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Cup Noodles go isekai in crossovers with three of Japan’s other favorite foods [Taste test]

Casey Baseel a few minute ago
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Three ways to send your taste buds on an isekai journey, no collision with Truck-kun required.

The isekai/alternate world genre of anime/manga often starts from traumatic events. Getting hit by a truck, stabbed by a maniac, or some other sudden life-ending set of circumstances is usually what the protagonist has to go through before they can be reborn in a new life and environment so that they can set out on new adventures.

Thankfully, Cup Noodle’s isekai experience doesn’t have any such unpleasantries as a prerequisite. Instead, all you’ve got to do is walk into a Japanese supermarket or convenience store and grab a cup of the new Cup Noodle Isekai Gattai series, which fuses maker Nissin’s flagship instant ramen with one of three other much-loved food icons in Japan. We’d been looking forward to them since their announcement last month, and with all three isekai Cup Noodles having gone on sale on November 9, today we finally get to try them.

The three crossover contributors here are Gindaco, east Japan’s favorite chain of takoyaki (octopus dumpling) shops, Karamucho, the country’s most popular brand of spicy potato crisp snacks, and Gohan Desu Yo, a brand of simmered seaweed paste that’s usually spread over white rice.

Each isekai Cup Noodle is easy to make. Just add hot water, let the noodles cook for three minutes, then pour in the additional ingredient packet and give everything a quick stir before you dig in.

For this article, taste-testing duties were performed by our Japanese-language reporter Yayoi Saginomiya. Yayoi was looking for two things here: how well the isekai Cup Noodles recreated the flavor of their respective guest stars, and also how good the resulting combination tasted. For each, she’ll be grading them on a scale of one to five stars.

● Seafood Cup Noodle Gohan Desu Yo

Our first alternate world brings together the Seafood flavor of Cup Noodle with Gohan Desu Yo. Combining seafood with seaweed seems like an easy path to scrumptious success, but it turns out things aren’t quite that simple.

Once you add the Gohan Desu Yo paste into the broth, it quickly melts away, losing its texture and much of its flavor too. At the same time, the standard Seafood Cup Noodle broth ends up feeling sort of diluted too. This is probably a result of merging two flavors that have similarities, but which are still different enough that they don’t really enhance each other, making the combination feel a little lacking in direction. It doesn’t taste bad, but if you like either Seafood Cup Noodle or Gohan Desu Yo, you’ll probably enjoy them both better eaten on their own.

Recreation of Gohan Desu Yo: ★★☆☆☆
Overall deliciousness: ★★☆☆☆

● Cup Noodle Gindaco

This isekai combo uses the standard Cup Noodle flavor and its soy sauce-based broth. Add in the Gindaco oil packet, though, and the broth’s flavor becomes almost exactly the same as Gindaco’s takoyaki sauce, which is sort of like a sweet Worcester. The seaweed flakes, another takoyaki topping, really make their presence felt in the aroma that rises from the cup, and the “octopus-style balls” very much do remind us of the center of a takoyaki.

What with this being essentially a noodle soup, though, you don’t really get Gindaco’s touch of crispness that it cooks into the surface of its takoyaki breading, but the Gindaco Cup Noodles really will remind fans of the dumplings’ flavor, and makes for a fine choice even if you aren’t aware of the tie-in.

Recreation of Gindaco: ★★★☆☆
Overall deliciousness: ★★★☆☆

● Cup Noodle Karamucho

Now this was amazing! We start with Curry Cup Noodle. Which, to Yayoi’s tongue, has a touch of sweetness to it. Then we add in Karamucho hot chili powder, which adds a sharply stimulating heat and garlic notes too.

The resulting flavor is so good that it completely justifies the extremely unorthodox ramen topping of potato. Yes, this isekai Cup Noodle includes what are basically little flattened-out tater tots, and when they’re soaked in such flavorful spiciness, they taste fantastic.

Recreation of Karamucho: ★★★★☆
Overall deliciousness: ★★★★★

So in the end, sort of like within the isekai anime genre itself, we found a lot of difference in quality from one isekai Cup Noodle to another. That said, one person’s parallel-world paradise could be another’s alternate-dimension abyss of despair, and reactions to these unusual noodles is going to depend heavily on personal preferences, so we recommend giving any that catch your interest a try during the limited time they’ll be available for.

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[ Read in Japanese ]