Maruchan Seimen Cup Yakisoba Review

I was at H-Mart some time ago and found a bunch of different noodle bowls.  H-Mart carries a farily regular supply of cup and bowl noodles that are both Japanese and Korean.  Finding new varieties of noodles out here in Canada is spotty unless you have a dedicated importer nearby.  Typically it is feast or famine, and it is mostly famine for any new varieties other than the staples they carry.  Anyhow, it was feast time, so I picked up a couple of each of the new items!

I'm trying out Maruchan's Seimen Cup Yakisoba today and it looks like it should be pretty tasty Japanese yakisoba noodles.  This is part of their deluxe, "gold bowl" lineup.  Usually when you have instant yakisoba noodles they use the deep fried instant noodles, but in this case, it uses a variant of their more deluxe air dried noodles.  The Nissin UFO yakisoba noodles taste pretty good and I think part of the reason for that is the noodles are fried, which is closer to having a pan/grill fried noodle like the real thing.  With air dried noodles, there is no oil, so it can't taste the same without have oil added in some manner.  Their regular soup noodles in the gold bowl are quite tasty, so I have high hopes for this too!

3/4 view of the golden ramen bowl.  These bowls are made of styrofoam with a shiny/smooth surface on both the inside and outside.

Top view of the lid of the ramen bowl.

The lid of the bowl has the gold background color that is found all over the packaging to give it a posh and deluxe feel.  The Maruchan name "マルちゃん" and Seimen "正麺" are highlight in gold on top of a bold black stripe.  Seimen just means noodle. The tasty looking noodles coated in yakisoba sauce occupy around 1/2 of the lower surface area.  I like how the emphasis is on the noodles occupies a good chunk of the middle of the lid.  The noodles look really good with some interesting looking red and green tempura balls.  A few bits of meat and cabbage are also shown.  The characters across the noodles "焼そば" just translate as "Yakisoba" or fried noodles.  NOTE the A, B, and C.  These are important!  You peel the lid back indicated by the A up to the line marked by the the 2 Bs. 

A lower angle side view of the bowl showing the Maruchan Siemen logo.

A side view showing the preparation directions.

Ingredients and manufacturer's information.

Nutritional information and warninngs.

There are 14.1 grams of fat in this, which is very close to the amount you would find in a instant noodle soup of the fried variety.  Remember earlier when I was wondering how an air dried noodle would fare.  Well, I think it will do pretty good as the yakisoba sauce has a fair bit of oil in it to give it that more of the regular texture and flavour of fried yakisoba.  This is still lower in fat content than a regular fried yakisoba instant noodle bowl

Another view of the lid.

After peeling the lid back, it reveals three sachets of toppings and sauce.

The air dried noodle block.  These noodles are not just dried noodles as they have been carefully crafted for better rehydration, texture, and chewiness.

The left sachet contains the red and green tempura balls.  The right sachet contains dehydrated cabbage and meat.

Preparing this instant yakisoba is much like any other instant yakisoba.  Peel the lid back 1/3 of the way.  Never peel it completely off as you need the lid on to help drain the water out later.  I mentioned earlier that you peel the lid back from the area marked A to the line created by the 2 B indicators.  Add in the dehydrated veggies and meat.  Fill the bowl to the fill line with boiling water, close the lid, and wait 3 to 4 minutes depending on how firm you want your noodles.  Then peel the tiny flap of lid back marked by the C to reveal drain holes.  You can then pour out all of the hot water through the holes and not lose any of your noodles or rehydrated veggies.  After this, you can peel the lid off completely.

The lid of the yakisoba bowl with the drain holes revealed.

Now add in the packet of yakisoba sauce and mix until the noodles are all coated.  Yakisoba sauce is a sweet and tart savoury sauce that is quite yummy with some soy sauce tones.  Ingredients typically found in a yakisoba sauce include: Worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, Japanese ketchup, and sugar.

The noodles with the sauce mixed in.

The noodles had a nice tantalizing aroma coming from them after mixing the sauce in.  The sauce was nice and rich in flavour and tasted really good.  Lots of savoury umami.  The noodles were very much like fresh noodles in chew and texture and were first class.  I then added the tempura balls in to add the crunch factor to the noodles.  These little tempura balls were a good touch.  The red balls were pickled ginger and the green ones were sea lettuce (soy sauce).  Both were fairly mild in flavour but accompanied the noodles well with the rehydrated cabbage and meat.  There is never enough cabbage in these yakisoba bowls, but they are tasty regardless.  This is very good instant yakisoba and I find it hard to say if I like this more than the UFO brand from Nissin.  I think I like both and I'll sit on the fence on this.

Added the tempura balls.

Close up of the cabbage, meat, tempura balls, and noodles.

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