Maruchan Mennosuke Tategata Kamodashi Soba is a neat flavor that I got out of the final ZenPop box last year. Buckwheat soba noodles with a duck and bonito broth! That’s not something you really see in the USA at all. Will it be gamey like duck? Smoky and fishy like bonito? Read on to see how this goes.
Read more: Review: Maruchan Mennosuke Tategata Kamodashi SobaMaruchan’s Japanese website promises that these noodles are smooth and easy to swallow, with an umami-forward broth. I can’t say I’ve ever had real duck broth before, so I’m expecting maybe a gamier chicken flavor with some smokiness from the bonito? This is uncharted territory for me, folks, which is one of my favorite things about doing the channel and website!
If you missed out on ZenPop’s boxes, you can still find this for sale on Japanese-Snacks-Republic, and yes, even though the product page calls it “Skipjack Tuna” flavor, that is the same cup as this – skipjack tuna is what the bonito in here is made from.
A salt equivalent of 4.3g means a sodium count of approximately 1693mg. That’s not so insane for a Japanese noodle cup.
Inside the cup, there’s some fried soba noodles made from wheat flour and buckwheat flour, along with broth powder and dried toppings. There’s also a “special soup” packet on top of the lid (which the instructions say to remove before steeping). And yes, if you were wondering, there is actual duck extract in the broth, along with seafood extract, kelp, shiitake mushroom, and “spices.” The dried toppings are seasoned tofu, seasoned chicken, and green onion.
I tasted a little drop of the liquid packet before adding, and it’s mainly a soy sauce with some light smokiness, which I guess could be smoked duck, but it’s honestly so close to the smoked flavor of bonito that I don’t really know which it is. The aroma of the cup once steeped is intensely bonito-forward, so if you don’t like that smell, you’re going to dislike this.
Noodles:
Pretty standard soba noodles, which I am generally a fan of. They rehydrated well enough and got slightly softer as I ate through the cup. If I’m not mistaken (it’s been a long time), I feel like these are very close, if not identical to what I had in Maruchan’s Midori no Tanuki Soba bowl way back when. Pleasant.
- 7/10
Spiciness:
Not even the slightest bit of heat in here.
- 0/10
Overall:
By and large, this is a bonito-based sweet dashi broth, and while I’ve never had duck soup before, I couldn’t really detect anything in here beyond that dashi stock flavor. I suspect that smokiness from the liquid packet is the duck, but adding it to the dashi broth didn’t stop it from tasting like dashi. If you’ve never had it before, it’s mildly fishy, smoky, and has an underlying sweetness to it that is typical of a soba noodle broth. While I appreciate that it does have actual duck extract in it, you could’ve told me this was a 100% bonito broth and I’d have believed you. Don’t get me wrong, I do love this flavor, but I feel like the selling point, the inclusion of duck flavor in the broth, is completely missing from the end result. Maybe I have duck fat to thank for the pleasantly oily finish on top of the broth, but that’s it. This may be a little too sweet or too fishy for some, but for me, I think this style of soup is really tasty and I enjoyed every bite. The seasoned chicken bits are excellent and provide a nice, savory flavor with a good ground-meat texture to offset the texture of the noodles. Likewise, the green onions retained a pleasant crunch and good flavor. The fried tofu pieces were fantastic and probably my favorite part (though alas there weren’t very many of them). Each bite of the tofu imparted a delicious burst of broth accompanied by a light fried oil flavor. Terrific overall, but if you buy this, don’t expect the duck flavor to make any significant appearance.
- 8.5/10
