Shin Ramyun Instant Noodles | Taste Test

Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

As a kid, my sisters and I would spend our Saturdays expanding our minds, honing our hand eye coordination, and discovering the meanings of discipline, hard work, and lost childhood through the Tiger Mom-approved double-header of Japanese school and music school. It was a grueling eight hour schedule that left me with about an hours' worth of free time in the middle of the day, during which I'd catch up on cartoons or football with my dad while making myself lunch. Sometimes this meant frozen chicken pot pies or pastrami sandwiches from the deli down the street. More often than not, this meant instant ramen.



We tasted all four options to see how they stacked up.

Black Vs. Standard





Overall Winners: Either Ramyun From a Packet

While tasters were divided on how the broth and noodles in the standard Shin Ramyun compared to the premium Black version, there was one clear consensus: the ramyun that comes out of packets and gets cooked in a pot is superior to the cup-style. It makes perfect sense. With the former, you're cooking the noodles at a fast boil; with the latter, you're steeping them like tea.


Overall, tasters found the packet noodles to be bouncier and more like real noodles, though Max was the lone exception in enjoying the thinner, softer noodles in the standard Shin Cup ("If you're not going to get great noodles anyway, you might as well get ones that are better at absorbing sauce," was his reasoning).

The soup bases for the packet-based soups were also superior. It's tough to decipher from the ingredients lists what made them better, but they were richer, fuller, and slightly more "natural" tasting. Soups from the cups were labeled as "harsh," "aggressive," and "artificial." Not so bad that we wouldn't eat them, mind you, but enough that taking the time to make the packet-based version is a no-brainer.


Here are some more tasting details.

Shin Ramyun Noodle Soup Packet ($.24/ounce)


This is the classic flavor of my youth. Salty and spicy with a mild ocean aroma and bits of rehydrated shiitake mushroom and scallion floating in a thin but flavorful broth. The noodles are better than your average packet of ramen (I'd put them on par with our top-rated Sapporo Ichiban), but by no means mind-blowing. As Jamie put it, this is something "I'd want when I was sick."

Max, on the other hand, says that he'd "like to dip [his] dosas in it." I'm not quite sure what that means and I'm a little scared to find out.

Shin Ramyun Black Premium Noodle Soup Packet ($.47/ounce)




Sort of like the bits you find at the bottom of a bag of beef jerky that you resort to eating when you're at mile 169 of a road trip and the real food ran out a few miles past the last rest stop. We could've just as soon done without them.

The broth for the Black contains dehydrated beef stock and anchovies in addition to the "beef extract" and "beef fat" that flavors the standard version, creating a more subtle, balanced broth. It's heartier, but also milder. If you're looking for more of a salt and spice punch, the standard packet is the way to go.

Shin Cup Noodle Soup ($.47/ounce)


The overall loser, the Shin Cup had both the thinnest, harshest broth, as well as super-thin, soggy noodles that are very similar in texture to those you'd find in other cup brands like Nissin's Cup Noodles. The dehydrated vegetables were also the smallest—little bits of scallion, hot pepper, and shiitake mushroom add a bit of interest, but not much. As far as instant soups go, we wouldn't kick this one out of bed, but we wouldn't feel the need to put on a new shirt before meeting it at a bar either. Even if we'd spilled some ramen on the old one.

Shin Cup BLACK Premium Noodle Soup ($.89/ounce)


A big step up in noodle and broth quality from its less premium cousin. The label on the top of the box claims that the Shin Black Cup is "Spicy Pot-Au-Feu Flavor," though an examination of the ingredients doesn't reveal anything special as far as unique flavorings go. Like the Black packet version, the Black Cup has a creamier, milder broth with a more "real" flavor, though this guy doesn't have the dehydrated beef chips you'll find in the packet version. No big loss.