I noticed this cup of noodle at the Narita airport Lawson on the way to the check-in counter for Air Canada. I hadn't seen it anywhere else, so I lucked out. That Lawson was pretty well stocked as I'm sure a lot of Japanese travellers hit it before going through security for various items. I knew I was under the weight limit for my luggage as my hotel had a digital scale so I stocked up on some extra noodles.
I had not idea who/what Morizumi was, but I just assumed it was another ramen shop tie-in product. Later, I finally found it on the Nissin Japan website and I had to look up the restaurant online to find out what was so special about Morizumi. It turns out Morizumi is relatively famous as it is run by a Michelin starred chef, Mr. Morizumi himself.
Harimazaka Morizumi (Morizumi Kitchen)播磨坂もりずみ2nd floor of Tokyo Dome City LaQua,1-1-1 Kasuga, Bunkyo-ku, TokyoClosest to Suidobashi Station (about a 5 min walk) He runs a nice little cafe that doesn't resemble your typical ramen shop as it isn't a narrow space with one long counter. His cafe is bright and roomy with tables and a nice casually decorated atmosphere. It welcomes female customers and families apparently. Anyhow, he's collaborated with Nissin to produce a very nice cup noodle that I give a two thumbs up to.
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| Nissin Morizumi Cup Noodle |
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| Without the condensed chicken essence packet on the lid. |
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| Side view. The rich green colour and layout of the graphics gives it a elegant appearance that matches the deluxe ramen image it is portraying. Green is also the colour of the ramen shop's exterior. |
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| Picture of the ramen restaurant along with ingredients and nutritional information. |
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| Mr. Morizumi I presume with some views of his restaurant on the lid. |
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| Once the lid is peeled back you can see the powdered soup base along with some large pieces of grilled chicken. It was dehydrated grilled chicken as there were even grill marks on the side of the pieces. The green onions and menma (pickled bamboo shoots) were underneath the noodle blocks. You can already see that the type of noodles from the way are appear are different from the regular noodles used in cup noodle. |
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| The rehydrated noodles with the chicken essence pack added in. You can see the broth has a nice rich colour and that the noodles are straight noodles. It took a longer 4 minutes to rehydrate the noodles rather than the regular 3 minutes for regular noodles. |
This Morizumi instant ramen was definitely one of the better cup noodles I've had in awhile with its soy broth and nice firm straight noodles. The broth is flavourful yet light without harsh saltiness. The broth was full of umami with definite undertones of chicken. I don't know about the bonito and scallaps being used in the soy soup, but it tasted great. According to the Nissin website the soy sauce oil from the gold essence packet was based on apple chicken oil (Chi Yu) to provide further scent and depth to the soup. I just wish there were some more bamboo shoots and chicken in the soup, but I'm real happy I have another one of these to eat a little later.
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| Chicken with noodles. Yum!!! |
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