Nissin Cup Noodle Mysterious Meat Kimchee Review

Kimchee Cup Noodle from Nissin is probably going to be pretty tasty.  The Nissin site says it is a spicy cup noodle that makes the taste of meat and the spiciness of kimchi addictive.  They have a tag line that say it is the strongest combination of mysterious meat and kimchi!  Kimchee by itself is spicy, salty, sour, and full of umami as it is fermented.  These characteristics should lend themselves well to instant noodles so I'm pretty pumped to try this.  Normally I wouldn't jump at a Korean noodle that did this, but Japanese noodles are usually less spicy than the Korean ones, something that I appreciate.

Kimchee is one of the cornerstones of Korean food that is enjoyed worldwide.  "It is a traditional side dish of salted and fermented vegetables, such as napa cabbage and Korean radish, made with a widely varying selection of seasonings including gochugaru, spring onions, garlic, ginger, and jeotgal, etc." From Wikipedia.

The art on the cup certainly hints at spicy contents with the heavy use of red to indicate heat.  There is an interesting dark red stripes (clouds/steam?) on a lighter red back ground throughout.  It is a neat sort of random pattern. The front and sides of the cup even shows a heat gradient that starts with yellow at the bottom and works its way up to dark red.  The big bold red and black Kanji characters in the front are nicely outlined with yellow and sit on top of a black coloured base. 

The lid of the cup shows big pieces of meat, differently cut green onions, and kimchee on top of some reddish looking soup with noodles.

The front of the cup where the heat gradient on the cup is clearly shown starting from a cooler yellow to a darker red at the top.  The big red Kanji "謎肉" is "Mysterious Meat" while the black Katakana "キムチ" is "Kimchee".  The characters カップヌードル 謎肉キムチ translates as"Cup noodle mysterious meat kimchi"

Nutritional information.  No warnings about heat level!

Ingredients, manufacturing information, and allergen information.

Peeling back the lid reveals lots of toppings on top of the noodle block.  Had a nice aroma of spices and pepper when the lid was peeled back.

Closeup of the toppings.  You can see pieces of orange-ish kimchee, blocks of ground pork, and lots of green onions that are cut into longer segments.  These could be a different kind of green onion or chive?

After adding in boiling water, closing the lid, and wating for three minutes, the rehydrated toppings and noodles look scrumptious. 

3/4 view of the rehydrated noodles.  You can see the big pieces of kimchee.

A tasty looking soup was revealed when the lid was lifted.  The noodles and toppings rehydrated nicely and it definitely looked spicy!  There were pieces of kimchee cabbage that were small by the standards of regular kimchee, but they were good for a cup of noodle.  The soup had a spicy and savoury aroma to it and the taste matched expectations.  There was a nice tasty heat to the soup that didn't seem spicy at first, but it got hotter as you drank more of it with a hint of sourness like kimchee should be.  The pieces of kimchee were a nice garnish that even had a bit of crunch to them!  The ingredients for the soup base were listed as flavor seasonings, spices, sugars, pork seasonings, shitake seasonings, bouillon, pork fat, miso seasonings, powdered soy sauce, fish sauce, vegetable oils and fats, curry powder, tomato powder, salt.  That is a complex soup!  The noodles turned out firm, being your standard noodle, and the meat cubes were normal ground meat for cup noodle too.  I would definitely buy this cup noodle again.

Closeup of some kimchee, noodles, and ground pork cube.

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