Product information
About
A packet of ramen you cook in a saucepan, not a cup you pour water into. Shio (shee-oh) means salt: it tells you the broth is a clear chicken-and-kelp stock, not that the soup tastes salty. What you smell first is yuzu (yoo-zoo), a Japanese citrus: closer to a mandarin than a lemon, and not sour. Buy it if you want the lightest bowl in our range; if you want a thick, rich ramen, this is the wrong one.
On the pack: 日清ラ王 柚子しお.
The Raoh in Woolworths is a different pack: five single-serve noodles, made in Vietnam and printed for another market. This is the Japanese-market one: made in Japan, three larger servings.
What you're getting
- You will taste the citrus, and that is what people either love or dislike. If you were expecting plain salt ramen, you might be disappointed, one Japanese buyer was: "I thought it was shio ramen and there's yuzu in it… disappointing."
- Under the citrus is a proper stock: chicken and kombu kelp with bonito (dried smoked tuna). It tastes more like a clear Japanese soup than like most ramen. The yuzu peel comes from Kōchi and the bonito from Yaizu.
- Light, but not watery. The broth keeps its flavour even after you add vegetables.
- The noodle is not fried: medium-thick and straight, with a firm, springy bite. One buyer called it better than the fresh noodles from their supermarket.
- Three servings, and nothing else in the bag: no dried vegetables, no meat. An egg or some greens if you want them, but it is good plain, so you need not buy anything to go with it.
- It tastes the lightest of the four, but it is not low in salt. One serving has close to a whole day's salt, going by the World Health Organization's guideline.
- Allergens: contains wheat, egg, milk, fish (mackerel) and soy. Read the pack's own label before you rely on ours.
- Allergens, two things worth knowing: the mackerel is the one nobody expects in a citrus broth. And milk is declared on the pack but is not in the ingredient list, so our ingredients panel does not show it, on milk, trust the allergen list.
The one thing to get right: do not pour the cooking water away. Boil the noodles, then tip that water into your bowl over the soup seasoning and add the noodles last, the water is the broth. The boil time is on the pack and differs between Raoh flavours: look for a numeral followed by 分, the Japanese character for minutes.
Ingredients
The maker's ingredient list, translated from the Japanese pack. Anything after the break is an additive — the Japanese label lists those separately.
Noodles (wheat flour (milled in Japan), salt, vegetable oil, chicken seasoning, egg powder); soup (vegetable oil, salt, sugars, flavoured oil, seasoned seafood oil, chicken extract, chicken fat, seafood extract, powdered bonito flakes, yuzu peel, kombu extract)
modified starch, kansui (alkaline noodle salts), flavour enhancer (amino acids etc.), calcium phosphate, flavouring, acidity regulator, thickening polysaccharide, carotenoid colour, antioxidant (vitamin E), tea extract, vitamin B2, vitamin B1.
The printed label on the pack is always the authority on ingredients and allergens, not this page — please read it in full before you rely on our summary. If you are unsure about an ingredient, contact us.
Allergens
The maker declares:
- Allergens
-
- Wheat
- Egg
- Milk
- Fish
- Soy
The printed label on the pack is always the authority on ingredients and allergens, not this page — please read it in full before you rely on our summary. If you are unsure about an ingredient, contact us.
Details
- Maker
- Nissin
- Made in
- Japan
- Net contents
- One bag: 258 g, three servings, of which 219 g is noodles
Our guide
How to eat it
- The soup is one liquid sachet, and it goes into your empty bowl: never into the pan, and never boiled. Cook one noodle cake in 430 mL of boiling water. Bite a strand as it cooks and take it off when it is as firm as you like: that beats trusting the clock.
- When the noodles have loosened, pour the hot water from the pan into the bowl FIRST and stir the soup through it. The noodles go in last. Nothing is drained away: that cooking water is your broth.
Good to know
- Nothing comes in the bag. Mizuna suits it best, baby spinach or rocket stand in fine, along with a soft-boiled egg or plain shredded chicken. It is also good with nothing on it.
- If you want more citrus, a dab of yuzu kosho, a salted paste of yuzu peel and green chilli, lifts it, though you will need an Asian grocer for it rather than a supermarket.
- Store the bag at room temperature, out of direct sun and away from anything strongly scented.
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
I don't like a full-on yuzu flavour, but I like this one.
ガッツリなゆず味は好きじゃないけどこちらは好き。
- What they like
What's good is that it's not salt — it's yuzu-salt.
塩味じゃなくゆず塩味なのがいい。
- What they grumble about
I thought it was salt ramen and there's yuzu in it… disappointing. Plain salt would have been fine.
塩ラーメンやとおもったら柚子入ってるし…残念 ふつの塩で良いのに。
Our tip: This is why the page tells you up front that you will taste citrus. It is a fair complaint and an avoidable one — the buyer simply wasn't told what they were buying.
- What they like
For when you want something light — but not ochazuke-light (ochazuke being rice with tea poured over it). Perfect then.
味はさっぱりしたのが食べたいけどお茶漬けみたいなそういうあっさりじゃないのよね。って時にちょうどいいです。
- What they like
Even with vegetables in, the soup doesn't get watery. Nice.
野菜をいれてもスープがあまり薄くならずいい感じです。
- What they like
Seriously good! The yuzu isn't an unpleasant smell.
まじで美味い！ゆず嫌な臭さじゃない
- What they grumble about
The soy and miso were good so I tried this, but the citrus is too strong — I won't repurchase.
醤油や味噌がおいしかったので試しに購入してみたけど柑橘の味が強すぎてリピートはしないと思う。
mentioned in 5 of 92 reviews we read
- What they like
It says yuzu but I didn't expect much — the aroma was astonishing and I've been hooked since.
柚子とうたってるがそこまで期待してなかった。が、驚くほどが香りが良く、それからハマってる。
- What they like
The faint yuzu makes the salt ramen feel even cleaner.
僅かに香る柚子が更に塩ラーメンをサッパリさせる印象。
- What they like
The yuzu aroma is superb. Exquisite harmony with the bonito stock — one more bowl and it became a favourite.
ゆずの香りが最高。カツオの出汁と絶妙なハーモニー、もう一度でお気に入りになりました
- What they grumble about
The yuzu is restrained. It could assert itself a bit more.
ゆずが控えめ。もう少し主張があっても良い。
mentioned in 4 of 92 reviews we read
Our tip: The two complaints run in opposite directions and cancel out at roughly equal weight, which is usually what a flavour aimed at the middle looks like.
- What they like
Astonishingly gentle broth (not strong-tasting) and delicious — gentle enough you could drink it with a cold.
びっくりするほどスープが優しくて(味が濃く無くて)美味しいです。風邪を引いている時でもこれなら飲めそうなほど優しい味です
- What they like
With so much heavy ramen about, sometimes you just want a clean one — so this is welcome.
コテコテのラーメンが多い中でどうしてもすっきりしたラーメンを食べたくなる時があるのでありがたい。
- What they like
A light salt flavour with yuzu aroma. First instant ramen in ages — the noodles surprised me, better than supermarket fresh noodles.
ゆずの香りがするあっさりした塩味。インスタントラーメンを久しぶりに食べて、スーパーで買う生麺よりもおいしい麺に驚きでした。
- What they grumble about
As a clear Japanese soup I'd call the broth delicious, but as ramen it wasn't to my taste — hence this rating.
お吸い物としてならスープは美味しいと思いますが、ラーメンとしては好みではなかったのでこの評価になりました。
- What they like
In summer I like making it strong, adding ice and eating it cold.
夏場濃いめに作って氷入れて冷たくして食うん好き
mentioned in 2 of 92 reviews we read
Real quotes from Japanese review sites, translated by us. We show no star rating from those sites.
The maker
Where it comes from
- Nissin
Raoh started in 1992 as Japan's first shelf-stable "fresh-style" cup ramen: a soft noodle in a pouch rather than a dried block. Nissin discontinued it in August 2010, then relaunched the brand three weeks later on a new non-fried noodle built in three layers. The bagged version followed in 2012.
The whole brand is an answer to one question: whether a packet noodle can eat like a ramen shop's. Every generation of it has been another attempt at the same thing, and the noodle is where the effort goes.
Product facts here are checked against the maker's own page: nissin.com (opens in a new tab)
Often bought together
-
Nissin Raoh Yuzu Shio Ramen Packet — Citrus & Salt Broth, 3 Servings, 258g
$8.80
You are on this one
