American Nissin Cup Noodle - Spicy Chile Chicken Flavor

So, I was surprised to find Nissin Cup Noodles from the US at my local grocery store. Needless to say, I bought a couple to try them out. 8D

I deliberately went with "spicy," lol.

I'm reviewing the Spicy Chile Chicken flavour first, and I will cover the Spicy Lime Shrimp flavour in the next blog post!

I kinda like American Chili so this should be good.

This is the ingredients list, if anybody's interested.

The actual cup is disappointingly plain, though.

Oh, so that's where the cooking instructions were!

This is how it looks inside! So pretty!

However, since the cup is made of styrofoam, I'm not gonna pour hot water into it and I'll instead transfer the noodles into a ceramic bowl. (I'm surprised they're still using styrofoam though, given the environmental and health implications associated with it.)

Looks like fine-dining, lol.

Pour hot water into the bowl...

And cover it with a plate!

This is not the first time I'm preparing regular cup noodles in a bowl like this, since I also avoid using the plastic cups the local cup noodles come packaged in. (Better safe than sorry.) It takes a little practice to know how much water you need to put into the bowl (since there are no markers). So far, the Japanese and Korean cup noodles are the ones I still prepare and eat in their cups. (But now I recently find that paper cups are not safe either, fml.)

I should also mention that about a minute after pouring the hot water, you should mix the noodles a bit to make sure it's all submerged. If you're preparing the cup noodle in a large enough mug, then this step is not needed.

And it's done!

So, how does it taste?

It's... not spicy at all... ): I'm kinda disappointed... but then again, this is US levels of spicy, I suppose. Oh well, nothing a bit of paprika powder can't fix.

Other than that, the taste is not bad, quite pleasant. I can taste the chile/chili, but it's pretty mild. I wonder if the removal of MSG has hurt the flavour somewhat. The presence of corn in cup noodles is always welcome, though.

I rate this a 6/10. I wouldn't mind trying this again if I happen to be craving the taste of American chili, and I'll probably add stuff to it to make it taste better/stronger.