Tag: south korean

The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2020 Edition

.The Ramen Rater's Top Ten Instant Noodles Of All Time 2020 Edition

Despite all the tumultuous and unnerving events of our current age,, I am happy to announce that I’ve got a new list for our year, 2020. In the past fe hundred reviews I’ve done this past year there have been some real standouts and of course many have remained. These are my absolute favorites of reviews 1 through 3487. It’s hard – I feel like I should be doing a top 20, or even a top 50 at this point, but the sheer amount of time that would take with being a stay at home father of two while trying to get in a few hours of exercise every day just isn’t in the cards. I’m hoping in the coming months to come out with the regular top tens and maybe some new ones, but it’s a tough juggle these days. ...see full post

#3451: Nongshim Shin Light Air Dried Noodle Soup – South Korea

#3451: Nongshim Shin Light Air Dried Noodle Soup - South Korea

It’s been quite a while since a new Shin variety came out I think. On the edge of the package it mentions it being ‘Shin Black Class’ but I mean look at the packaging. Clearly, this is Shin White – am I wrong?I’m guessing this is going to be quite different – fried vs non fried noodles are like night and day, and I expect I’m going to like this one to be honest. Let’s find out! ...see full post

#3012: Samyang Foods Sriracha Ramen Snack – South Korea

#3012: Samyang Foods Sriracha Ramen Snack - South Korea

Here we have what you call a ramen snack or noodle snack. These are popular throughout Asia but little known in the United States. In a way. It was often I heard about people taking a domestic pillow pack of instant noodles here in the states and pulverizing it while still in the package and then the seasoning dumped on and held closed, then shaken to distribute the flavor. This was commonly considered a somewhat of a lazy teenager’s way of cooking one of the easiest products to cook around. Well, they’ve been creating products that are prepared in this way for a very long time in Asia. Spicy, sweet, salty – you name it. Here’s Samyang’s Sriracha Ramen flavored one for you to see today! ...see full post

#2874: Samyang Foods Buldak Bokkeummyun Hot Chicken Flavor Almonds

#2874: Samyang Foods Buldak Bokkeummyun Hot Chicken Flavor Almonds

I’ll be first to say that I enjoy almonds, usually the smokehouse ones. You know the ones I’m talking about. I’m pretty partial to chocolate ones too although I don’t usually have them. I’ve had ones with crunchy candy coating too. I also tasted almond milk the other day – tasty but just seemed so weird – but I liked it. ...see full post

#2787: Samyang Foods Mala Buldak Bokkeummyun Bowl

#2787: Samyang Foods Mala Buldak Bokkeummyun Bowl

I’ve been kind of on a weird crusade lately. It has come to my attention that the popular Mala variety of Buldak Bokkeummyun is being touted by many people across the Interwebs as 4x Spicy. This is totally untrue – it’s really more like 0.5x. I did an informative video presentation about it – check it out here! ...see full post

#2614: Samyang Foods Chacharoni

#2614: Samyang Foods Chacharoni - South Korea - The Ramen Rater

Chacharoni is a play on words. Jjajang kind of sounds like ‘cha cha’ and the roni calls to noodles. There are other plays on words in the South Korean industry when it comes to jjajangmyeon. So basically what you have here is a thick noodle with a black bean sauce – also known as jjajang. Here’s a little about jjajangmyeon from Wikipedia – ...see full post

#2397: Samyang Foods Buldak Bokkummyun Cheese Flavor (Black Bowl)

#2397: Samyang Foods Buldak Bokkummyun Cheese Flavor (Black Bowl) - South Korea - The Ramen Rater - instant noodles

Wait a second – this looks familiar. So there are two versions of the Samyang Foods Buldak Bokkummyun cheese flavor bowls. Indeed there are two versions of the packs as well. Here’s the orange version I reviewed – #2291. What’s the difference? I’m going to guess that they came out with the black one first and people mistook it for the regular version and were annoyed. Kind of makes sense since the black one definitely looks like the standard Buldak Bokkummyun bowl. Well, except for the chicken with the cheese. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the original variety: ...see full post

#2382: Nongshim Seaweed Instant Noodle Cup

#2382: Nongshim Seaweed Instant Noodle Cup - South Korea - The Ramen Rater

Here’s a cup I found at Carrefour in Taipei, Taiwan during my trip in November of 2016. I’ve never seen this one before and from what it looks like, it’s made for the Chinese/Taiwanese market. At least the packaging in Chinese gives that away. Also, I can see that it’s referencing www.nongshim.com – not a .cn or .tw, so these should be made in South Korea. It also has a little banner proclaiming ‘number one’ but unsure what that’s referring to. Anyways, let’s see what we have here and give these seaweed noodles a try! ...see full post

#2380: Pulmuone Non-Fried Ramyun With Spicy Beef Broth

#2380: Pulmuone Non-Fried Ramyun With Spicy Beef Broth - South Korea - The Ramen Rater

So here’s something new I found at HMart. This is going to be battle for me, however you might wonder why. Well, much of the package is shiny gold colored. Unfortunately, shiny gold and silver packages are evil. I mean, not really, but really at the same time. Indeed they look nice, but they add a bit of an issue to my process. Indeed, scanning gold or silver foil packs presents a real problem. No matter what, there are wrinkles in the packaging, and ones I usually can use Photoshop to get rid of. However, these wrinkles when in a shiny foil wreak havoc with the scanner and the images come out extremely light and dark in spots. Anyway, just a little behind the scenes on what I do when putting out a post. ...see full post

#2368: Samyang Foods Cool/Ice Type Buldak Bokkeummyun

#2426: Samyang Foods Ice Type Buldak Bokkeummyun - South Korea - The Ramen Rater

Part Of The Ramen Rater’s Definitive Guide To Samyang Foods’ Buldak Bokkeummyun

HOT Chicken Flavor Ramen Cool/Ice Type / 쿨불닭볶음면 / Cool/Ice Buldak Bokkueummyun Launch 2016.8 / SHU 4,404

Today it’s the cold variety. Indeed, cold noodles with spicy sauce have long been around in South Korean ramyun varieties. However I’m guessing while cold in temperature, these will probably surpass most other in their hot flavor. This particular one is the export version, sent by a reader named Colin from Massachusetts. I noticed that the liquid sachet didn’t say ‘ice’ but ‘cool.’ Was this to be the original name? Well, I asked! ...see full post