Yamadai New Touch Yawatahama Champon (Ramen) Review

This was the fourth 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. Yawatahama is a small port city located on the island of Shikoku where the Seto Inland Sea is to the north and Kyushu is a short distance to the west.  The Yawatahama Spicy Champon combines seafood flavours with a mildly spicy golden soy-based soup for a combination of the goodness of the land and sea.  Ramen can be referred to as champon or Chinese noodles, but I'm not sure why except due to local/historical references. 

3/4 view of the Yawatahama Champon.

I had no idea that this ramen had a big backstory until I checked out the New Touch website https://www.newtouch.co.jp/recipe/yawatahama/.  Apparently the city contacted the New Touch to develop this ramen to showcase the local flavour of Yawatahama and they went through a co-development process.  This ramen uses non-fried extra-thick noodles that are smooth and chewy, like the local champon.  The soup is soy sauce based with lots of umami from the seafood in the broth and toppings.  There are also plenty of cabbage, carrots, Japanese leek, shrimp dumpling , and fish cake as toppings.

Lid of the noodle bowl.  It is very bright and colourful with plenty of blue to indicate that Yawatahama is between the sea and sky.  There is plenty of sunshine from the sun at the top left and there are mikan (mandarin orange) groves shown on the left and right side.  It is a busy image with the bowl of tasty champon shown for 2/3s of the picture.  You can see lots of veggies, seafood and thick noodles.  The characters naming the ramen are in bright, big letters that boost a festive mood for the bowl.

Side view of the ramen bowl with the bright red characters reading as Yawatahama Champon.

Nutritional information on the left.  Only 6 grams of fat!  Preparation warnings and I like the text in the middle that says you can reduce your salt intake by not drinking all the soup.  Allergens and manufacturer's information on the right.

Preparation directions and ingredients.

There were three sachets inside the bowl along with a dried noodle disc.  The left sachet contains dried fish cake, the Middle had the carrots, dried octopus, dried shrimp dumplings, leek, and cabbage.  The blue sachet on the left contains liquid soup base (always happy to see this).

Closeup of all the dried ingredients.  The white pieces are dried octopus.

The inside of the lid has various stories from the citizens of Yawatahama.

The rehydrated noodles and ingredients.  I added in boiling water and waited 5 minutes.  You want the thicker noodles to rehydrate correctly.

When I first opened the lid there was a mild dried seafood smell.  Not unpleasant to me, but anyone who doesn't like seafood shouldn't eat this bowl!  There were octopus pieces and little pinkish shrimp balls.  The amount of toppings, including the veggies too, were generous enough to give a nice panache to the noodle bowl.

After rehydrating everything, I added in the soup base and mixed it up.  The soup had a savory rich smell that wasn't fishy.  I thought I detected a hint of smoke to it.  Aroma was more meaty and fishy.  It was a thinner broth that kind of reminded me of won ton soup which is often a chicken/seafood broth.  It was very nice and pleasant to drink and there was a bit of pepper to add some spice to it.

The noodles had a nice chew to them and were pleasant in texture.  They were definitely thicker noodles!  The fish cake was chewy, but not tough and you could tell it was fish cake as it tasted like fish.  The shrimp balls had sweet shrimp in them and were nice to have and not overly shrimpy in taste.  The octopus was also not overly chewy too.  All the veggies made a good accompaniment too.  This was a very good bowl of ramen soup and I'm sure the Yawatahama City folks are proud of this and it gives them a little boost in recognition around Japan for tourism.

A view of the prepared noodle soup.

Closeup of the noodles, cabbage, shrimp balls, and fish cake.

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