I have a professed love for Nijiya. I prefer it over Mitsuwa, if only because it seems like a much smaller operation and is run by friendlier, tighter-knit group of employees. I have only been to the Sawtelle (Los Angeles) and Mountain View locations, but I have been pleased with both (and!! The Sawtelle location closes at midnight. Perfect for late-night snack runs!). Although Mitsuwa has better “deli” food (a.k.a. Food Courts), it sometimes feel too supermarket-y, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I delight in finding the most random things and trying out new snacks and food whenever I make a Nijiya run. The Mountain View location is right by my work, so it’s definitely not an inconvenience, and if anything, it’s a nice break from my (albeit very colorful) cubicle.

On one of these Nijiya runs, I was hurriedly going through the aisles to find something, and my eyes met this:

Instant pasta?! At 307 calories a serving? I’m down!

Review of the product, complete with pictures, underneath the cut

After carefully reading the instructions (a.k.a. reading the pictures), I opened the box to see what madness awaited:

Left to right: sauce packet, empty box, pasta bowl.

The pasta in the pasta bowl was actually fresh. That isn’t too big of a surprise, considering the abundance of instant fresh udon bowls and other non-fried instant noodle bowls, but for whatever reason, the fact that these were fresh pasta noodles made it somewhat more surprising

So, I peeled back the seal to the dotted line, poured in the Pasta Sauce, resealed the thing, and put it back inside the box. An interesting procedure–this was the first time I’ve had to put a sealed bowl of some sort inside another container. I’m assuming it helps with heat retention or something, but who knows. I’m not a scientist

After figuring out what wattage our microwave puts out, I set the timer accordingly, and within minutes, I had myself a nice, piping-hot bowl of neopolitan spaghetti!

Ground pepper for the final touch. I keep a pepper grinder in my cubicle

Overall, I found it to be surprisingly tasty. If you’re into Japanese-style spaghetti (somewhat sweet, but not overly so; light in flavor), this is actually a pretty good product to have. I can’t say much for its nutritional value, but it’s certainly a lot better for you than instant ramen (what, with the blanched noodles and overly salty seasoning packets (not that I don’t love it anyway)). The sauce packet contains actual bits of tomatoes and mushroom! If you really wanted to, you could probably slice up some hot dog and add it to the concoction