
Well, here’s the second of the trifecta of wings variants from Nissin. The ranch one I did previously? No thanks. Let’s give this a try – I see something promising.
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Well, here’s the second of the trifecta of wings variants from Nissin. The ranch one I did previously? No thanks. Let’s give this a try – I see something promising.

Another one I found at Safeway which wasn’t there the day before when I found that Hot Pot Fusion one I reviewed this week. I’ve got strong opinions on this one. If it is indeed rich and savory, that’s what should be concentrated on. I don’t see people looking to instant noodle cups for protein; they’re health conscious. Another point on the whole of the big ‘protein push’ is that chicken is gram for gram protein. You sauté up a small piece of chicken breast – it’s ALL protein. I’ve seen a lot of things come and go in the instant noodle world and I hate to say it, but this looks like it’ll be gone possibly before this posts. But hey – it’s a competitive market and companies have to throw a lot of products at the wall to see which ones stick. Good luck – maybe it will, but I have my doubts.

This is a special limited edition – one of three that I’ll be rushing out over the next few days. So soon is the Super Bowl. American Football. What’s more, local team the Seattle Seahawks will be in it. I couldn’t care less – it gets really silly here when football is going on. We like baseball. But hey, we’ll watch it. Honestly, I’m hoping to go out during the Super Bowl – it’ll be like when we had the COVID lockdowns – I really liked those. Anyways, let’s try an instant noodle that should be a little weird. Sure with they’d do cheese burger, taco, and pizza, but so far they haven’t heard my (and the throngs of other people’s) call. On with it.

Hey Nissin you’ve been holding out! This is a new one I found at my local Safeway supermarket of all places. There are two siblings in this range – a tonkotsu and a coconut curry – both of which I’m all over. Let’s try this one.

Well, here we are. It’s Christmas Eve! This has been a big shift in how I do things – 24 reviews, one per day for 24 days. Didn’t know what I was reviewing until I opened the package each morning. Usually I have lead time, but not this time. I got up, did a video of opening the door, then shooting package photos, editing, then doing what I’m doing right now – editing the post. Next will be cooking it up, then shooting more pictures, editing them, then editing the video and scheduling, posting and boom – all done. Usually, I break it over two days – edit images the day before, cook the next day and then do images for the next day after that. I guess we will see how I do it going forward. What’s certain is I’m so far ahead – like six months ahead. So, maybe doing one review per day and skipping the weekends might work well.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve to you as the kids say! It’s also Festivus – certainly a red-letter day of miracles, feats of strength, and the airing of grievances. The great material contonuum has been truly kind these past few days. Let us begin our next to last item from the amazing and wonderful ramen advent calendar!

Today is a very special day at our house. 16 years ago today, my wife and I spoke for the first time. We met on an online dating service website. She was home sick from work living with her folks and I was working for a fish company living in my friends garage. Well, it was a remodeled garage at least. We talked on the phone for about 4 or 5 hours. It was great – although I really didn’t expect anything to come of it – she lived all the way down in the Bay Area and that was a bit far from Anacortes up here in Washington state. We talked again the next day, and on Christmas Eve, we talked all day long – like 14 hours all day long. Christmas morning she asked if I’d come down for New Years, and I accepted – best decision I ever made. Let’s have some shrimp Cup Noodles!

Well, I overslept… So, it’s time to get stuff done. We were up really late – the plan was to watch Stand By Me, but couldn’t find it so we ended up watching the new version of Running Man – at least part of it. Surprisingly it wasn’t bad. Anyways, enough of our exceedingly late night viewing antics – let’s try this pack version of their Chili flavor – the cup version was really great so we shall see.

Well we’re almost there. It’s been a lot of fun thus far. It’s Saturday – kids are now on winter break, aka Xmas break. It’s cold out. I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll be trying out a new camera if the battery charger shows up. Guess we’d better start getting on wrapping gifts – definitely not my strong suit. However, my wife Kit is really good at it – she’s got it down cold and makes them look professional. Well, let’s get to cooking – I really liked the pack version of this so now it’s the cup.

It’s been cold, wet, and breezy – now it looks like it’ll be just plain cold today… I guess we shall see. Let’s continue the calendar with some chicken!

Wow, that stripe at the top of these posts is getting longer and longer to do every day! I have to edit it in every single post! I’m sure there’s some kind of way to automate it, but I am just doing copy paste on each one at the end of the day – easier. Anyways, this is a spicy yakisoba we have here – let’s give it a try!

Only about a week to go until Christmas Eve – crazy. Hope you’ve got all you gifts got and ready to go! It’s getting late in the game… But today is my daughter’s birthday! She’s exceedingly stoked! Let’s try this Thai take on chicken from Nissin’s newest range – made in Vietnam for the EU market.

Had a feeling this one would make an appearance sooner or later! We slept in a skosh so glad it’s one I’ve already tried – makes things a lot quicker on readying the post. Let’s cook it up!

I started doing this big advent calendar 2 weeks ago today – pretty crazy! It’s going very well thus far it seems! Thought I’d mention – if you like following, that’s great – I have my posts going out on quite a few platforms, but a couple have barely anyone following. I’m on Substack and Bluesky – it seems people started noticing that and then poof. So, I thought I’d remind folks that if they like those, I’m there. Tumblr too for what it’s worth. Now, on with the review!

I’ve been happily going through a big box sent to me by the kind folks over in Germany at Nissin Foods. It’s a huge advent calendar filled with instant noodles. Each day I have been starting my doings by shooting video of myself opening the correlating door and freeing a pack or cup of noodles – often before I’m really awake. Then I get the post ready to go and go on with my day until the right time when I cook it up on Instant Noodle Recipe Time and then post around 3 to 4 in the afternoon. Usually, I do reviews and I’m very far ahead, so a post I do today might not come out until close to six months from now. This is a very different way of doing things for me and it’s been a whole lot of fun! I thought maybe I ought to do a single post where I can have everything easily viewed. I’ve been updating a stripe at the top of each review – adding a link to each day. I’ll be doing that here as well, but it’ll be stuck to the top of the home page of The Ramen Rater for easier access. With that, here is the calendar series – from the initial unboxing to current day. I should also note I’ve no clue what is going to be behind each door I open – despite being tempted to open the door the night before. I should also note we have a LEGO advent calendar – I am showing those in the beginning as well – but they are of the previous day so as not to spoil anyone doing the same one. Alright – let’s go.

Had a great time for my daughter’s birthday party yesterday, did a bunch of stuff afterwards, then my wife and I stayed up watching YouTube until almost 4am. It’s noon now so I’m kinda behind my usual workflow, but it’s Sunday so no big deal. Anyways, let’s cook this up – I’m very curious how this will be! Let’s cook.

Well it’s Saturday and time to start the second half of the advent calendar. Today’s my daughter Mimi’s birthday party so I’ll have to get going here. This is the teriyaki Soba pack version as opposed to the cup I did prior. Let’s cook it up!

Ah its a day for beef. I went to the grocery store to get some. I got my second shingles vax yesterday and today feel like death warmed over. Anyways, I tell the guy at the meat counter I need 1oz of their cheapest ground beef. He tried to give me 0.4lbs which is way too much, then a much smaller amount that was perfect, but when he tried to weigh it it wouldn’t register so he said it was on the house. So shout out to butcher at our local Safeway. But yeah I feel worse than crummy. Let’s see if I can cook a Cup Noodles this morning…

This one was included in the advent calenda box from last year – and it would have been good I figure. Alas, I lost the sachet from this one. I hunted through the trash but never found it. Fortunately, I get another chance at it! Do I give it a new numbe? Why not! Let’s cook it up!

Time for some quacking with Peking Duck. I really think duck ought to become the nation protein – maybe just plain international protein of choice. Duck is really great so if you’ve not tried it, you’re missing out. Let’s cook this one up!

Started a little late this morning but no harm – it’s one I did recently enough… Curious if today will bring more torrential downpour and gusty winds. Guess we shall see.

I started doing these last Monday and now it’s a new week with day number eight. So far so good – I think it’ll get a little tricky once we get towards my daughter’s birthday but the train will go throughout I tell ya! Got some extreme weather for this area coming up this week. Time to cook!

Here’s another one I’ve not tried and it’s interesting. This one isn’t produced in Hungary like the previous ones I’ve shown but instead in Vietnam. I’ve noticed many companies producing in Vietnam – guessing that there’s a really good reason for this, probably has to do with cost and production volume? But that’s kinda outside my purview. This one’s Vegetarian friendly and touts a Korean spicy flavor. Sounds good – let’s give it a go!

Good morning, or good afternoon – it’s Saturday! We were up late – watched a movie called The Substance – if you like weird, it’s gonna fit the bill. Anyways, it’s a big day around here. My daughter Mimi is taking part in a special ‘Chorus Club’ performance at city hall with her school music class so that’s pretty awesome. But first thing I’m doing is editing images of noodles/taking pictures, etc. Next is to do this post and then cook, so that’s what’s going on. Let’s do this.

Another one of the Soba range I’ve not reviewed in this package or at all in pack form from what I see. Curry sounds good – perhaps with some chicken? Let’s give it a whirl!

Well, they forgot (so did I) about the LEGO calendar we’re doing concurrently, but here’s another one from the Nissin Germany box!

This s a bigger undertaking thank I expected! Woke up, shot a quick video, edited images… I usually will do three reviews in a day but a set schedule for ones I’ve not reviewed (I’ve had this but not in this version of packaging) is pretty hardcore! It is fun though – let’s get this reviewed!

Well, here we go with day two. I’ve reviewed this one somewhat recently, so no new number here. We’re also doing a LEGO City advent calendar here so I’m showing what was in there from the previous day in the video. By the way it’s Giving Tuesday I hear so if you wanna help out click here! Let’s continue on with the Nissin Germany Advent Calendar!!!

Here’s the first of the Nissin Germany advent calendar! I didn’t think the first one would be a variety I’ve not reviewed, so here I am wrapping the post up at 8am. Let’s check this one out!

Last year, Nissin Germany was kind enough to send one of these – however it didn’t arrive in time to do it. Well, rather unexpectedly, this year’s version arrived yesterday – just in time to start on Monday December 1st! With that, here is a vide of the unboxing. I’m going to do one variety every day until the day before Christmas. This is gonna be fun! Huge thanks to Nissin Deutschland for sending this over – very kind! By the way – here they are on Amazon Germany!

Well, it’s about to be Thanksgiving here in the United States and here we have turkey dinner in a cup. This is yet another one of the Limited Edition range Nissin Foods has been coming up with and honestly, I’m pretty happy that they keep coming out with these. I’ve seen images of mountains of this variety at Walmart on clearance for 25 cents each, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. On the bright side, you could just skip all the insanity and just have this and a Pumpkin Pie Cup Noodles and call it a turkey day. How’s that for a cheaper Thanksgiving – and it does generally come from Walmart. A recipe at the bottom shows you how to economically make a pumpkin pie using the pumpkin cup as well. Be festive in the face of financial ruin! Let’s give it a try.

Here’s another German Cup Noodles variety – very curious so let’s get to it.


Here’s a variety that I found in one of MiauMall’s Nakama Noodles subscription boxes! These boxes are discontinued, however you can find their stuff at MiauMall – here is what they said about this one – “We’re keeping up the cheese party with another tasty bowl of yakisoba! This bowl features yakisoba noodles in a sweet n’ spicy gyudon-inspired sauce and a 3-cheese mayo made with edam, parmesan and romano cheese. This bowl is packed with flavor that you’ll love!”

Hey look at this one! Big thank you to my wife Kit for getting me this! Only at Walmart. So, haven’t we gone through this before? Yes and no. Yes, it’s identical in every way to the pumpkin spicy flavor Cup Noodles – except one little thing. The name. They changed the name from spice to pie – why? I don’t know. New barcode now as well. To see both and a myriad of weird things to do with it, check out my definitive guide here. I’m gonna do it up real pretty. Let’s do it up!

Here’s a variety that I found in one of MiauMall’s Nakama Noodles subscription boxes! These boxes are discontinued, however you can find their stuff at MiauMall – here is what they said about this one – “Let’s up the celebration with a cup of cheesy ramen! This ramen features a rich, savory white chicken broth that is made even richer with the 3- cheese powder, combining parmesan, emmental and gouda! Perfect for a fun hanami celebration!”

Here’s a variety that I found in one of MiauMall’s Nakama Noodles subscription boxes! These are discontinued, however you can find their stuff at MiauMall – here is what they said about this one – “We had to bring this popular, limited-edition tempura soba back! This pretty, pink soba bowl has delicious soba noodles in a savory katsuo dashi (Japanese soup stock) and soy sauce soup! It’s topped with tasty beni shoga (red pickled ginger) tempura, perfect for the season!”

Tried this 12 years ago. Packaging has changed as well as what’s in there – let’s give it a whirl in the microwave!

Here’s a new packaging variety from the ‘states. These contain instant rice as well as little bits of noodle – last one I tried was quite nice – let’s give it a go!

I’ve done a lot of reviews lately of things that arrived in a Nissin Germany advent calendar box. This particular variety arrived in a box from Nissin USA that contained every noodle product they make! Let’s cook this one up!

I think this is the very last of the German Cup Noodles – it has been a lot of fun reviewing them! They came in a big advent calendar the folks at Nissin Germany sent – thanks again! Let us begin.