Family Mart Collection Cup Noodles - Shrimp Tempura Soba

A Review: Family Mart Collection - Shrimp Tempura Soba. All photos taken by Natalie & Hai.

Brand: Family Mart Collection

Flavour: Shrimp Tempura / Soba Noodles / may contain sesame seeds and fish meat paste

Origin: Japan 

Size: 75g / 300ml

Cooking Time: 3 minutes and cooked with boiling water 

A Back Story:  Family Mart (the other famous Japanese convenient store), home to delicious snacks and drinks also have their own collection of instant noodles. We already ate through their yummy oden, onigiri and fried chicken. Impressed, we decided to give Family Mart a go.

Opening the pack: On top is a pretty Tempura prawn flavoured cake with pink sakura decorations. This is made from flour, green onions and fish meat paste.

Noodles: It has a three minute cooking time. The noodles are fried buckwheat soba - thin and flat. When cooked, it had the classic grainy texture and was on the firm side. But it was too grainy, with no balance in the texture. I was not a fan as these soba noodles because they definitely not restaurant quality. I know these aren't meant to reach that quality but it definitely tasted like what we paid for. 

Flavour: The Tempura cake instantly soaked up the water and became soggy straight away and breaks up into the broth. It eventually becomes hard to grab with chopsticks, starts to soak up the broth and become gluggy. Eat fast! It became so gluggy, most of the tempura stayed at the bottom of the cup when finished.

The broth was reddish brown with a shrimp flavour but more on the salty side.

Conclusion: Well, this wasn't one of our favourites. I find these soba noodles, as it was not cooked fresh was a disappointment because the texture is so firm and grainy. Definitely tasted like underwhelming convenient store food. Hai said "it isn't inedible". The texture of the tempura really distracts from eating the noodles, but we will give points for presentation.

Natalie's Rating: 3/5
Hai's Rating: 3/5