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Love Cup Noodle mystery meat pieces? New instant ramen is packed full of ’em

Oona McGee Oct 24, 2023
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Nissin gives the people what they want, and it’s waaaaay more meat than even we expected.

Nissin is constantly bringing out new and exciting Cup Noodle products that make us smile…and reach for our wallets, time and time again. Their latest creations are no different, with the instant noodle specialists amping up the star ingredient in two of their products, increasing the amount of mystery meat in their original Cup Noodle and the amount of squid in their Seafood variety.

The new products will be released on 30 October, but we were able to try them ahead of the official release, to see if they’re worth buying. As soon as we laid eyes on the new noodles, they made us smile immediately, with the package on the “Nazo Niku Mamire” (“Covered In Mystery Meat“) variety beautifully adorned with pieces of mystery meat…that had faces on them.

Not only that — on the side of the pack was a humorous blurb that read: “Dedicated to mystery meat lovers! Mystery Meat Specialty Cup Noo so No Shrimp!”

The regular Cup Noodle, or “Cup Noo” (pronouned “Nuu”) to use the abbreviation, uses shrimp as one of the seasoning ingredients in the broth, but in this new variety, the focus is on mystery meat, so it does away with shrimp altogether.

While mystery meat lovers will be glad to know that no shrimp has contaminated the mix, over on the Ika Mamire (“Covered in Squid“) variety, the blurb reads, “No Shrimp and No Imitation Crab!” By excluding these two ingredients that normally appear in the Seafood Cup Noodle, the focus shifts firmly to squid, which appears here in both real and squid-flavoured kamaboko (fish paste) forms.

So not only do these new products contain more of a familiar ingredient, they remove others as well, essentially creating a whole new blend of flavours. This was a real shake-up for two of the company’s most popular varieties, so we were keen to find out what they tasted like, and what they looked like, because the Nazo Niku Mamire contains four times the usual amount of mystery meat, while the Seafood variety contains three times the usual amount of squid.

The word “mamire” paints an image of something that’s totally covered in something, so how covered could these Cup Noodles be?

We slowly pulled the tab back on the Mystery Meat variety, and before adding the boiling water…

▼ …we peered in to find…

▼ …woah, that’s a lot of mystery meat!

It was fully covered in meat — much more than even we’d expected — and not only did it make us smile, it made us laugh out loud. We knew four times the meat would be a lot, but pretty much the entire surface was covered in meaty pieces, and it was the same for the Ika Mamire variety as well.

▼ After preparing them with boiling water, the pieces plumped up even further, adding to the feast-like extravaganza.

Taking a taste of the Mystery Meat Mamire first, it was like a never-ending mountain of meat. There was no need to poke around for pieces submerged in soup like we usually do with a Cup Noodle, because they were all over the place here, and the meaty pork flavour was stronger than usual, which was a big tick in our book.

▼ This Cup Noolde definitely lives up to its “mamire” name — even when we got to the last of the noodles, there was still meat left for us to eat.

As for the Ika Mamire, this too was absolutely covered, this time with squid concealing the noodles…and floating beneath and between them too. Pretty much every single bite contained squid, yet strangely, it seemed more refreshing than a regular Seafood Cup Noodle. The broth contained ginger, which served as a nice accent, and we didn’t notice the absence of shrimp or imitation crab at all.

If you love either mystery meat or squid — or even both — you will fall in love the new “Mamire” Cup Noodle flavours. They’re a thousand times better than the horrid American Breakfast Cup Noodles we tried earlier this year, so keep an eye out for them when they go on sale at stores nationwide from 30 October, at a recommended retail price of 236 yen (US$1.57).

Related: Nissin Cup Noodle
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