Re-Review: Sapporo Ichiban Japanese Style Noodles & Beef Flavored Soup

There are some varieties that I hear people raving out about a lot and I start thinking ‘I should re-review this one.’ Well, today’s the day. I even have a little story about these which is sort of funny.

So we went to a furniture place a few years ago. We needed to get a couch – actually we went to a few places. I was being a cheapskate and getting annoyed at how much it costs to get something to sit on. Seriously;I mean, it’s a big pillow with wood inside, right? I thought hey – $400 is insane but we could shell out $400 I guess. Well, after a long conversation about couches and me being a cheapskate, my wife and I went to one last place. I finally found the couch I was into.

This thing had buttons on the side that made each seat recline and it was really comfy. I figure yeah it’s about $1200, but what the hell – my wife’s happy, I’m happy because it’s literally a comfortable electric chair – it’s a win-win situation right? Well, I then found out shopping for a couch is kind of like shopping for a car.

You go to the dealership and spend hours sitting, waiting, schmoozing and finally get out of therewith a new thing. At the dealership – drives me nuts when we get a new car, they have the balls to say ‘congratulations!’ I always thought I should just say ‘no congratulations for putting us on the hook for a recurring payment for 36 months.’ Anyways.

So during the schmoozing process, it’s the standard questions and chit chat at the furniture store. What do you do? When I tell anybody about reviewing instant noodles I get a couple of regular answers ‘wow – I didn’t know there were that many kinds of instant noodles,’ ‘wow that’s amazing’ and ‘don’t you get sick of reviewing instant noodles?’ Well, this guy started going off about Sapporo Ichiban noodles. He would talk about how great it was that a pack has 4 grams of fiber. I mean, I’m getting a couch and getting an education from this guy about being older and having a hard time taking a dump. It was kind of awkward but then again kind of fascinating that this guy was really okay with sharing his bowel habits with a total stranger while trying to sell him something.

Anyways, that’s my funny Sapporo Ichiban story. Here’s a little about the company from Wikipedia –

Sapporo Ichiban (サッポロ一番^?) is a brand of instant noodles (most of them ramen) made by Sanyo Foods.

Sapporo Ichiban has found a market outside Japan, most notably with consumers in Hong Kong, the United States, Mexico, Argentina and Canada.

Sapporo Ichiban literally means “Sapporo’s number one [noodle]”, but there is no particular relation between Sapporo Ichiban and the city of Sapporo, Hokkaido, where the company has only a small sales branch

Sapporo Ichiban has found a market outside Japan, most notably with consumers in Hong Kong, the United States, Mexico, Argentina and Canada.

Ramen flavors include:

• “Original” (Red package) a mild soy sauce flavor, debuted in stores January 1966.
• Miso (Orange package), debuted in stores September 1968.
• Shio (Salt) (Black and Red package), debuted in stores August 1971.
• Tonkotsu (Gold package)
• Chicken (Green package)
• Beef (Brown package)
• Shrimp (Pink package)
• Hot & Spicy Chicken (Green and Red package)
• Original Cup
• Chicken Cup
• Beef Cup
• Shrimp Cup

So there you are – some background and a kind of weird story. Let’s check it out!

Sapporo Ichiban Japanese Style Noodles & Beef Flavored Soup – United States

Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Contains chicken and beef. To prepare, add noodle block to 2 cups (500ml on package, 473ml in reality) boiling water and cook 3 minutes. Add in soup base sachet. Finally, stir and enjoy!

The noodle block.

The soup base sachet.

A light powder with dark flecks here and there.

Finished (click to enlarge). Added Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, spring onion, beef and shichimi togarashi. The noodles are heavy and very plentiful. This is a heavy noodle block – pretty impressive. The broth has a salty beef taste which works well. 3.75 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 076186000035.

Japanese Style Noodle Soup (Beef Flavor) – 3.5oz [Pack of 6]

A vintage TV commercial