New instant noodles taste like that bland spaghetti they stick under hamburger in bentos

All that excitement and magic is harnessed in one cup.

You know when you buy a bento, there’s often a little wad of spaghetti included somewhere. It’s usually a small and underwhelming bundle of pasta tucked in a corner or in the case of a bento with a seasoned ground beef patty – or “hamburg” as it’s called here – the spaghetti serves as a kind of underlay for the meat that soaks up the runoff sauce.

For those who eat bentos it’s a well-known taste despite not being a memorable taste at all. And now, Acecook has attempted to replicate it in their Nameless Underlay Spaghetti Flavored Yakisoba, Hamburg Bento Style instant noodles. Judging by the labeling on the product it may be the first in a series of instant noodle flavors called Tasty Stuff that Everyone Knows.

Our writer P.K. Sanjun was given a preview cup and was eager to try it out. According to Acecook, the noodles are made to be round and thick with just the right firmness and smoothness, while the sauce replicates the demi-glace used on bento hamburg.

Preparation is your standard instant noodle fare: Just add hot water and the packet of dried beef and onion bits to the noodles for five minutes and drain it out. After that, add the packet of flavored oil that also helps to give the right consistency to the noodles.

Finally, add in the packet of sauce and mix it all up.

After taking his first bite, P.K. was amazed at how accurately these instant noodles recreated the taste of that spaghetti found under the hamburger patty in a bento. The most impressive aspect of this was that the flavor wasn’t bold, like a lot of instant noodles, but captured the delicate blandness of real bento spaghetti.

The noodles also had the smooth texture of spaghetti and our writer felt that Acecook not only outdid themselves in creativity in coming up with this idea but in execution for doing it so well.

Bento-bottom spaghetti is about the farthest thing from haute cuisine, but P.K. felt that these noodles had a strangely elegant feel to them. It was probably due to the more subdued – dare we say “demure” – flavor.

That being said, some people might not share his opinion and feel like something is missing from Nameless Underlay Spaghetti Flavored Yakisoba. For those people, P.K. recommends getting an actual seasoned hamburger patty and just plopping it on top to complete the circle of life.

If you want to try it yourself, it’s on sale from 27 January for 298 yen (US$1.90) a pack.

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