Cup Noodles Ice Cream With Shrimp, Mystery Meat Is Best Slurped Ice-Cold

By Mikelle Leow, 18 Jul 2021

Image via Cup Noodle

You’ve heard of brunch—a convenient mishmash of breakfast and lunch, but what about a fusion between supper and dessert?

There are times when even waiting for an instant meal to be ready seems impossible. If you’re too peckish, this variation of Cup Noodles needs no cooking time at all. Earlier this month, Nissin Foods—the inventor of instant ramen as well as maker of America’s Cup Noodles and Top Ramen—shared a photo of a bizarro concoction of freeze-dried noodle ingredients on ice cream, and news outlets just slurped it right up.

Common sense might tell you that the serving of Cup Noodle (the official name of Cup Noodles in Japan) is one of those plastic food items you’d often find in restaurant displays, but this isn’t one of those things that makes sense. It’s a composition of shrimp, mystery meat, green onions and egg chunks atop noodle-shaped soft serve.

Two flavors of this snack-dessert-lunch, sold for ¥400 (US$3.63), exist. There’s an original made up of a soy sauce-flavored ice cream with the usual fixings, and a curry soft-serve version topped with diced meat and vegetables. Those who might be put off by cold meals would be relieved to know they’re only available at the Cup Noodles Museum in Yokohama, Japan.

It wasn’t just about creating a souvenir contentious enough to draw in crowds, it seems. A 2015 Forbes report cited that Nissin Foods thought ramen ice cream would perfectly symbolize the museum’s wish to nurture creativity among children. Ice cream was also a natural choice for the summer.

How chill are you about frozen ramen?

カップヌードル味のソフトクリーム！？

口に入れた瞬間、脳がバグると大好評の「カップヌードルソフトクリーム」はカップヌードルミュージアム横浜限定で販売中！#税込400円 #ソフトクリームの日 #カレー味もあります pic.twitter.com/xXbuaFaFXn
— カップヌードル (@cupnoodle_jp) July 3, 2021