Product information
About
Ippei-chan is instant yakisoba. Japanese fried noodles you drain, rather than a soup you drink. The sauce is thick and sweet-savoury, in the Worcestershire family, and one of the three sachets is mustard mayonnaise, which goes on over the top: the part nobody expects, and the reason to choose this one over the other two big cup yakisoba brands, Nissin's U.F.O. and Peyoung. It is an ordinary supermarket cup in Japan, not a specialty item, and one of the three brands Japanese eaters compare against each other. Buy it for the mustard mayonnaise; if you find heavy, rich sauces cloying, this is the wrong one to start on.
Myojo's Ippei-chan range runs from this 135 g cup up through a large and an extra-large that comes with two mayonnaise sachets, and sideways into other flavours: a salt one, a cod-roe one, and one built on okonomiyaki sauce, the brown sauce Japan puts on its savoury pancakes. This is the original, the one the others are flavour variants of.
On the pack: 明星 一平ちゃん夜店の焼そば, ippei-chan yomise no yakisoba. 一平ちゃん is the brand, 夜店の焼そば is this product.
What you're getting
- Flash-fried wheat noodles that hold their bite, staying firm rather than going soft. The sauce is a thick liquid rather than a powder, so it mixes through easily.
- The mustard mayonnaise comes in a squeeze sachet, so you control it. Put half on, stir, taste, then decide: some people get a sharp hit up the nose from it and some barely notice, and you cannot take it back out.
- The cabbage is already in the cup. Three sachets come loose under the lid: the liquid sauce; a furikake, which is a dry topping of green seaweed (sea lettuce) and pickled red ginger with savoury flakes through it; and the mustard mayonnaise.
- It is a rich cup and it is meant to be: heavy on both salt and calories.
- There is meat in it: the sauce contains pork extract. Japan declares pork as an allergen and Australia does not, so it will not appear on any Australian allergen chart.
- Allergens: contains wheat, egg, milk, soy, sesame, orange and apple. Australian labels don't have to flag orange or apple as allergens, and the ingredient list does not say where they come from, so if you avoid either, skip it. Our list follows the maker's own Japanese label.
- Prawn, crab and walnut are not ingredients, but can still be in the cup, by two separate routes: it is made on equipment that also runs them, and the sea lettuce in the furikake is gathered by a method that mixes prawn and crab in with it.
This is not a soup: at three minutes you pour the water out through the lid, and the sauces go on after that.
Two more worth knowing. Despite the soba in the name, yakisoba is a wheat noodle: there is no buckwheat in it, only wheat. And a chilled "Ippei-chan" stir-fry pack sold in America is a different product, cooked in a pan with oil: if you land on those instructions, they are not for this. The only method Myojo publishes for this cup is boiling water poured in, waited on, and drained.
Ingredients
Fried noodles (wheat flour (made in Japan), vegetable oil, salt, sauce, sugars), sauce (sauce, mustard mayonnaise, sugars, vegetable oil, salt, flavoured oil, hydrolysed protein, processed sauce product, flavour seasoning, pork extract, spices, brewed vinegar), dried garnish (cabbage), furikake topping (processed sauce product, mayonnaise-style sauce flakes, sea lettuce, pickled red ginger)
caramel colour, seasoning (amino acids etc.), calcium carbonate, kansui (alkaline noodle salts), acidity regulator, emulsifier, flavouring, antioxidant (vitamin E), spice extract, magnesium carbonate, carotenoid colour, 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
- Sesame
- Orange
- Apple
- 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 it, as a pork extract in the sauce. Myojo declares it on the pack.
Orange and apple are on our allergen list because Japan requires them to be declared. Australian labels don't have to flag either as an allergen.
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 serving (135 g) | Per 100 g | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 2443 kJ (584 kcal) | 1810 kJ (433 kcal) |
| Protein | 10.0 g | 7.4 g |
| Fat | 24.7 g | 18.3 g |
| Carbohydrate | 80.5 g | 59.6 g |
| Sodium | 1850 mg | 1371 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 cup — 135 g, of which 100 g is noodles
Our guide
How to eat it
- Take the three sachets out of the cup before the water goes in. The cabbage stays, and nothing else goes in first.
- Pour in 540 mL of boiling water, up to the line inside.
- Sit the liquid sauce sachet on top of the lid while it steeps: three minutes up there and it goes on warm instead of cold.
- Drain at three minutes, and drain it over the sink rather than over your lap: the lid is the strainer and the cup is full of boiling water.
- Mix the liquid sauce all the way through first.
- Put the mustard mayonnaise and the furikake on top after that.
Good to know
- Optional: stir a raw or fried egg through it at the end — it turns the cup into a fuller meal.
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
Surprisingly rich — noodles with real texture, a thick sauce and a punchy mustard mayo that match perfectly. The best.
意外とこってりと食感のある麺に濃いソースとガツンと風味のいいからしマヨが絶妙にマッチしてて最高
mentioned in 5 of 6 reviews we readfrom mognavi, a Japanese food and drink review site
- What they grumble about
I'd only ever had the mild kind of mustard-mayo squeeze, so this was stronger than I expected and hit my nose.
からしマヨビームは天使のやつしか食べたこと無かったので、予想より強めで鼻が刺激的。
from mognavi
- What they like
No-doubt delicious! The mustard in the mustard-mayo really works, and that richness clinging to the slightly thicker noodles is great.
間違いない美味しさ！カラシマヨのカラシが効いてて、マヨのコクと少し太めの麺に絡むカラシマヨが美味い！
from monolog, a Japanese review site
- What they grumble about
The mustard mayo isn't really that hot.
からしマヨネーズはあまり辛くないです。
from mognavi
- What they like
There were sachets of liquid sauce, sauce furikake and mustard mayo. All three are the add-afterwards kind.
液体ソース、ソースふりかけ、からしマヨネーズが小袋で入っていました。これらは全部後入れタイプです。
from mognavi
- What they like
Thin noodles with a snappy bite.
細めなプツプツとした麺。
from mognavi
- What they grumble about
I left a third of it.
3ぶんの1残した。
from mognavi
- What they like
It's strongly flavoured without being oddly sweet, the sauce isn't overpowering either, and the noodle thickness is just right.
味の濃さも変に甘くなく、でもソースが強すぎるわけでもなく麺の太さもちょうどよいです。
from monolog
- What they like
Among cup yakisoba it's head and shoulders above. I want it weekly and buy it as my lunch at work.
カップ焼きそばの中では群を抜いて美味しいです。週一で食べたくなり、会社のお昼ご飯として買っています。
from monolog
- What they grumble about
The spice is strong and the mustard piles on top of it, so it isn't the real taste of yakisoba — and the noodles are thin with a rubber-band texture that loses to the seasoning.
スパイスが強く 更にからしが追い打ちで焼きそば本来の味ではなく その上麺が細く輪ゴムのような食感で味付けに負けている
from mognavi
- What they like
The mustard mayo flavour is something else, and the sauce is strong.
辛子マヨネーズの味がすごい、ソースが濃い。
from mognavi
- What they like
I ate it with a raw egg added.
生卵を入れて食べました。
from mognavi
- What they grumble about
Honestly, I don't want to feed this to my family.
本当は家族に食べさせたくありません。
from monolog
- What they like
I eat it as a late-night snack when I'm a bit peckish! Delicious, no question.
小腹の夜食食ってます！兎に角美味しい!!
from yahoo
- What they grumble about
Maybe because I normally eat a properly strong-flavoured one from another maker, this felt underwhelming — cheap or not, I don't think I'd buy it again.
普段別メーカーのしっかり濃い味の物を食べているせいか物足りない感じ、安くても次は買わないかな。
from monolog
- What they like
This Ippei-chan yakisoba has become like a friend I get lonely without seeing.
この一平ちゃん焼きそばだけは会わないとさみしい友人みたいなものになっています
from yahoo
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
Myojo Foods has been making instant noodles from Tokyo since 1950. This cup arrived in February 1995.
The name is the whole idea. Yomise means night stalls, and the yakisoba cooked on a hot plate at those stalls is what Myojo went to the Osaka area to study and then set out to copy: including the local habit of finishing the noodles with mayonnaise, which is where the mustard mayo sachet comes from. The sauce is worked into the noodle dough as well as poured over the top.
The mustard mayonnaise was reworked in 2024 with more egg yolk in it. It is the part of this cup people argue about.
Product facts here are checked against the maker's own page: myojofoods.co.jp (opens in a new tab)
Often bought together
-
Myojo Ippei-chan Instant Yakisoba Mustard Mayo 135g
$5.99 AUD
You are on this one
