This Ace Cook cup noodle is one of the more unusual cups I have reviewed. This Black Garlic Oil (black mara or mayu) Tonkotsu Soy Sauce ramen is a savoury and very garlicky delight (or is it an experience?). The text on the cup isn't exaggerating when it says "Largest Ever Garlic Covered." If you have significant others, and important meeting to go to, then I recommend that you have lots of breath mints or that they also have a garlic fest before you meet up close. If you are meeting a vampire, then this is like bear spray for them. I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I bought this, but I found out that large quantities of garlic are involved. Black garlic oil is a popular condiment and it is prepared by scorching garlic in oil.
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3/4 view of the cup. The picture on the side shows a massive pile of garlic chips on top of the noodle soup.
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Lid of the cup. Says "Largest Ever", then in white "Garlic Covered", and then the yellow band says "Black Mara Oil Tonkostu Shoyu Ramen" It is a very bold statement!
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The design of the cup is both simple and very evocative of what you are buying. The picture clearly shows a cloudy tonkotsu broth with black garlic oil, some thick noodles, and a massive pile of garlic chips on top. Everything pops out of the black background.
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The yellow splash tells you it is black mara oil tonkotsu soy sauce ramen.
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Ingredients and manufacturing info. Preparation directions are in RED. Nothing unusual, just a longer wait time of 5 minutes.
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Nutritional info and warnings about how to prepare. Don't microwave it!
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It says the brown chips are roasted garlic, while the white ones must be just garlic. What I thought were meat bits were Garlic! It also warns you that everything will be hot with hot water added!
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Another view of the cup.
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With the lid peeled back you can see soup powder, and lots of white and brown garlic chips on top of thick noodles.
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Another view of the dried contents.
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It also came with a satchet of black garlic oil.
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The rehydrated chips and noodles.
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I put in boiling water to the fill line and waited 5 minutes for the thick noodles to rehydrate properly along with the garlic chips. It smelled garlicky when I opened the lid and it smelled more garlicky when it was ready to eat. I added in the black garlic oil for the final touch, mixed everything together and then tucked into this garlicky treat.
The flavour was intensely garlicky with even that slight burn you can get from garlic, but it was also savoury from the pork / soy broth and the blackened garlic oil. It was pretty tasty, but it is on an extreme end for the flavour profile for me. I'm not sure I'd buy this again, but if I had a cold, I'm sure I would wish I had one of these on hand. It was a cup of noodles I easily polished off and it was one of the larger cups, not a regular sized cup noodle, so there was lots of garlic to go around. The noodles were nice and chewy and had the flavour coated to them. The garlic chips were both savoury and garlicky as you would expect with a bit of firmness to them. You definitely got garlic in every bite so you got what you paid for! They did not skimp on the garlic toppings for this cup!
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Closeup of the garlic chips and noodles.
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More snacks, ramen and Japanese pop culture.
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