Eating Japan’s Mystery Eel, mysteriously, both is and isn’t like eating real eel【Taste test】

Cup Noodle maker releases instant cup unagi…except it’s not really unagi.

We love a mystery, especially when it’s one we can eat. So it was with great excitement that our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun recently sat down with a cup of Mystery Eel, or Mystery Unagi, to use its Japanese name.

Mystery Eel is the newest innovation from Nissin, the inventor of Cup Noodle. Part of Nissin’s continuing quest to bring us super-quick, extra-easy instant meals inside of cups is its Cup Meshi line (meshi meaning “rice”), and its newest member is Mystery Unagi-don, inspired by unagidon, rice bowls topped with unagi, freshwater eel.

So what’s the mystery here? The Mystery Eel is actually a plant-based unagi substitute. In addition to its appeal to those limiting their intake of animal products for dietary or environmental reasons, Mystery Eel also stands to be a low-cost alternative to ordinarily expensive actual unagi, with the Mystery Eel Cup Meshi priced at 369 yen (US$2.30).

Open up the lid, and you’ll see bits of Mystery Eel mixed in with the waiting-to-be-cooked rice. Preparing Cup Meshi is pretty similar to preparing Cup Noodle, just pour in the hot water and wait five minutes for everything to cook.

Gourmands often say that the first taste is with the eyes, but in the case of Mystery Eel Cup Meshi, it’s actually with the nose. With the cooking done, P.K. peeled back the lid, and was rewarded with the intense aroma of unadon as the steam drifted up to bathe his face in the mouthwatering fragrance.

There’s just a tiny bit of fishiness to it, most likely due to the whitebait stock used in the broth, but nothing that would turn away an eel fan. P.K. puts the Mystery Eel Cup Meshi’s scent at a 99-percent match for actual unagidon, and he had high hopes as he went in for a taste.

▼ The Mystery Eel pieces cook up pretty plump, as you can see here.

But while the Mystery Eel Cup Meshi smells the part, the imitation unagi itself has a pretty different texture from the real thing. Real unagi has an almost melty moistness to its meat, but the Mystery Eel is closer in texture to the bits of pork that are often part of instant ramen. To P.K., it’s neither off-putting nor endearing, but it did remind him, as he was chewing, that he wasn’t eating actual unagi.

On the other hand, the flavor of the seasonings is excellent! Mystery Meal includes a dash of sansho, a kind of bitter Japanese powdered pepper that’s always sprinkled on unadon, and the broth replicates the rich sweetness of the glaze that’s traditionally applied to grilled unagi.

In the end, Mystery Eel doesn’t really look or feel, in terms of texture, like eel. However, eel itself actually has a very mild flavor, with most of what you taste coming from the sauce and other seasonings applied to it, and Mystery Eel Cup Meshi does a great job with those, so much so that P.K. says its “so delicious I shuddered while eating it,” and it smells like unadon too.

So while you could make an argument either way about Mystery Eel being an effective substitute for actual eel, there’s no question that after having tried it, P.K. wants to eat more of it.

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