Yamadai New Touch Onomichi Chinese Soba Review

This was the sixth and last of the ramen bowls I had from the "Yamadai New Touch Amazing Noodles Summer Fukubako Western Japan" ramen box of six kinds of instant ramen bowls. Like the Kyushu Marugoto Ramen Pack By Marutai I reviewed years ago, this set of ramen bowls has been a noodle tour around western Japan.

Onomich is a city on the Seto Inland Sea that I want to visit.  It is a historic port, there have been anime set here, and much of the town sits in the hills above the port with many temples and shrines.   I've had another cup noodle from here Ace Cook - Cup To Drink, Onomichi Soy Sauce Instant Noodle Cup Review.  

This Onomichi Chinese Soba instant noodle bowl is soy sauce-based like the last one I tried, but it looks to be a much richer tasting experience due to the extra fat included.  Fat is both good and bad as it provides energy and a richer taste, but it is fattier.  In this case, the amount of fat is still pretty low compared to a regular fried instant noodle as it is under 10 grams.

The lid of the noodle bowl.  The big red characters say Onomichi with the yellow characters saying Chinese soba (noodle).

The lid for this noodle bowl looks quite traditional for a noodle shop.  It shows some signage on the left, a large noren curtain in the middle that invites you into the shop and it shows a narrow staircase which would lead up into the hills of Onomichi.  The bottom half of the lid shows a delicious looking bowl of noodles with a large piece of pork belly, menma (pickled bamboo shoot), and green onions.  The soup has the rich brown tones of a shoyu broth.  The spoon shows some large pieces of pork back fat that is firm and flavourful and the text even emphasizes it!

3/4 view of the bowl.

Its got a noren to show you it is a noodle shop on the side.

Nutritional information, warnings, and allergens and manufacturer contact info.

Cooking directions, ingredients, and manufacturer info.

Opening the lid shows a noodle disc with medium thick noodles and three sachets.

This is a shelf-stable piece of pork belly.  It isn't pressed or formed!  I have never seen a piece of pork preserved this way in a noodle bowl.  You can see how fresh and fatty everything is.  Should be tasty.  There were two pieces of fresh bamboo shoot in here too!

Lots of green onions.

Closeup of the noodles.  They are wider and thin.  Remember all of these New Touch bowls use air dried noodles - not fried.

The pork added on top of the noodles along with the green onions.

The story behind this bowl of noodles.  The noodles represent the flavour of a famour restaurant in the city and the noren curtain represents that.  Local ingredients are used and respect is paid to the local people and traditions.

The noodles rehydrated in boiling water for 5 minutes.

I then added in the liquid soy soup base.

All the ingredients were mixed together well.  You can see the juicy piece of pork belly along with two large pieces of menma.

The soup smelled like pork when rehydrating.  The strip of uncurled, roasted pork side meat looked delicious in the soup.  There was a strong shoyu smell up close and the broth was made with a darker soy sauce as it was quite dark.  The was good flavour and saltiness to the soup.  The noodles were chewy with a good bite to them and they rehydrated well.  There were little cubes of the pork back fat throughout the soup.  They were a little jello-like and added to the richness in flavour and mouth feel.  The big pieces of menma were a nice touch too and they were chewy-crunchy.  Finally, the pork itself was tasty and it was like eating a piece of fresh meat.  Too bad there was only one piece.

Having this noodle bowl as the last one from the big box of noodles I bought was a nice way to cap things off.  This bowl was a tasty treat and I've found different and unique things to talk about in all of these noodle bowls.  If I ever see another of these ramen bowl packaged up for sale, I'm getting one.  Maybe I'll get the eastern Japan one next time - even though the western Japan one I had was so good.

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