Product information
About
A tray of Japanese stir-fried noodles you make with a kettle, from the Ippei-chan line known in Japan as "the yakisoba with the mayonnaise". The sauce is soy and butter rather than the tangy brown sauce most cup yakisoba use, and you top it with a squeeze of spicy mentaiko-flavoured mayo and a sprinkle of cod roe. This is the everyday supermarket tray (Myojo's Ippei-chan line runs larger sizes above it, in other flavours), and it is far milder than "spicy cod roe" makes it sound.
明星 一平ちゃん夜店の焼そば 醤油バター明太子味. Myojo Ippei-chan Yomise no Yakisoba, Shoyu Butter Mentaiko.
What you're getting
- Savoury and rich rather than sweet and tangy: a pork-and-seafood soy sauce carrying a butter aroma. It is a butter flavouring rather than butter, which is why you won't find butter in the ingredient list either.
- Thin, wavy noodles with onion worked into the dough. A crisp, clean bite rather than a chewy one, and the sauce clings to them.
- The mentaiko doesn't come from the sauce. It comes from a topping of cod-roe granules, nori and chilli, and from the mayo, and the topping carries most of it.
- Set your expectations on the soy-butter rather than the roe. The mentaiko is fainter than the name suggests: you taste it as a lift on top rather than the main event.
- Lift the lid and you get a big hit of butter and soy. It smells stronger than it tastes.
- Allergens: contains wheat, egg, milk, soy, fish and squid, plus pork, which Japan declares and Australia does not. Japanese labels don't have to flag fish as an allergen, so the pack names it only in its ingredient list (pollock roe, fish sauce). If you avoid it, look for it by name in the ingredients.
- Also on the label: made on equipment that also handles prawn, crab and walnut. Egg, milk, squid, salmon and mackerel are declared by Myojo but sit inside compound ingredients, so they are not named in its ingredient list.
The chilli in the topping and the spicy mentaiko-flavoured mayo give it a light kick, no more. And this is not the original Ippei-chan with mustard mayonnaise, the brown-sauce flavour: this one's mayo is mentaiko-flavoured. Myojo makes more than one mentaiko Ippei-chan, so check the size. This is the 127 g soy-butter one. And if you search the name in English you will land on a completely different American product, a chilled two-serve pack you cook in a frying pan: this is not that. One tray, one serve, a kettle and a sink.
Mentaiko itself is pollock roe cured in chilli. Our guide Mentaiko: the pink, speckled roe on your pasta, rice and sushi explains the roe and where to find it in Australia.
Ingredients
Fried noodles (wheat flour (produced in Japan), vegetable oils and fats, salt, onion powder), sauce (semi-solid dressing, soy sauce, sugars, pork fat, salt, pork extract, fish sauce, seafood extract, hydrolysed protein, flavour seasoning, spices (pepper, garlic)), dried vegetable (cabbage), topping sachet (processed pollock roe, nori seaweed, spices)
flavour enhancers (amino acids etc.), calcium carbonate, kansui (alkaline noodle salts), caramel colour, alcohol, thickeners (polysaccharide thickeners, modified starch), flavouring, acidulant, carotenoid colour, antioxidant (vitamin E), red yeast rice colour, spice extract, magnesium carbonate, vitamin B2, vitamin B1.
For your safety, please check both the information on this page and the printed label on the pack. If anything is unclear or the information differs, please contact us before consuming the product.
Allergens
- Contains
-
- Wheat
- Egg
- Milk
- Soy
- Fish
- Squid
- May contain
-
- Prawn
- Crab
- Walnut
Not ingredients — these are made or handled on the same equipment as this product, so traces are possible. We list every shared-equipment allergen stated on the pack or by the maker.
- Dietary notes
-
Pork is in the sauce twice, as pork lard and as a pork extract; there is no pork meat in the cup.
For your safety, please check both the information on this page and the printed label on the pack. If anything is unclear or the information differs, please contact us before consuming the product.
Nutrition
| Per tray (127 g) | Per 100 g | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 2368 kJ (566 kcal) | 1865 kJ (446 kcal) |
| Protein | 11.0 g | 8.7 g |
| Fat | 25.2 g | 19.8 g |
| Carbohydrate | 73.7 g | 58.0 g |
| Sodium | 1732 mg | 1364 mg |
From the Japanese pack's nutrition panel — not the Australian nutrition information panel. The Japanese pack gives no saturated fat or sugars figure. The per-100 g column, the kJ figures and sodium (from the pack's salt equivalent, 食塩相当量, ÷ 2.54) are our calculation.
Details
- Maker
- Myojo · Tokyo
- Made in
- Japan
- Net contents
- One tray: 127 g, of which 100 g is noodles
Our guide
How to eat it
- Pour boiling water to the line inside the tray.
- Put the lid down and wait 3 minutes.
- Drain it right out through the spout: a half-hearted drain is what makes the sauce watery.
- All three sachets go on after you drain, never before: pour the sauce over first and stir it well through.
- Squeeze the mayo over the top, then scatter the cod-roe topping on.
Good to know
- Eat it straight away: it firms up and dries out if it sits.
- Some people stir the mayo right through; others leave it in a stripe and get it in bursts. It is a genuine matter of taste, so try it one way and then the other.
- Use a kettle, not the microwave: the tray is not made for it.
- Keep it in the cupboard, out of direct sun and away from anything strongly scented: the pack picks up smells.
In their own words
What Japanese buyers say
What do the numbers mean?
Counts of how many reviews mentioned each thing, not a score. One review can mention several. Every quote is our translation, with the original Japanese beneath it.
- What they like
The noodles have onion kneaded into them, and that rich savouriness is really good.
オニオンを練り込んだ麺でコクのある旨みがとても美味しいです。
from monolog, a Japanese review site
- What they grumble about
Both the mentaiko and the soy-butter are weak — it lacks punch.
明太子と醤油バターの風味が弱く、味のパンチ力に欠ける。
mentioned in 14 of 50 reviews we readfrom monolog
- What they like
I'm no good with spicy food so I ate it nervously, but there's barely any heat and it was delicious.
辛いの苦手でビビりながら食べたのですが、辛味はあまりなく美味しかったです。
from monolog
- What they grumble about
I bought it drawn in by the word "mentaiko", but the smell hit me before I'd even tasted it — what a shock!
明太子の文字に惹かれて買ってみたものの、口にする前から匂いが臭くてびっくり！
from monolog
- What they like
Mentaiko mayo plus a mentaiko sprinkle on top — you get to enjoy mentaiko flavour twice over.
明太子のマヨネーズに明太子のふりかけに、明太子風味を楽しめます。
from monolog
- What they grumble about
The mentaiko asserted itself less than I expected, but it was good on its own terms.
思ったより明太子の主張がありませんでしたが、これはこれでおいしかったです。
from monolog
- What they like
Spot on. Soy-butter mentaiko. I figured it couldn't miss, and it's bang on target. The kind of good that keeps pulling you back.
絶妙。醤油バターの明太子味。外さないとは思ってたけどドンピシャ。あと引くおいしさです。
from mognavi, a Japanese food and drink review site
- What they like
Soy-butter though it is, it eats light — there's none of that heavy, heartburn-y unctuousness.
醤油バターとはいえアッサリしてるので、胸焼けしそうなコッテリ感は無いです。
from monolog
- What they grumble about
It's a touch dry — I think it'd be better with a bit more moisture.
ちょっとパサパサするので、もう少し水分があると良いと思います。
from monolog
Our tip: It dries as it waits: it is at its best the moment it is mixed.
- What they like
The little kick from the mentaiko, the depth of the soy, and that melting butter feel — delicious.
明太子のピリッとした感じと醤油のコクとバターのじゅわっとした感じが美味しい。
from mognavi
- What they grumble about
I decided that when it comes to yakisoba, the plain sauce flavour really is the one.
やっぱり焼きそばはソース味がいいなと思いました。
from monolog
- What they like
I often eat Ippei-chan when I want to get lunch over with easily.
簡単にお昼ごはんをすませたい時によく一平ちゃんを食べます
from monolog
- Mixed feelings
The salt in cup yakisoba does bother me, but the soy-butter flavour was delicious.
カップ焼きそばは塩分高いのが気になるものの、バター醤油味で美味しかった。
from monolog
- What they like
It was better than I expected so I bought it again!
思ってたより美味しくてリピしました！
from monolog
- What they grumble about
Bold move. But isn't this just a follow-up to what U.F.O. already did?
攻めてますね。でもUFOの後出しじゃないでしょうか？
from monolog
- What they like
I was about to eat it and my daughter ate it instead.
食べよう思ってたら、娘に食べられました。
from monolog
Real quotes from the review sites named on the cards. We show no star rating from those sites.
The maker
Where it comes from
- Myojo
- Tokyo
In 1995 Myojo put a sachet of mustard mayonnaise into a tray of instant yakisoba, an odd idea at the time and the first of its kind, and thirty years on a mayonnaise sachet is still the thing Ippei-chan is known for. The name means night-stall yakisoba: the kind sold from a night-market or festival stall, which is the taste Myojo set out to bottle.
Product facts here are checked against the maker's own page: myojofoods.co.jp (opens in a new tab)