If you’re in Torrance this weekend, you can stop by Mitsuwa to try the real Chibakiya ramen. The rest of us can settle for the bowl ramen version of their chuukasoba. Seems like a poor substitute, doesn’t it? We’ll see…

The bowl ramen comes with a packet of oil, a piece of nori, and possibly the biggest pack of soup flavor I’ve ever seen for a instant ramen. The ramen also comes with a few pieces of menma and green onions.

The soup has a mellow shoyu and fish flavor. It’s decent for a bowl ramen but not particularly exciting. The noodles, however, were a real disappointment. The skinny starchy noodles were very bland, and I might as well have been eating the noodles alone with a bowl of soup on the side. Hmm…deja vu, or am I just running out of things to say?

I expected more from a “name-brand” bowl ramen but at best I can only rate Chibaki’s chuukasoba a middling 5 out of 10.

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Fancy packaging aside, the “Premium” label apparently refers to the generous amount of toppings in each cup. The beef bits, carrot bits, cabbage bits, green onions, corn, green bean, and of course, tomato bits covered the surface of the noodles. The noodles were also covered with a reddish powder, probably the tomato flavoring.

I boiled some water and poured it in. Three minutes later, a veritable Cup Noodles feast awaited me.

The tomato flavoring, though light, added a nice tanginess to the beefy soup. There was also a hint of parsley in the soup. Otherwise the red-orangish noodles tasted the same as the “non-premium” Cup Noodles noodles. Frankly, besides the tomato and parsley flavors and the abundance of toppings, there really isn’t much difference.

If you’re a Cup Noodles fan, you’ll find more of it to love: more flavor and more toppings. If you don’t like Cup Noodles, the Premium version is probably not going to change your mind. Cup Noodles Premium Beef Tomato flavor gets a 7 in my book.

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This ramen advertises that it takes only 90 seconds to make! Just imagine…if you eat this ramen every day for a year, you can save…multiply…divide…divide again…a whopping 9 hours a year! (Compared to the typical 180 seconds (3 mins) that other bowl ramen need.)

If that’s not enough to get you excited, what about the four packets of ramen accoutrements included in the bowl: there’s the obligatory soup pack, a packet of dry toppings, sesame seeds, and beni shoga.

Ok, in all seriousness, a 90 second cooking time and 4 packets of accourtrements isn’t exactly newsworthy. But what this instant ramen has going for it is:
1. Its over 50 year-old pedigree. Nagahamaya is a ramenya hailing from…well, Nagahama, a region in Fukuoka, birthplace of hakata ramen. It’s been in existence since 1954, so they must be doing something right.
2. The soup. Wow, the soup! It’s thick! It’s rich! It’s bold! The soup, which is oily in the best kotteri sense, rivals actual ramenya soup. The taste of the soup is notable because no single flavor stands out. It’s like all the ingredients were blended in exact proportions to create a perfect gestalt (yes, I’m using the word “gestalt” in an instant ramen review!) of liquid pork bone goodness. And best of all: there’s not a heavy MSG taste to detract from the flavor.

The noodles were tasty. They had a good flavor that paired nicely with the soup that they readily soaked up. They had a chewy texture, but could’ve been just a little harder; for hakata ramen, and especially considering the quick 90 second bath, they were just a tad soft.

The toppings provided a solid supporting role, with the mild onions enhancing but not overpowering the flavor, and the sesame seeds adding just the right amount of nuttiness. The pork, however, didn’t stand out. I don’t think I’ve written a review yet where I can say I accidently ate some of the pork, but that gives you a hint about the size. There were maybe 3 dime-sized pieces of chashu, 3 nickel-sized, and 1 quarter-sized piece. All were overcooked and a bit tough. The flavor wasn’t bad, but it was hard to tell if they were in fact pork or if they were pieces of beef in disguise. If anything, the chashu pieces tasted like beef bacon.

This was one of the best instant tonkotsu ramen I’ve ever had, and I’m still thinking about the soup. Any Tampopo devotee knows that a good ramen soup should be good to the last drop. Ganso Nagahamaya’s tonkotsu ramen makes it easy: you’re going to want to drink every bit of the soup, then lick the styrofoam bowl. This king of tonkotsu bowl ramen gets an almost-perfect 9 out of 10.

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The made-in-Taiwan Q-cup ramen is a “Kyushu garlic” flavor (read tonkotsu and garlic) and features pig-faced naruto. I’ve always been a sucker for instant ramen with “piggy naruto”, though I never could figure out the relationship between pigs and naruto, but I digress.

The bowl ramen is barely half the size of most other bowl ramen, and is for anyone looking for a quick, light snack. Toppings are typical: corn, bits of carrots, cabbage, and green onions. And, oh, I think I found one small corn-kernel-sized piece of meat. The meat actually has a distinct pork flavor to it, unlike a lot of the “mystery meat” slices you get with some of the cheaper bowl ramen, and it tasted like an itsy-bitsy piece of salted hard ham.

The noodles were typical instant ramen noodles, not the thinner noodles you’d expect with “Kyushu” ramen. They were a bit bland, and even though I accidently cooked them a bit longer than you’re supposed to (darn timer didn’t go off), the noodles didn’t absorb much of the soup flavors.

The should-be-more kotteri soup was also a bit thin. It was very garlicky, but lacked more complex flavors and was even a bit on the watery side.

This average instant ramen should appeal to garlic-lovers and people with stomachs the size of peas. Q-cup Kyushu garlic ramen gets a middling 6 out of 10.

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The-wife-is-away-so-I’m-eating-ramen-all-week week continues with this special ramen. It’s got “PH adjustment” and “antioxidant”! Really! Scroll down and look at the label for yourself! Oh, It looks like the tonkotsu ramen I had a few days ago also had antioxidant (yes, it’s also singular). Who says instant ramen isn’t healthy?

I don’t know why you readers voted for us to show nutritional info on the ramen we review. I think I was happier not knowing what I was eating.

I was excited when I opened this bowl ramen…it came with four packets of accoutrements! Somehow, my expectations go up with every packet I see in my instant ramen. Oh, and ginger gets its own packet…yay…(I don’t like ginger, which always makes my wife roll her eyes and ask “are you really Asian?”). On the plus side, the soup powder has a very strong pork smell that reminds me of Chinese “pork sung,” which, according to wikipedia, is also known as “pork floss.” That sure sounds appetizing.

The noodles were decent, with a nice hard texture, and had a hint of instant-noodleness to them. The toppings gave the ramen good flavor, and the tonkotsu soup was rich and well-balanced. Being negi ramen, there were lots and lots of green onions, which suits me just fine. The strange thing was, while the soup had good flavor, you could barely smell it, which was especially surprising after the strong smell of the soup powder.

Overall, this was a slightly above average ramen. If you like green onions, it’s hard to go wrong with negi ramen. Marutai’s negi ramen gets a 7.

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Agh!! Get it off of me! Getitoffofme! — oh, sorry… Ahem…this is the kind of instant noodles that gives people nightmares. In the interest of saying something useful besides just warning people from this travesty, I find it interesting that, even though technically ramen “started” from China, then evolved into the Japanese version we’re all familiar with today, I’ve yet to find any Chinese instant ramen that tastes nearly as good as the Japanese version. Sure, there are plenty of great Chinese noodle dishes, and plenty of really good instant Chinese noodles, but forget trying to find a good Chinese version of the Japanese version of Chinese noodles. If any of that didn’t make sense, blame this ramen.

The crowning achievement of this bowl ramen is the noodles, which are slightly thin, very reminiscent of Chinese instant noodles, and thoroughly mediocre. The toppings include corn, tiny pieces of sour, soggy bamboo, seaweed, and some unidentifiable mystery veggie bits.

The soup seasoning contains salt, MSG, and soy sauce powder, and the garnish includes sugar and caramel. Yes, the label says the garnish contains sugar and caramel. And for what it’s worth, the soup stock is chicken, not pork. So what does this concoction taste like? Have you ever had vinegar ramen? Really? Ok, no, there’s no such thing. I just made it up. But even if there were such a thing as vinegar ramen, I’m pretty sure the soup would taste better than this vile sour and vinegary witch’s brew. King Car gets a 3. The only reason it doesn’t get a 1 is because I think I could imagine eating this again if I was literally starving to death. Well…maybe…

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It’s Cup Noodles. It’s not bad. It’s not great. It gets a 6.

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