A robot programmed pre-war to make noodles somehow manages to follow through his commands to the modern, irradiated, wasteland-ridden day. Which is impressive, if a bit scary. Because we gotta wonder; what’s in the noodles that this robot has never faltered, in all of 200 years, to produce? You gotta wonder if this dish is supposed to be some kind of riff on the real-life cup noodle phenomenon.

My first impression upon seeing the in-game model is a dry, plain noodle dish. Which both looks and sounds incredibly boring. Japanese noodles (and Asian noodles in general) are eaten with things in them. Meat, eggs, veggies, flavorful broth, seasonings. There’s none of that in the Commonwealth, apparently.

We’re keeping this as close to canon as possible, but we’re also not going to make something that tastes like wet cardboard. From the (ridiculous) animation that NPC’s make when they’re eating Takahashi’s noodles, these noodles do look and sound slightly wet, which gives us a little bit of an opportunity to add flavor.

Now, granted, there are plenty of wonderful noodle dishes that are plain, with only a perfect broth and perfect noodles, and nothing else accompanying. These dishes are often indeed on the mild side, but are flawlessly on the mild side. Many times, these plain noodle dishes are flavored with seafood spices and broth. Which actually fits our canon perfectly, because Fallout 4 takes place in post-apocalyptic Boston, which is a port city, and boasts plenty of natural seafood. Obviously all those Mirelurks had to come from somewhere.

The in-game recipe to make our own Noodle Cup calls for one (1) Razorgrain, plus some Dirty Water. I assume the Sole Survivor just pulls their own noodles out of thin air using Razorgrain dough, and then just eats them in boiled irradiated sewer water or something. Delicious.

Razorgrain is described as a ‘toothy’ grain that can replace wheat, which isn’t viable in the Commonwealth for some reason. The adjective ‘toothy’ probably means rough, or starchy, so we’re going to translate that by using whole grain spaghetti noodles in our bowl. Asian noodles are smooth in texture, but Italian pasta is salt-free and uses different grains in their flour that contribute to a rougher texture.

Fallout 4’s Noodle Cup looks like a lump of white, small round noodles sitting in a yellow broth (or coat of oil). The bowl itself is actually pretty big, so with my guestimation of the width of the noodles plus the dimensions of the bowl itself, we’re using spaghetti to get that width.

(What is this nonsense, honestly.)

Next to make our seafood broth. Takahashi is a robot, which means that he most likely doesn’t have a sustained reservoir of fresh ingredients. Most likely, he’s using dried or fermented stock to make the broth; aka, miso paste and dashi stock.

We’re not going to add any fresh ingredients to the broth, because unless Takahashi’s getting oxtails from the meat vendor nearby, it’s probably all reconstructed flavorings. So for every 4 cups of water, you add three tablespoons of miso paste, and one tablespoon of dashi stock. What results should be a plain-looking broth that has an undeniably rich flavor. The miso and dashi together should have included enough salt, but if it’s not enough, add more dashi stock.

Next, we simply boil the noodles until they’re soft, and then spoon them into a bowl, and cover it with the stock. Here’s our Fallout 4 Takahashi’s Noodle Bowl, in all it’s Diamond City glory. Garnish it with some green onions if you’re like me and can’t resist adding something to the poor, naked noodles. The whole-grain spaghetti definitely gives a grainy texture, and the combination of artificial powders and preserved pastes make it definitely taste true to apocalyptic life.