There are many instant noodle manufacturers in Japan and I'm not sure I've actually had an Itomen instant noodle before. When I was down in Calgary last, I picked up a few kinds of instant ramen at a Japanese specialty food store. The Itomen Sansai Soba Bowl I picked up looked kind of interesting as it had edible wild plants in it. I lived in Greece a long time ago, and one of the things they eat over there is horta, which is wild plants (sometimes kind of like boiled thistles if you're unlucky). Chinese cuisine with its choy is close to being a wild plant (the stuff grows like weeds if you let it seed), so I like wild plants.
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3/4 view of the noodle bowl. You can see the mountain veggies featured in the lower center of the picture.
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When I figured out what kind of wild plants were in this bowl, I figured it was going to be more different, but it wasn't. The wild plants in this bowl included two types of fern of all things. I haven't eaten a lot of fern, but I was certainly willing to try it out. The two kinds of fern were warabi and zenmai. Both are a kind of fiddlehead fern and you eat the young stems.
https://www.itomen.com/product/
This noodle bowl is apparently a product originally released in 1986. It is a light broth with deep taste due to a bonito and kelp soup stock. It comes with warabi, zenmai, and bok choy.
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The lid of the noodle bowl. The left side has a nice photo of a veggie noodle bowl with lots of choy and ferns in it. It looks healthy and appealing.
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Nutritional information and allergen information.
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Cooking directions. Don't microwave!
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Ingredients and manufacturers information.
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The contents of the noodle bowl. There is a block of soba noodles, a dried veggie pack, and a soup base powder satchet. A small satchet of Japanese shichimi pepper mix is included to spice things up.
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Closeup of the wild vegetables. I thought it was okra at first glance it is the stems of ferns.
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The soup base and veggies mixed on top of the noodles. I added hot water and waited three minutes for it to rehydrate.
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The finished bowl of instant soba noodles.
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I've always like buckwheat soba noodles and this noodle bowl did not disappoint. When I haven't had a soba noodle bowl for awhile, I kind of miss it. The buckwheat noodles had that mild nutty taste that I enjoy and a pretty good chew. The broth was a pretty good dashi based broth which soba noodles are often in, and it smelled mildly rich with the bonito base and tasted good. The wild veggies kind of reminded me a bit of dehydrated green beans, but they had a different texture and mild flavour. This was an enjoyable bowl of noodles and I wouldn't have minded have more veggies in it too. There was bok choy in it too, but I think I was too busy being focused on the ferns to really notice them!
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Closeup of the buckwheat noodles and two kinds of wild veggies.
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