Nissin Snow Crab Miso Cup Noodle Review

I found these Nissin Snow Crab Miso Cup Noodles at T&T market around Chinese New Years.  There were actually a number of limited edition noodles and other food items in stock at that time. It was a bit of a treasure trove.  I think it was all brought in for the holidays as people splurge on deluxe treats and other items at that time. It was pretty hard to miss these noodles on the shelf as the packaging for them is bright orange in colour with a pretty interesting crab graphic on the front in the big white RAOH logo. 

Yup, you read that right if you know your noodles.  It is a ROAH branded noodle cup instead of the octagonal bowl they usually come in.  It was the size of the BIG Cup Noodle and contained the air dried noodles instead of fried noodles that are typical of RAOH.

Front of the very attractively designed Snow Crab Cup Noodle.  A big crab is featured in the middle with three other crabs descending into the distance behind it. The RAOH logo is in gold on white and the bottom of the cup shows pieces of crab on top of some nice looking noodles.

Snow crab is the the king of winter seafood delicacies, so making a deluxe cup noodle to celebrate crab season is a pretty good idea.  Crab season in Japan starts in November and runs until March.  For snow crabs, they can fish for males from November 6 to March 20, while the female crabs can be fished for from November 6 to January 10.  Crabs are a very popular seafood item during the winter months.

View of the lid.  It is in gold to show this is premium and there are crabs all around the edge.  The sachet is crab flavour oil!

3/4 view of the cup.

Opening the lid shows the soup stock powder, imitation crab pieces, green onion, egg bits, and corn.

The characters in white indicate that crab extract is in the flavour oil.  The characters outlined in black say it is delicious crab soup stock.

The characters in the black area indicate that there is egg, green onion, crab stick (kamaboko), but that there is no crab meat. So there is crab flavouring, but no actual crab meat.

Nutrional content.

Ingredients and prep directions.  Allergens at the bottom.

When I opened the cup I could smell a seafood type aroma from the soup stock.  There were lots of toppings including the artificial crab leg pieces, egg, green onion, and corn. I could tell it was the RAOH type air dried noodle from the appearance of the noodle block and you can tell the noodles were not fried from the lower fat content listed too. I poured in some boiling water to rehydrate the noodles, closed the lid and let it sit for 4 to 5 minutes before separating the noodles.  After you have done this, you can add in the crab flavour oil.  Adding the oil last allows the noodles to soak up the water better as the oil can coat the noodles and act as a barrier to prevent rehydration.

Rehydrated noodles and toppings.

Crab flavour oil added to the soup.

Once the crab flavour oil was added to the soup and mixed in the seafood aroma of the soup turned intensely crabby.  The heat activated the flavour and when I tried the soup it definitely had a very nice crab flavour. Miso smell notes were present before adding the crab oil too. You could taste the slight earthy umami of the miso in the soup afterwards under the crab flavour. The oil gives the light brown soup a reddish tinge too.  The soup is salty but doesn’t seem that way. Lots of flavour and mellowness to go with the salt. The noodles are broader maybe a little thinner than regular fried one and they had good texture and mouthfeel like a real ramen noodle.  The noodles had a good bite and chew to them.  The artificial crab stick is a lot like fake crab stick in texture and chew and the bits of corn and egg were a very nice touch to the soup.  This is a very tasty cup noodle if you like crab!

Closeup of crab stick and noodles with egg.

 

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