Tirol Chocolate – Yatta Men Ramen Dagashi

Before it was popularized as a snack, I used to take instant noodles and eat them “raw”. When I say raw, I really mean uncooked. They aren’t technically raw because the way they are created to be instant involves flash frying. It’s technically edible dry but back then there was still a bit of a taboo around it. Nowadays it’s basically normalized and sold as an entirely separate product altogether.

The combination is definitely head turning, but I don’t anticipate this being as weird as it might sound. I mean, we have savoury chocolate now so what’s to say this won’t work? My mind’s eye is imagining something that starts off chocolatey but quickly gets savoury and starts tasting a little like chicken stock. Chocolate chicken intrigues me. At least the idea of it does.

The texture of the chocolate is a stark contrast the the crunchy ramen bits on the inside. They jammed quite a bit of those ramen pieces in the centre, and fortunately they are still very crunchy. It’s similar in texture to the chocolate filled with rice crackers, but these are crunchier and are exactly what you would imagine if you took instant noodles, crushed them into small pieces and put them into a chocolate. The crunch is satisfying but not hard enough to break anything, and the chocolate helps to provide a “cushion” to keep all the crunchy bits from going everywhere. Surprisingly good combo, I’d say.

The flavour is very savoury due to the ramen on the inside. To anyone who hasn’t had instant ramen noodle snacks, I would describe it as a slight savoury flavour that’s like a soy, but not overly salty. The end result is something that feels a bit weird against normal milk chocolate, but somehow works well with it and doesn’t overpower it. I feel that this combination makes it harder to get tired or get snack fatigue from, largely just because of the savoury element contrasting the sweet. I find it much easier to binge on savoury snacks like chips than it is to on sweet ones like chocolate. But that could be just me.

I may be bias towards the ramen snacks, but I enjoyed this enough that I might get it again. Then again, I wonder if it’s because I just really like eating dried ramen and I merely tolerate the chocolate. But hey, everyone’s mileage may vary so give it a try if you can and figure out where you land.