I just, you know, want more of them.

The broth consistency is nice and oily, but it is pretty light – if you want a thicker, richer broth, you have to spring for one of the premium Shin varieties like Black or Green, but those aren’t huge issues . Regardless of whether or not it has Mira on the packaging, this is the benchmark for Korean ramyun for me. I could be really petty here and knock some points off because this is not a new recipe like the other two cups were, but I’ll be professional here. I am extremely disappointed that this is not a special recipe, but that doesn’t mean it’s not tasty. I gave the pack version a 7/10 way back in Episode 1, and I think the Mira Spicy Queen and other iterations of Shin Ramyun are also worth the same score. I am extremely disappointed that this is not a special recipe, but that doesn’t mean it’s not tasty.

• 7/10

Final Thoughts

So there we go: all three of the hottest new flavors from Nongshim with the KPop Demon Hunters branding on them, and it’s a pretty mixed bag. I really like the Rumi Superstar flavor; I think it is a really terrific flavor profile with some really great dried flakes included. The Zoey flavor just came across as weird to me… edible but certainly weird. I think there are some of you out there who will find the really strong aftertaste of it to be not as weird as I did; if you’ve never seen my channel/site before, I am a super taster, and sometimes artificial meat flavors taste really weird to me so maybe the Zoey one will be fine for you. Give it a try if it interests you but for me I think it was the weakest of the three. And then we have Spicy Queen flavor, which is just a repackaging of plain old Shin Ramen, so it’s still very good and a completely classic flavor, just nothing original. And unless you want the special packaging there’s really no reason to waste your money on the Mira flavor. So, two really good flavors and one that I think is going to have a lot of mixed opinions.