I'm a pretty late arrival to the Shin Black ramyun fan club. Ramyun is the Korean version of ramen - and I'll use ramen from now on in this article. I've tried the regular red package Shin ramen before, and it isn't one of my faves, but I've never tried the Shin Black. I definitely like the Shin Black much more than the regular version and will stock it in my ramen cupboard. My favourites are still the K-Army and the Ansung Miso flavours, which are a nice change from the savoury soy flavours of Japanese ramen that are my usual favourites.
My K-Army Review and my Making Tasty Ramen / Ansung Review
The original Shin Ramen was introduced to Korea in 1986 and it has become the most popular instant ramen there. Shin Black was introduced in 2011 for the 25th anniversary of the original Shin ramen. Nongshim did a pile of product research to make a more flavourful and premium instant ramen for the Shin Black and I'd say they succeeded. It is interesting they also do a more premium version of Tonkotsu ramen too.
 |
Shin Black 3/4 view of cup. It is a slightly pricier noodle cup that comes in bold black and red colours that give is a classy looking appearance.
|
 |
The lid of the cup. It shows the same colour scheme as the side of the cup with the big 辛 meaning SPICY. Shin is black outlined in yellow emphasize that it means SPICY. The BLACK indicates it is Shin Black to differentiate it from the regular noodles. There is a golden band that indicates it has beef bone broth in it - a premium indicator.
|
 |
It is funny as the words spicy and premium are plastered all over the side of the cup in case you didn't know that already! I like the faint grey waves in the black areas of the cup.
|
 |
Front of the cup. You can tell Nongshim America made this for Canadian export due to the French under the English.
|
 |
Ingredients in English and French. There is beef bone extract in the ingredients.
|
 |
Nutritional information. Plenty of calories in a cup, with a good amount of salt and fat but it is good. Just don't drink all of the soup to reduce your sodium intake if you're worried.
|
 |
Cooking directions for both boiling water and microwave. I don't really like to microwave my noodles, but it is a popular approach in North America and Nissin for example has microwave preparation as the method for their Chow Mein noodles.
|
 |
Opening up the cup reveals two soup powder satchets and a whole bunch of dried vegetables on top of the noodles. The yellow satchet is the spicy soup base while the white satchet is the beef bone broth base.
|
 |
You get a nice selection of freeze dried mushrooms, both shitake and button types, chili pepper pieces, and green onions. It is nice there is a good amount of toppings for the noodles. The noodles are on the thicker side so it takes longer to rehydrate them at 4 minutes instead of the typical 3 minutes.
|
 |
You mix the soup powder into the cup before adding boiling water.
|
 |
The rehydrated noodles and veggie toppings.
|
I mixed the soup powders together and added boiling water up to the fill line. The cup is quite a bit taller than the fill line, which is interesting as the cup is a wider and larger cup than normal, like a Nissin BIG Cup Noodle in size. I closed the lid and waited 4 minutes, sloshing the liquid inside a little to make sure the veggies got extra hot water.
The soup powders did smell of chili pepper powder with a hint of garlic when they were dry. This soup smelled pretty good when it was all mixed together with both spicy and savoury garlicky/meaty aromas. The soup was a creamy red colour from the bone broth powder and it was a little thicker than the typical soup broth.
There was an initial spicy kick to the soup that was mellowed out by the bone broth powder which did provide some depth to the flavour. It was quite tasty and not overly spicy at a medium heat. The many reviews you can read on the internet about Shin Black are correct in their almost universal praise for it. The noodles rehydrated nicely and had a nice chewiness and firmness to them (a Nongshim hallmark) and the veggies made a nice accompaniment in their larger pieces. I would buy this again on rotation and if you haven't tried this, you should, if you are not adverse to a bit of heat in your food.
 |
Closeup of a piece of shitake mushroom and the noodles.
|
For some articles about making tasty instant noodles check out these links.
Follow me on Twitter a @Tostzilla or my feedburner for this blog.
More cup noodle / instant ramen reviews and Japanese pop culture.
Comments
Post a Comment