Cup Noodles, instant yakisoba, and most other freeze-dried noodle pots take around 3-5 minutes to 'cook' once you pour hot water in and close the lid. The noodles I'm reviewing today don't even take that long. Hell, you don't need to boil water for them.
'Chicken Ramen in 0 seconds' is easily the most 'instant' instant ramen I've ever eaten.
The pack easily stood out on the conbini shelf. Not just from the '0 seconds' in big white lettering above the Chicken Ramen logo, but because Chicken Ramen mascot Hiyoko-chan's big kawaii yellow face covers the whole thing. It's like being stared at. Like Hiyoko-chan was silently pleading with me to write this review. I bought 2 packs.
Top right on the pack in the above pic, you can see a green bit with an important message - that's the advice not to add hot water to this. Or any liquid. "It won't taste good!" That's repeated on the back of the pack, in case you aren't getting the hint.
Do not add water. Well, that goes against everything I've ever known and appreciated about instant ramen. So what's going on with this?
I have great news for you: there's no need to hold the noodles in your mouth for 3 minutes and let your spit and body temperature do the work. (Honestly, ew.) The pack says 'just eat it as is'. The chicken flavour's also been toned down to 'light/mild' for direct consumption.
You've got 2 options: bite straight into the whole lump of noodles, or break it apart and nibble away like it's a bag of crunchy snacks. I ended up doing both. It isn't a proper review if I don't, right?
Open the pack, and the contents look reassuringly like every other instant ramen pack. Which is to say, it's a giant noodle block. No surprise there. You can hopefully see from my photo that there isn't as much seasoning as you'd usually get. That creates the lighter flavour, and also helps make the noodles easier to handle.
I started by just taking a big bite out of the block, like some kind of noodle novice. It was a bold and ambitious move on my part, kinda fun to try, and a complete rookie mistake.
As you eat more of the noodles, bits flake off and the block starts to crumble. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to eat the whole thing without anything breaking off, and biting into it only expedites the process. So you do, eventually, have to pick the bits apart no matter what.
In that sense, 'zero-seconds Chicken Ramen' really is just a snack bag and not a noodle pack. It doesn't rehydrate in your mouth (again, ew). It stays crunchy as you chew.
It's got that Chicken Ramen taste I instantly (ha) recognised, which is always nice, and without getting flavour powder all over my hands. I think the amount of noodles in the pack (and the calorie count) was the same as usual.
I would eat this again, between meals, but I'd crush the pack up before opening it. And after apologising to Hiyoko-chan for roughing up their face.
Verdict: 7/10. It's a decent snack, but not a full meal.