This is the last of my Ace Cook - Cup To Drink reviews for now. I thought I would save the Onomichi Shoyu Instant Noodle Cup for last as the city of Onomichi in Japan is a place I want to eventually visit. Onomichi is a small coastal city in Hiroshima Prefecture on the Seto Inland Sea. The city has a long history that goes back to twelfth century (1100s) and was an important port for trade in the area. It has shipyards, fishing, and has recently become a tourist attraction for both its history and for bicycle touring the Shimanami Kaido bicycle route over five massive bridges that connects Honshu to Shikoku Island (famous for the 88 Temple Pilgrimage) across the Seto Sea.
The Onomichi noodle cup is a soy sauce ramen that has rich pork backfat and niboshi (dried sardines) to add to the umami of the flavour profile. This type of ramen is a Onomichi specialty.
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3/4 view of the cup with a bridge and shrine building.
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Onomichi written in big characters. The cup has a black background colour scheme that looks formal but has very nice balance with the colour ramen bowl picture and the brown on white line graphics for the images.
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The lid of the cup. It shows the big bridges over the Seto Sea and temples on a black background that makes the graphics pop out very nicely. Onomichi is displayed in black characters outlined in white.
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The cup with the packet of backfat soy sauce tare removed.
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Heat it on the lid as the noodles rehydrate in boiling water then mix in.
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Another view of the front. Shows the tasty looking soup with bits of mince soybean meat, bamboo shoot, and green onion.
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Nutritional information.
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Ingredients, cooking instructions in RED, and manufacturers information.
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The graphic shows one of the bridges over the Seto Sea you can cycle across on along with a shrine - I'm not sure which shrine it is. Senkoji Shrine?
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Warnings, and allergen information.
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You get some soup base powder, green onion, and the ground soybean chunks on top of the noodle block.
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After adding boiling water, closing the lid, and waiting for 3 minutes.
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You then add in the warmed tare to enhance the flavour profile.
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Mix thoroughly.
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The finished instant noodle had a strong smell of a chicken based broth with a thin sheen of oil from the added tare on top. Sometimes when you have the dried sardines in the broth the soup can taste a little fishy, but it wasn't the case with this noodle cup. Dried fish or konbu has often been used to up the umami of a soup and that was the case here. The soup tasted a bit salty to start with nice soy notes to it and it tasted like a very pleasant soup. A slight salty tartness lingers on the tongue afterwards that probably came from some very finely ground pepper that was in the soup. The round noodles were pretty much your regular medium sized instant noodles with a nice chew and bite to them. The green onions and bamboo shoots were a nice little touches to add. The ground soy pieces looked like minced chicken, were meaty in texture, and were nice to munch on. I enjoyed eating this noodle cup quite a bit and would get a few more if I see them. The soup was tasty and I drank it all!
Now, back to the city of Onomichi. There are numerous tourist sites that rise up from the port to the hills / low mountains around it. You get some great views of the city and there is even a Temple Walk and Path of Literature to do up the hills. I'd like to spend a day or two in the area to see it and enjoy it. The city is also featured in the manga Pastel and a number of anime like Kamichu and Sora to Umi no Aida (Space Fishers). The video game Yakuza 6 is also partially set in this city. After seeing this town, I'd like to bicycle on those massive bridges from one island to the next island across the sea. This would be a pretty nice holiday, but you have to be in shape as it is over a 70 km bike ride up and down hills. Some people break up the trip by overnighting and touring around the islands a bit too!
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Closeup of the noodles.
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