This is the second of three reviews about the premium Cup Noodles released by Nissin in the summer of 2024 for a limited run that went into the fall. There was a version for the regular cup of noodles (shoyu), the curry noodles (a big fan favourite), and seafood noodles. Every one of these came in a golden cup with a gold foil top and the big characters in gold print 特上 for special / premium on a black background. The regular logo for each type of cup was in their standard fonts and colour underneath.
When I found these deluxe noodle cups on the shelf, I had to get one of each to try and this review is for the Premium Seafood Cup Noodle with Uni and Butter Oil. I believe these premium cups sold for about 259 yen instead of the usual 236 yen (premium = +10% more) than the original versions and they use the same regular cup size, not the BIG cup size.
This cup is special because of the uni (sea urchin) and butter oil, more flavourful stock, and uni-like pieces in addition to the regular octopus and crab stick. I'm expecting a richer seafood broth with buttery notes and of course some nice dehydrated shrimp.
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| 3/4 view of the cup showing the oil packet on the lid. |
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| The lid of the cup. You can see the little uni-like half-circlular pieces. |
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| Front of the cup. Sea urchin shown on the left with spikes. |
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| Oil packet removed. |
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| It has simulated uni (sea-urchin) bits that are almost like the real thing. |
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| Ingredients and preparation directions. Manufacturers info at bottom. |
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| With butter sea urchin luxury flavour. |
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| There are pieces of what looked like dried scallop, but it is actually some kind of ground-textured sea urchin roe (mixed with a binder of some sort). Lots of crab stick (simulated), octopus, and green onion. |
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| Uni and butter oil. Heavy on the butter. |
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| The prepared dish after rehydrating in boiling water for 3 minutes and then adding in the flavour oil. The half-circle pieces are the uni blocks. |
I'm not particularly enamored of uni, so I don't go out of my way to have it. The flavour is a rich, oceany bit of sea urchin roe (egg) that many people do love though. This cup noodle is deluxe as uni is a delicacy and I wondered how it would taste.
After adding in the butter-uni oil the soup was an orangy colour. The sea-urchin pieces were gel-like in texture that had a fishy note and I suppose they were a bit uni-roe like in texture. The bits of octopus, fish stick, green onion and cabbe made these noodles quite colourful with the orangy soup and yellow noodles. The soup had the typical fish-based seafood smell and the oil did add a buttery note and more of a fish-egg note to the taste of it. It was a definitely smoother broth and I'm not sure it is better than the regular soup, but then I'm not a huge uni fan. The noodles were your typical noodles for these cups so there's nothing special to say about them. I'm glad I tried it, but if you're not a seafood fan, then skip the extra seafood taste.
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