While researching Maruchan Cup Chili Piquin and Shrimp I discovered seafood flavor cup noodles are probably Nissin's most popular cup noodle, which was a very surprising fact to learn. I kept this knowledge in a dusty corner of my brain until today when I saw on the side of Nissin's Seafood cup noodles in H-Mart the words "#1 in Japan". I guess it's true!

Seafood is one of Nissn's oldest varieties too, introduced in August 19841. There are many variations of Seafood, like Seafood BIG, Lite, PRO, soupless and MILK. The one I have today has kana on the front but this is just a misdirection, Nissin (USA) makes these in California. It's a nice touch though and lets you know this cup might be a bit different than cup noodles you're used to domestically. And it is.

As soon as I breach the lid I take a smell by accident, immediately I'm reminded of an aquarium or the live seafood section at a Chinese grocer. After I've cooked them they taste like they smelled: fishy. It's not surprising but if you don't like the smell of fish you will not like the Seafood cup noodles. Even the noodles, which are so thin that you'd imagine they would not absorb much broth, taste like it too. It's quite powerful.

The noodles are thin like angel hair pasta. They break easily and have very little bite but for that reason are easy to eat quickly.

The broth is great, just the right amount of fishy and salty, and the floating seafood bits add excellent variety. There's crab, shrimp, pollock, egg and pacific whiting. After I finish the broth I sense a vague flour-y texture coating the inside of my mouth. The second ingredient after enriched flour is "tapioca starch", which may lend to this texture. There's a lot of fish too which is a welcome change from most seafood-themed cup noodles, especially Maruchan Cup Chili Piquin and Shrimp which had the world's tiniest portion of equally tiny dehydrated shrimp. Nissin has redeemed seafood cup noodles.