Nongshim Shin Ramyun Cup

Tagged: Mushroom, Nongshim, Spicy, Beef flavour

I'm not beating the Nongshim bias allegations, am I? I swear this one is because it's what I had as far as instant cups go, and I promise it might happen again, officer.

I've been mulling over some particulars about the ontology surrounding my blog. While it's a slight departure from the first "Quick Bites" post, I figure the main focus of the category should be instant cups judged without any sort of additions. Incidentally, some time ago I was wondering why certain brands would make identical flavour of noodles released both as a packaged brick and as a cup, and I realised (maybe not the reason, but certainly one of the differences) it's that the cup has more to offer than just the noodles: veggie flakes, dehydrated meat, etc.

Are we all up to speed on my arbitrary categorisation and reasoning for the framework around my blog that I can change on a whim? Good, then let's check this one out.

The Nongshim product line seems less straightforward than it ought to be: in looking up the specific flavour I have here, I've found a few different variants with slightly different names that makes me hard to tell which is which. There's a "Shin Cup Noodle", a "Shin Noodle" that comes in a cup but doesn't use that word, and a "Shin Cup Noodle Soup" which I think is the one that might actually be a different product. It's possible these are regional variations, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it on a quick search. Going by the printed name, the one I have here is a "Shin Ramyun Cup".

The dried mushrooms and vegetables are a welcome sight as soon as I pull back the lid, this is definitely a lot more substantial than the puny little "flake" sachets you get with noodle brick packages. The instructions are to simply empty the soup base powder sachet onto the noodles and pour in boiling water up to the mark. In this one, the mark is a nice, visible indentation all along the sides of the cup, so I have no trouble with it.

The mushrooms and veggies really wanted to cling to the bottom, but I managed to dig up a couple of bits for the photo.

The first thing I got eating these was the spice. It's not overwhelming, but it's potent in a really pleasant way. There's still room for the rest of the flavour, maybe not so much from the broth and the noodles, but definitely from the rehydrated bits. The mushrooms were nicely chewy and very flavourful, there's a well balanced variety of stuff alongside the noodles. Judging by the calorie count in the nutritional info box, I can put to rest my concerns about this cup not being enough for a full meal.

This was pretty good! As much as I love putting thought and time into a bowl of noodles, there's something to be said about the convenience of just having the simplest, lowest common denominator shelf-stable ready meal. I don't really have more of these in my queue (besides a bowl of Buldak that taunts me from the cupboard) and I really should. Until then, the next few posts should return to the good old standard format. And hopefully from a different brand. And since I'm not going to do the whole "scientific method" spiel for these quick ones, and the lack of a final break in the post feels wrong, here's a picture of a cat.

His name is Pebbles.

This was one of those "read Wikipedia about the food you're eating while eating it" ones. Hey, did you know the founder of Nongshim was the younger brother of the founder of Lotte?