Nissin BIG Cup Noodle - An Instant Ramen Extravaganza

I think I've mentioned that I like Nissin instant ramen before.  Well, they have both nornal size cup of noodles and then they have the BIG Cup Noodles.  I'd say the bigger cups are about 1.5 times the regular cup noodle and they make for a much more satisfying fill for a lunch (don't forget a piece of fruit or some veggies for fibre!)  The flavours I'm covering today are the regular BIG Cup Noodle, the BIG Chili Tomato, the BIG Cup Noodle Curry, and the BIG Cup Noodle Seafood.  You can find most of these in Japanese konbini in either the big or normal sizes.  These are the common flavours and if you're lucky you might run across one of their limited time specials.  They are not cheap in Japan either, being over a couple of hundred yen, but they are like double that price (could hit $5 - depending where you buy it over here in Canada and I'd suspect in the USA).
I don't think I have ever seen these over here outside of an Asian supermarket, but I did see cup noodles in a 7-11 down in the states.  Just an interesting fact is that 7-11 is now owned by the Japanese subsidiary which bought out the American parent company  years ago.  No slurpees in Japan, but lots of other goodies at the Sev.
Three common flavours of cup noodle.

For my first of four cup noodles I'm covering, here is the common soy sauce flavour.  This is the classic flavour of cup noodle or oriental style in generic terms.  It is salty with a nice full set of savoury soy type flavours.  Like all cup noodles, you pour in the boiling water to the fill line, wait three minutes and you have wonderful noodles ready to eat.  Don't forget to close the lid after you pour the water in.  One of the things I like about the Japanese and some of the Hong Kong made Nissin cups is that they are insulated so you can hold the cups without that burning feeling!

Regular Flavour
There are ingredients like: big freeze dried shrimp (another wonderful Nissin innovation), pork, egg omelet, green onion.
After cooking, you can just see all of the ramen toppings on the top before you mix it up with the soup to make sure all of the flavours are spread out.  YUM!
My next type of cup noodle is the seafood flavour.  For the salty flavour of a seafood broth that the noodles swim in.  Another tasty product if you don't mind fish, but if you don't like seafood like clams, crab, anchovies, octopus then this isn't for you. 
Seafood flavour
You can see plenty of seafood ingredients.  No big shrimp though.
Rehydrated noodles with octopus, crab (actually pollock), corn, green onions, and more.
Now onto some flavours that you don't usually find over in North America as much.  The Big Chili Tomato Cup Noodle - with the snazzy tomato logo on the side of the cup.  Before I tried this one I was a little leery of it, but it actually tasted pretty good.  It isn't as spicy as it sounds and the tomato and chili powder give it a nice zesty tomato flavour.  The combination with the ramen noodles worked far better than I thought and I'd definitely have more of these.
Chili Tomato Ramen
You can see the tomato/chili powder, dehydrated veggies including tomatoes!

It made for an interesting taste with all of the veggies and tomato flavour. Plenty of ramen toppings again!
Now onto one of my favourite cup noodle flavours.  Curry!  The cup noodle curry flavour is a nice Japanese style curry flavour that makes for a nice hearty meal of ramen.  The curry is spicy, but not too spicy and reminds me of Japanese curry - no surprise.  Lots of flavour and noodles in this package and it is good.  When I was in Tokyo last I had curry udon noodles in a shop there and it was darn tasty, but had a different type of curry flavour (there are tons of different kinds of curry).  This reminds me more of the regular curry like Glico or some of the shops at the train station where it is all just tasty.  Not surprising that curry is like on of Japan's national foods.
Curry Ramen
Lots of curry powder.  Little red peppers, onion, pork, and dehydrated potatos, etc.
One of my favourite things about the curry cup noodle is the nice chunks of potato and pork in it.  Very savory and  yummy to make a satisfying meal.


Well, that's it for the big cup of noodle edition.  I don't find these too often at the market, but when I do, I definitely stock up even if it is pricey on the import side.  Too bad they don't have posts with smell-o-vision for the great aromas.

More Ramen Posts

  1. Nissin Pop Culture (The Fame of Cup Noodles)
  2. The Culture of Ramen: Instant Ramen to Ramen Shops
  3. The Original Chicken Ramen - A Taste of History
  4. Nissin UFO Yakisoba Review - Square 130g Big Size 
  5. I Try Big Cup Noodle Mystery Meat Festival 
  6. Making Tasty Instant Ramen at Home
  7. Happiness is a Cupboard Full of Ramen Noodles  
  8. Kyushu Marugoto Ramen Pack By Marutai
  9. Tasting Marutai Kumamoto Black Garlic Tonkotsu and Miyazaki Chicken Shio Ramen
  10. Tasting Marutai Nagasaki Agodashi Soy Ramen and Oita Chicken Soy Ramen
  11. Tasting Marutai Kagoshima Black Pork Tonkotsu Ramen
  12. Tasting Marutai Hakata Tonkotsu Ramen and Saga Shio Beef Ramen


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