Does combining two of our favorite comfort foods work, or is it too much of a good thing?

Ever since snack food maker Calbee took its delicious Pizza Potato Chips off the market last spring, there’s been a pizza-shaped hole in our hearts. So when we heard that Nissin, the company behind the Cup Noodle, was going to give us a brand-new pizza potato-flavored instant ramen, we squealed with so much delight that it momentarily drowned out the rumbling of our stomachs.

The new noodles went on sale earlier this week, so we ran across the street to our local convenience store and picked up a pack of Cup Noodle Cheese Pizza Potato Tomato Pizza Flavor Big for the modest price of 205 yen (US$1.85).

Once back at SoraNews24 headquarters, we peeled off the lid and peeked inside, where we spotted a generous dusting of tomato powder, as well as an enticingly large portion of bacon bits, potato, and cheese cubes. And to make everything more mouth-watering, the scent of basil wafted up from the cup.

Though it’s larger than ordinary Cup Noodle varieties, the Cheese Pizza Potato Tomato Pizza Flavor Big still takes just the usual three minutes to cook, so we filled the container up to the line marked on its inner edge and waited.

Looking down at the cooked noodles from directly above, with the rim of the cup forming a circle, they even started to look a little like a pizza.

With the cheese melted into the tomato broth, the ramen smelled like a pizza too, and the aroma became even stronger when we gave everything a final pre-taste stir.

Then it was time to taste Nissin’s newest creation. We gave our crack reporter Mr. Sato the honor of first bite, before passing the cup around to the other members of our staff…

…and everyone agreed that this is some seriously tasty stuff! Sure, you wouldn’t mistake it for gourmet cooking, since it is, after all, instant ramen.

▼ With all the oil that implies

But as a comforting, filling, and very quick meal? Cup Noodle Cheese Pizza Potato Tomato Pizza Flavor Big definitely does the job. As a matter of fact, we’d say it’s an even more pleasurable guilty pleasure than the standard Cup Noodle flavor, making it the loveable junk food member of Nissin’s instant ramen family, and one we can see ourselves reaching for often this coming winter.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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