We don’t mind annoying, if the flavor is worth it.
Over the past year, 7-Eleven has been releasing different flavors of a special kind of cup noodles called the “Most Annoying but Most Delicious Ramen”, which are crafted to be extra delicious–but not quite as instant as you’d expect. Still, they’re worth the effort, so when we noticed that the third iteration had come out while we were shopping for 7-Eleven’s new Michelin-star ramen-flavored Baby Star snacks, we had to try it.
This ramen is called Kyoto Kyoku Nigori Tori Paitan (Super Cloudy Chicken White Broth from Kyoto), which, as you can guess from the name, is a ramen with a cloudy broth. In fact, it’s the first of the series to have a broth that isn’t clear, and this one is paitan, a bone broth made without soy sauce, which is also unusual. This piqued our interest even more.
We bought ours for 429 yen (US$2.90), which is pretty expensive for cup ramen.
The packaging boasted the new cloudy broth, as well as medium-thickness noodles that were straight instead of curly. The cooking method requires you to pour hot water over the noodles twice, which is somewhat unusual for cup noodles.
▼ “Straight noodles that are both firm and chewy! Formulated to be poured over with hot water twice”
One serving contains 152 grams (5.4 ounces) of food, amounting to 534 calories. Since the second MAMD Ramen clocked in at 699 calories, this one is almost restrained.
Under the lid, we found four different packets of powdered soup and toppings.
They were “Extremely Cloudy Umami Dashi Broth”, “Chicken Broth”, “Oil Flavoring”, and “Red Pepper Seasoning”, and all went in after the second addition of hot water.
The noodles are designed to be put in hot water twice…
So we poured in the first round of hot water…
Shut the lid, and, holding it closed by putting two of the seasoning packets on top, waited five minutes.
Then we opened up the strainer spout, poured out the first round of water…
And added the second round of hot water.
Then the seasonings and broths went in…
And it was ready!
There weren’t any vegetable of meat-like toppings, leaving the noodles and broth bare. We were impressed; this sent the message that the flavor would stand on its own. But was it good enough?
Hmmmm…
We’re not sure. The noodles were just a bit too soft for our tastes. We didn’t think we prepared them wrong, especially since the package explicitly states that they need two rounds of hot water, but we couldn’t help but feel that they were a bit too gooey.
The broth, however, we really liked. The packaging said it was “Like a chicken potage”, and it didn’t lie. It was so creamy and thick and of such high quality that they could sell the broth separately as a soup. Whether you like it or not may be down to personal preference, though, since such a thick broth is pretty uncommon for ramen.
So in the end, our only complaint was with the noodles, which is why we can’t accept that this ramen has the title of “Most delicious.” Well, it wasn’t so bad, since we enjoyed the soup so much that we finished the whole thing.
Still, we couldn’t help but think of ways to really bring this cup ramen to the “Most Delicious” level, so we decided to experiment.
Our first hypothesis was that perhaps these noodles don’t need to be cooked as long as five minutes. Since you add hot water again after they’re drained, they end up being cooked for far longer, which might be why the noodles ended up so soft.
With that in mind, we decided to let the noodles sit for three minutes, then test them every 30 seconds until they were cooked to our liking. That way we could determine the proper time needed to cook the noodles to perfection before pouring out the water and adding more in.
We first checked them at the three-minute mark.
They weren’t quite done. They still had a floury taste. Another 30 seconds didn’t bring them to the right level either, but at four minutes, they were at just the right firmness that we hoped a second dousing of hot water would bring them to the perfect level of softness.
We finished up the cooking and added all the seasoning packets, and then gave it a taste…
Ohh! That was pretty good! As we guessed, we’d cooked the noodles just enough that they had a good level of chewiness that made them undeniably delicious. This time we didn’t even consider drinking the broth, and instead focused on slurping up all the noodles.
But there might be a way we could make this ramen even more delicious, so we decided to try another experiment. We went back to 7-Eleven and bought three different kinds of 7-Eleven brand fresh noodles: thin, medium thick, and extra thick. Each package cost 84 yen.
Our idea? To try different noodles in the same broth and see if that would elevate it. We cooked them separately according to package directions, then added them individually to the broth to test.
▼ From left to right: Extra Thick Noodles, Medium Thick Noodles, and Thin Noodles
First we tried the thin noodles.
They were pretty good! Since the noodles were thinner, they managed to absorb a lot more of the flavor of the soup, providing the perfect balance of soup and noodle. Plus, it was easy to scarf down.
Next we tried the “medium thick” noodles.
Texture wise, these noodles didn’t change much from the thin noodles. However, we did think that the thin noodles did a better job of meshing with the soup. The noodles that come in the cup were also of medium thickness, but since these noodles are fresh, they have a bit more of a floury taste that was more evident in these than in the thin noodles.
Lastly we tried the “extra thick” noodles.
Sadly, they were a miss. Since they’re so thick, they overpowered the soup in both taste and texture, and honestly, fresh noodles just didn’t seem like a good match for this broth. The flavors just didn’t pair well.
So in the end, the methods we tried to make the latest “Most Annoying but Most Delicious Ramen” from 7-Eleven truly “the most delicious” are ranked as follows:
First place: Cooking the original noodles for just four minutes
Second place: Using 7-Eleven’s Fresh Thin Noodles
Third place: Using 7-Eleven’s Fresh Medium Thick Noodles
Fourth place: Using 7-Eleven’s Fresh Extra Thick Noodles
Of course, personal preference plays a large role in whether or not you agree. Some people, for example, prefer their noodles to be on the soft side, and if that’s you, the “Most Annoying but Most Delicious Ramen Kyoto Kyoku Nigori Tori Paitan” is probably perfect the way it is. But if you’re somewhere else on the scale, then you can use our rankings to get an idea of where to start to make them exactly how you like them.
And for dessert, you might as well pick up 7-Eleven’s new mint chocolate whipped cream sandwiches while you’re there! Happy snacking!
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