Nissin Japan has a line of Cup Noodle instant ramen products without the cup, so they are cup-less! They are pretty much just like your regular Cup Noodle you can get in Japan, but slightly more environmentally friendly as they don't have the cup and shrink wrap. I had heard about these years ago, but in my many trips to Japan, I had never run across them in a store until I went to the camping goods section of the Yodobashi Camera near Kyoto Station. There are more flavours than the chicken and the shoyu flavours I bought, and I kind of wish I could have found a curry flavour too. They are price pretty much like regular cup noodles.
The packaging for these noodles is airtight, made out of a thick plastic, and vacuum packed to preserve their contents. The shelf-life for these noodles should be a couple of years (because the noodles are fried) if you get it fresh out of the factory. These noodles are handy as all they need are boiling water and the patience to wait three minutes. You basically take them from the package, put it into a larger mug that will fit them, and add the boiling water to prepare them. These are handy to take if you are camping or as emergency rations as they come with ramen toppings, just like in a regular cup, and are more complete and space efficient than a regular block of square noodles.
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3/4 view of the two kinds of cup-less ramen I bought.
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Top of the chikin ramen package (its chicken, but many translations call it chikin). This is the original instant ramen flavour when instant ramen was invented for the first time.
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Regular Shoyu (soy sauce) flavour instant ramen. This is the flavour that was in the first Cup Noodle ever invented. It was an innovation to eat your noodles from a cup. Both of these products are firsts and this is still a cup of noodle favourite for the masses.
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All of the nutritional, manufacturing and ingredients information. Very info dense.
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| You can tell this is chicken from the standard orange colour the regular packages use. All of the nutritional, manufacturing and ingredients information. Very info dense. |
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Side view of the two types of noodle blocks. You can see it is designed to fit in a mug or a reusable Cup Noodle cup that Nissin makes. Just put in a small pot of boiled water for camping!
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Bottom view of the noodle packages. It is made of durable plastic.
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The chicken ramen peeled open. You see preparation directions on the underside of the package top.
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Closeup of the directions to show you that you can use a microwavable cup, and how to put the noodles into a cup by putting the cup on top of the open package, then inverting it to drop the noodle block down.
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Both of the noodle packages opened. The toppings are at the bottom of the package.
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Both of the noodle blocks in bowls so you can see them compared next to each other. You can see they basically took the cylindrical cup noodle block and put them into the plastic packaging.
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You definitely get more toppings in the regular shoyu cup noodle. It actually looks really good. The toppings are their ground pork blocks, egg, shrimp, and green onion.
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The chicken ramen. You get lots of green onion and egg for toppings.
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After adding boiled water, I covered up the bowl for 3 minutes and got this tasty set of chicken ramen.
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You can see the noodles and bits of egg here.
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This is the regular shoyu noodle block after rehydrating. You had to stir both types of noodles well to ensure the soup base mixed in.
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Closeup of the ground pork, shrimp, and egg.
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Both types of noodles tasted pretty much like I expected them to. The chicken ramen was the classic, slightly smokey, chicken flavour. The shoyu was the regualr Cup Noodle flavour that is quite popular as it is a easy, savoury soy flavour to enjoy. Both of these are comfort flavours that people have come to love.
I've reviewed these flavours and more in these links below.
The Original Chicken Ramen - A Taste of History
Nissin Big Cup Noodle Extravaganza Follow me on Twitter or Instagram at @Tostzilla or my feedburner.
More snacks, ramen and Japanese pop culture.
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