This Nissin Jonetz Shrimp and Salt Flavour Ramen Bowl is the fourth item from Guam in my review pile, and like the Acecook product that preceded it, it is another Don Don Donki store-exclusive product under the Jonetz brand (check out the previous review for a little info on the Jonetz branding). Now on its own, the name of this bowl doesn’t exactly scream “appetizing” to me – who cares about salty shrimp, right? Well, it turns out the ingredients are a little more complex and interesting than just salty shrimp. Will this turn out to be a good bowl of noodles? Read on to find out!
Read more: Review: Nissin Jonetz Shrimp and Salt Flavour Ramen BowlThis bowl is a product of Nissin Hong Kong, specifically made for Don Quijote stores, and is apparently part of a series of such bowls based on the “Nissin x DONKI Bowl Noodles Series” label on the side. I’d love to check out the other products in this line someday, but this will have to do for now. If you happen to live in an area with a Don Quijote or Don Don Donki store, chances are pretty good that you’ll find this for sale.
The nutritional content certainly lives up to the promise of “salt” in the product name, because the sodium is listed on the label at a staggering 2799mg! If accurate, that is one of the highest single-serving amounts of sodium I’ve ever seen in an instant noodle product. And the package is pretty clear that it is the sodium for a single serving, which is one bowl. Yeah. Watch out for this if you care about your daily sodium intake. Even I am a little cautious about drinking the broth when the number is that high.
Okay, so if you stuck through all my blather above, here’s where we talk about why things are a little more interesting than just salty shrimp. Inside the bowl, you’ve got some wheat noodles that also contain tapioca starch, MSG, palm oil, and garlic powder. Then we have both a powdered soup base and a liauid seasoning sauce. The soup base is MSG, sugar, yeast, garlic, onion, kelp, non-dairy creamer, salt (of course), and “spices.” Then on top of that, in the seasoning sauce, you’ve got additional flavors like miso paste, shrimp extract, hon mirin, fish sauce, and soy sauce. And finally there’s a dried ingredient packet: seasoned shrimp, black fungus, and green onion. So really, this is a kind of a hybrid shio, miso, seafood concoction. To me, it sounds a lot more promising than the name alone would imply.
The powdered base had a pleasant onion/garlic aroma going on when I opened it, and the seasoning sauce (more of a paste, really) had a strong fermented red miso aroma to it.
Noodles:
Not bad – they’re a little on the softer side but have a nice gauge. About on par with Top Ramen bowls from Nissin. Also, this is a huge serving so there’s a good quantity of noodles here.
- 6.5/10
Spiciness:
Despite the angry red color of the finished broth, this is actually spice-free.
- 0/10
Overall:
There’s really a lot of interesting flavor things going on with this broth, but at its core, it is a shrimp and fish sauce broth, so it is very seafood-forward in flavor and kind of overwhelming at first. But once my tastebuds moved past that initial shrimpiness, there were a lot of other flavor going on here, particularly in regard to the miso and mirin in the seasoning sauce. The broth was really bolstered by that fermented miso flavor (a flavor I love most of the time, but it is the strongest kind of miso) with an almost-nutty finish, plus the sweetness of the mirin really complemented the natural sweetness of the shrimp. Surprisingly, for something containing such an unholy amount of sodium and with the word “salt” in its name, I didn’t find it to come across as pervasively salty in execution, but that could also be due to how sizable this bowl is and how high the water fill line is. The half-dozen or so shrimp pieces rehydrated well, and the green onions retained some good crunch. The few pieces of black fungus were the most disappointing aspect, with a super soft texture instead of the usual snappiness I would’ve expected. Altogether, this is a pretty unique combination of flavors I don’t think I’ve encountered before, and I was pleasantly surprised by it, although it’s such a big portion that admittedly I was a little worn out from the shrimp flavor by the time I was finished with the noodles. How much you’ll enjoy this depends on how much you like the taste of super seafood-forward broth and how willing you are to deal with the insane amount of sodium contained within (I chose not to finish the broth due to the sodium, which is rare for me). Worth a try if you are the target audience for this flavor.
- 7/10
