For better or worse, instant noodles are one of the most important Japanese culinary creations of the modern day. And Japanese company Nissin leads the world in production of instant ramen. This is the company that not only invented instant noodles, but today sells both Cup Noodles and Top Ramen. The company has its own museum in Osaka, which Erin wrote about way back in the day.

But Nissin, not being content with just one instant ramen museum, decided to open another museum in Yokohama on September 17 this year.

The Yokohama Museum

The Yokohama museum is extremely similar to the Osaka location in a lot of ways. The museum, of course, has the history of Nissin detailed in the museum, displaying products from the company’s past, pictures from early days of the company, and other interesting Nissin tidbits. But of course, a museum dedicated to the history of Nissin sounds pretty boring to most people, so Nissin has made the museum more exciting by adding these cool exhibits:

My Cup Noodle Factory

Probably the coolest part of the museum is the “My Cup Noodle Factory,” where you get to make your very own Cup Noodle from start to finish. You get to design the cup itself, by that I mean you get some markers and a blank cup.

“…and some sprinkles, and some Oreo bits…”

You get to choose the fillings for your Cup Noodles, which include foods like shrimp, kimchi, asparagus, and cheese. From there, the museum freeze dries and seals your noodles for you to enjoy later at home, or in a bomb shelter in some sort of apocalyptic scenario.

Make Your Own Noodles

The Nissin museum also teaches you how to make your very own ramen noodles. The museum walks you through all the steps, from kneading and rolling the noodles, to cutting them up, steaming them, and ultimately flash frying them to turn them instant ramen. It’s all the taste of the three-minute instant ramen you know and love, with all the effort of making an actual meal!

Former Prime Minister Richard Gere watches child laborers produce ramen.

The museum requires groups to make reservations in advance to make the noodles, but it definitely does sound like an interesting thing to do. After all, how many of us make our own noodles?

Restaurant

The museum also features a restaurant that serves different types of noodles from around the world. You can get everything from phở to rigatoni and anything in between.

Admission to the museum is ¥500, or about US $6.50. It costs a little extra to put together your own cup, make ramen, or grab a bite to eat at the restaurant, but it definitely looks like it’s worth it.

Momofuku Ando

Of course, I can’t talk about Nissin’s newest museum without talking about the company’s founder, Momofuku Ando. Ando was the Thomas Edison of prepackaged dried foods. Born in Taiwan, Ando moved to Japan after World War 2, eventually becoming a Japanese citizen.

Ando started Nissin while perfecting the technology to flash-fry noodles. By flash-frying noodles, he found a way to preserve noodles for people to eat later.

Momofuku Ando: Millionaire, playboy, stand-in Bond villain.

Ando took great pride in his invention. After the war, the Japanese were in desperate need for food. There were famines, and many people literally starved to death in the post-war years. Instant ramen provided an inexpensive and effective way for people to get the calories they needed to live.

But while Ando’s invention was certainly very important after World War 2, what about instant noodles today?

Instant Ramen: Actually Not That Great for You

Turns out instant ramen actually pretty bad for you. There are of course tons of health concerns about instant ramen, everything from its high sodium and fat contents, to being devoid of pretty much every vitamin known to man. And now that Japan’s food supply is much more secure than it was in the Post-War era, instant ramen isn’t as much of a necessity as it used to be.

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Have you been to the Osaka Nissin Museum? Have you gotten a chance to visit the new Yokohama location? Let me know down in the comments!

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Come lunchtime sophomore year of high school, all the cool kids were eating Cup Noodles. I wasn’t cool, unfortunately, but I loved them as well—with an instant ramen in my hands, I looked very much like that kid in the picture up there: excited, elated, and full of MSG-goodness.

Towards the end of the school year, though, the novelty of eating freeze-dried foodstuffs was wearing off, and that urban legend about the guy with the waxy stomach started going around, so Cup Noodles went the way of Twinkies and Spaghetti O’s—I just kind of stopped eating them, and eventually I forgot them all together. That is, of course, until I discovered the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum, which has rekindled my love of all things Nissin.

Located in northern Osaka, the museum’s main galleries chronicle instant ramen’s rise to glory, from it’s creation in 1958* to its eventual space debut in 2005. Now, I’m sure that’s all very interesting stuff—but that’s not what I’d be going to Osaka for. Nope, I’d be going to get myself a spot in line at the museum’s “Cup Noodle Factory” for a customized cup or two of the good stuff.

Upon arriving at the attraction, you’d start the journey for the perfect ramen by transforming a humble styrofoam cup into a work of art. You’d then pass that off to a helpful factory employee who would stick the noodles into it upside-down (for some reason, this is very, very important). After that comes the most mouth-watering part: getting to choose the little freeze-dried extras.

First comes the soup; original, seafood, curry, or salt-based. Then comes the agonizing decision of which 4 of the 12 available toppings to add to your cup. You can choose from shrimp (エビ), egg (卵), green onion (ネギ), asparagus (アスパラ), corn (コーン), kimchi (キムチ), pork (豚肉), chicken cutlet (チキンカツ), cheese (チーズ), fish cake (ナルト), imitation crab (カニカマ), and garlic chips (がリックチップ). While some of those might seem a bit strange (ex: cheese) they’re all very popular add-ins—I’ve been told cheese and curry are great together, though I’ve never tested out this claim.

After everything has been added, your Cup Noodle is then sealed, shrink-wrapped, and packaged. All that’s left to do is find the closest available source of hot water and enjoy. If you’re curious, here are a few pictures of the process and results from Flickr, as well as a neat video:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=govq7QXaNYE']

The Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum

Address: 8-25 Masumi-cho, Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: +81-072-752-0825
Hours: 9:30am to 4pm
Holidays: Tuesdays and New Year’s Holidays
Admission: Free for the main museum, 300 円 to 500 円 for the ramen-making exhibits

* The museum’s namesake, having passed away earlier this year, is fondly remembered as “the King of Instant Ramen”. As the story goes, walking one night in post-WWII Japan (where food shortages were rampant), Ando came upon a line of people waiting to buy fresh ramen from a black-market stall. Peace will come to the world when people have enough to eat, he thought to himself. Soon after, Nissin Chicken Ramen, the predecessor of modern-day Cup Noodles, was born.

For this, Time Magazine called him a hero, saying:

His instant-noodle recipe included not only flour, palm oil and MSG, but—metaphorically, at least—a sprinkling of hope, too. After all, it is that midnight bowl of noodles that so many count on to keep going a little longer, a little later, in pursuit of the Asian dream.