Robot Claw

It’s time for another investigation into the world of branded ramen. Today I have something very special:

Yes my friends, a Hatsune Miku leek flavored blue ramen. And it’s very cutely packaged as well:

Look at her enjoying delicious leek noodles. How could I not pay $4.99 for this item after seeing this art? (If you’re wondering, Hatsune Miku is everyone’s favourite vocaloid and if that means nothing to you then just think of her just as Hello Kitty crossed with a pop idol.)

I’ll admit I was a little concerned by the appearance of the product before adding water. Rice noodles are rarely good, and the flavoring seemed to just be fine onion powder. For those keeping track, it contains 190 kCal, 1g of fat, and 1140 mg of sodium.

As you know, professional ramen enthusiasts utilize noodle stoppers when they steep their cup noodles, so it’s a good thing I recently purchased a new one:

Yep, a Miku noodle stopper for some Miku noodles! It was a match made in noodle heaven:

Once the boiling water was added, I patiently waited, and when it was ready I opened the lid and this is what I saw:

It looked like a children’s drink with cut grass floating on it. And even though I let the noodles soak about twice as long as suggested they were still suspiciously rigid. But such thing shouldn’t stop a professional food critic, so I dove right in:

Of course it was terrible. The noodles were elastic bands, and the broth tasted of nothing at first (that’s the only 1g of fat right there) , but had an ‘evil vegetable’ aftertaste that lingered for hours. The blue broth was extremely off-putting, and overall this was a wretched ramen experience. Needless to say I don’t recommend this, even for the spectacle.

At least the noodle stopper is cute. Look at her noodly hair! Reminds me a bit of Uzumaki…

Over the last several years I have reviewed an amazing 51 different chicken ramen products. But it’s now been almost a year since I found a new one to try, and not for lack of searching! I even kept my eyes open in Japan, but despite plain chicken ramen being one of the first flavours ever marketed, I couldn’t find a single example.

Since I enjoy the occasional ramen blog, and because of this chicken dearth, it’s time for a companion series! Today is the first entry in a probably very sporadic licensed ramen series. And we’ll start with this one:

This was a Japan pickup: a Batman themed ‘garlic shrimp’ flavoured instant ramen. It’s a big, beefy man-sized cup with beautiful graphics on the side and lid:

But the real treat comes when you open the lid, since it also contains bat-symbol narutomaki, a traditional ramen inclusion in Japan made from tiny dried fish cakes:

As you can see there’s no flavor sachets: it is impregnated into the noodles which seems common for Japanese instant ramen. There was a strong garlic smell as soon as I peeled back the lid, and this became much stronger when the water was added,:

The dried shrimp, veggies and narutomaki puffed up as they reconstituted and the soup looked quite tasty once it was prepared! Even though I was sure I’d hate this, it was time to give it a try:

The product contains 372 kCal of energy, 6.6g of salt and 12.7 grams of fat, all somewhat normal for a ramen. Despite the strong smell, I was surprised that the taste was quite mild, and I could barely taste garlic at all. It tasted unpleasantly seafoody, and the aftertaste was disagreeable. The noodles were extremely tough – almost plastic – and it’s likely I didn’t let it sit enough before eating. KLS tried it as well, and was as unimpressed as I.

Because of the lovely packaging this one is more ‘for the collection’ than for eating, and would look lovely on the shelf of a Batman collector. Even though the little Batman fish cakes were superb, my verdict is that as a meal this ramen was a dud.