I have an obsession with Instant Noodles. Yes, most cup noodles out there are Japanese, but imagine how crazy it would be if they made cup noodles for the West. That's what McDougall's Soup Cups are: instant soup, just add water. Nevermind they sell the same thing in cans. The soup cup comes in the same familiar form factor as family favorites like Maruchan Cup Beef Flavor and Nongshim Shin Spicy Cup Noodles but it's black bean soup. Considering Japanese people believe Rāmen is a soup dish, not a noodle dish, the application of soup to instant cup foods is fitting.

It's incredibly barebones. Some would call it "rustic". "Hearty". A little bit of salt would go a long way but would ruin the heart-healthy aura of the dish. The taste is like emulsified cardboard, and the texture is very similar too. Imagine you threw a flimsy cardboard box into the recycling can but missed and it landed on the ground and then you forgot about it and it rained for a week straight. The soup is sopping wet, like that, and sort of tastes like it too. Not off-putting. Just bland.

And even though I did my best to stir it, the soup is weirdly heterogenous in spots with respect to taste and texture. I thought the distant metallic taste could have just been due to the fork I'm eating McDougall's with but I'm not so sure. There are some detectable, palatable beans in the cup but the overwhelming texture is paste. There's lime juice listed in the ingredients but scarcely perceptible in the product. A bit of citric acid could help. I didn't add any, like how I don't add things to cup noodles I'm reviewing. Maybe I should've.

Despite it being one of the most underwhelming, bland items I've eaten from a cup it actually has a bit of salt in it: half of what's in Maruchan Cup Hot Spicy Beef Flavor but still, not nothing.

What sets these apart from cup noodles are McDougall's macronutrients, sporting an impressive 21g of protein, 14g of fiber, and being very low in fat. The ingredients list is quite stripped down, compared to other things in cups, featuring just 13 ingredients that are all just regular foods, food powders or sugar. Impressive. All in all, these are a quaint, filling and welcome foil to the onslaught of instant noodles out there. I recommend trying, probably just once, if you're up for something different.