Nissin China UFO Shredded Pork and Beef Yakisoba Reviews for Double the Fun

I have two reviews of a couple of Nissin China UFO yakisoba noodles.  I picked up a shredded pork flavour and a beef flavour at a Chinese supermarket in Calgary.  They weren't something I have seen before so it was a must buy.  I was expecting a bit of the standard Japanese yakisoba flavouring, but it was different.  Market localizing at its best for the Nissin products.

Chinese UFO Shredded Pork Yakisoba

I don't know why I thought that this instant noodle would taste like the Japanese version of it.  I think it is because it has the classic red, yellow, and black colour scheme of the regular Japanese UFO noodle. See a review of the regular Japanese UFO noodle here. Like opening a Cracker Jack box, I was in for a bit of a surprise, and it actually was a good experience as you really want it to be different sometimes.

Looks like a regular Japanese UFO yakisoba noodle on the surface.

The design of these classic pie pan shaped bowls is like the old 1950s UFO saucers - thus the name. This one plays it up a bit as you can see a night sky on the top half of the lid with the big UFO letters in front.  Below on the ground are some tasty looking noodles with bits of shredded cabbage.

The characters above the UFO just say Nissin Yaki, and the character to the bottom right of UFO just say Fish and shredded pork flavour.  The bottom left basically says NEW, pour the water out.

Nutritional information and preparation directions.

Bottom of the bowl.

The interesting thing about these bowls is the different design for the packaging.  In Japan, the shrink wrap has all of the graphics and colour. In China, the shrink wrap is clear up top and the printing is direction on the lid, but the other printed text and design for the sides and bottom are on the wrap like the Japanese version.  The bowl is made of black plastic instead of white styrofoam like the Japanese version.

You get a meal package inside the bowl that includes the sauce packet, a fork, and the dry toppings.

The sauce packet says Nissin's original secret sauce that has tartness, sweetness, and is hot and fresh tasting.

The prepared ;noodles after rehydration.  I added in the dry toppings, then let the noodles sit in boiling water for 3 minutes, drained the water out through the drain holes in the lid, and then added the sauce packet.

The final mixed noodles and sauce.

This noodles tastes nothing like the regular Japanese yakisoba flavour.  The sauce is more of a chili based sauce that is kind of tangy, lightly spiced, is savoury (maybe the fish base?), with chili and garlic overtones.  It is pungent smelling and aromatic to entice your taste buds.  The sauce mixed in well and the noodles were pretty standard, but I really didn't get any fishy notes or pork flavour.  Having the carrots added some crunch to the chew and there is never enough cabbage in any country's version of this.  Overall, this was just a tasty noodle, but I think I prefer the original yakisoba flavour.

Noodle closeup with a bit of carrot.

Chinese UFO Beef Yakisoba

Now for something kind of similar yet different.  The Beef UFO yakisoba was the second noodle bowl I tried out of the two.  I definitely wasn't sure what to expect so I went in with an open mind for this one.  The packaging of this noodle bowl was very similar to the first UFO bowl but with a green colour scheme replacing the red everywhere except the logo.

Your 3/4 view of the bowl.

The lid of the bowl.  Most the text is the same as before except the characters to the bottom right of the UFO logo.  It says oyster sauce beef flavour.

Nutritional and preparation directions.

Bottom of the bowl.

Opening the bowl reveals a sauce packet in green, a larger packet of dried toppings than in the previous bowl, and a fork.  All you need is boiling water! The sauce is a secret sauce again.

The dried toppings.You have cabbage, carrots, green onion, and soy protein.

I added boiling water to the noodles and topping and waited three minutes before pouring out the boiling water through the drain holes at the top of the lid.  You never peel the lid off more than half way until after the water is drained.

The rehydrated noodles and ingredients.

I mixed in the sauce and you can see it only lightly covered the noodles.

It was definitely an oyster sauce based dish.  The sauce has garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce (lots of umami) and it had a mild musty smell to it.  Again, like the other noodle, I didn't taste a beefy note to it.  The sauce was a nice savoury flavour, more like Cantonese style and it tasted pretty good too.  Between the two sauces, I'm not sure which one I prefer, but I'm sure other people can pick a favourite.

Closeup of the noodles.

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