Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add 80ml water to the line in the cup. Add noodles, veggies, and seasoning. Microwave for 3 and a half minutes. To prepare on the stove (how I’ll be doing it) Add 160ml water to a pot and boil. Add noodles and cook for a minute and a half. Add veggies and seasoning, stir in, and cook an additional minute and a half.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added spring onion and sesame seeds. The noodles are great – working with the sloppiness of the sauce – tteokbokki also was the same. Sauce was interesting – like a sweet and spicy tteokbokki sauce with notes of black bean. Delightful – first one I’ve eaten that wasn’t a mukbang in a while. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8809061679017.
I’ve been wanting to try this one for a great while. Happily, they were sent along by my new contact at Paldo! Thank you very much! This one screams mukbang to me but as some of you might know already, mukbang is something that’s getting harder and harder for me these days. I used to eat a LOT mre, and now I exercise and my diet is much more regulated. To put it bluntly, scarfing down a big block of carbs is easy when you do it more often than I do now.But of course, I’ll give it a shot.
I think this one will definitely test my spice handling; that’s another thing I haven’t done a lot of recently. Handling spicy foods seems like it’s kind of like a muscle – if you don’t exercise it at all it gets weak. Let’s give these a try!
Paldo Teumsae Ramen (9,413 SHU) – South Korea
Detail of the packaging (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, boil noodles and sachet contents in 500ml water for 3~4 minutes. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
A dry sachet of soup base.
A dry sachet of vegetables.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, egg, beef sauteed in soy sauce, narutomaki, spring onion, and sesame seeds. The noodles are thick and luxuriant as always. Thicker than your average instant gauge, a hallmark of Korean noodle variants. The broth has a strong spiciness which isn’t for the casual spicy fan but for those who crave strong heat. Good flavor. Vegetable bits did well. 4.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8801128508858.
Here’s another one I found over at Boo Han Market in Edmonds, Washington. This new O’Taste brand seems to be cropping up a lot lately. It’s interesting as it’s not exactly a Nongshim variety, but it’s Taekyung Food & Processing, and I’m unsure exactly how they fit in with the Nongshim corporate structure. Maybe I should find out.
Anyways, this isn’t the first Pho I’ve seen from a South Korean company. Nongshim’s Farmer’s Heart range (Farmer’s Heart is a translation of Nongshim) has one. Let’s give it a try!
O’Taste Pho Rice Noodle HOT – South Korea
Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Contains fish. To prepare, add everything to the cup and boiling water to the fill line. Cover for 4 minutes. Finally, stir and enjoy!
Finished (click to enlarge). Added pork, star anise, Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, red pepper flake, coriander, and sesame seeds. The rice noodles hydrated perfectly with a soft tooth that worked magnificently with the broth. Broth had all the hallmarks of pho and was believable. Impressed as I’ve never found an instant pho I truly enjoyed. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8809061676429.
Found this one yesterday at Boo Han Market in Edmonds, Washington. So it had a sticker on the side which pulled a bit off but I can still make out the cooking instructions from what’s left. The sticker mentioned ‘Korean pasta’ which I found compelling. This is sujebi – let’s see what Wikipedia has to say –
Sujebi[1] (수제비, in S. Korea), ttŭdŏ-guk (뜨더국, in N. Korea), or hand-pulled dough soup[1], or Korean-Style Pasta Soup, is a Korean traditional soup consisting of dough flakes roughly torn by hand, with various vegetables. The flavor and recipe resemble kalguksu, except that the latter is made with noodles rather than wheat flakes. It is commonly considered a dish to consume on rainy days, along with bindaetteok.
The broth for sujebi is usually made with dried anchovies, shellfish, and kelp. In order to obtain a rich, umami flavor, the ingredients should be simmered for many hours. Added to this broth are soft noodles and various vegetables or kimchi, most often zucchini and potatoes.
Korean people began to eat sujebi and guksu (국수 noodles), both dishes made of wheat flour, from the early Goryeo period (935~1392), but the name sujebi (earlier sujeop-eo) dates from the mid Joseon period. Sujeop-eo is a combined hanja word comprising the terms su (hanja: 手; hangul: 수; literally “hand”) and jeop (hanja: 摺; hangul: 접어 or 접다; literally “folded” or “folding”).
From the Joseon period, people started making various types of sujeobi according to various purposes. Sujebi is today considered a typical commoner’s food, but in the past, it was relatively rare and used for special occasions especially janchi (잔치; feast, banquet) such as dol janchi (the celebration of a baby’s first birthday).
In North Korea, sujebi is called milgaru ddeudeo guk (밀가루뜨더국), which is the words comprising three words: milgaru (밀가루; literally “wheat flour”) + ddeudeo (뜯어; literally “tearing” or “torn”) guk (국; literally “soup”).
The names of sujebi vary according to regions in Korea. [2]
This sounds really interesting. The package mentions this is a seafood flavor and shows some shrimp there. Let’s give it a go!
Chil Kab Farm Products Spicy Sujebi – Seafood Flavor – South Korea
Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Unsure whether this contains seafood or meat – check for yourself. To prepare, add boiling water to fill line and cover for 4 minutes. Add in sachet contents. Finally, stir and enjoy!
Finished (click to enlarge). Pasta reminded me of shells in a way. They were definitely chewier and pretty good mouthfeel. Broth was spicy with a very strong shellfish taste to it. Vegeteables were oft found and of interesting character. 3.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8801759016616.
Oh wow okay so I’ve been kind of hanging on to this carbonara topokki for a little while. Today seemed like a god day for this one. Is it? Well, let’s find out!
Finished (click to enlarge). Added spring onion, baked chicken, chashu pork, Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, and sesame seeds. Noodles are great – thick and chewy. Topokki comes out swinging. The sauce is a brilliant and lip-smacking super spicy smooth and flavor one with a kind of cheesy creamy heat and flavor. Just exemplary stuff and my favorite of th entire buldak fire noodle range. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 801073310957.
Found this one up in Canada at Smart N Save as well. It turns out that this brand is actually related to Nongshim. It’s produced by Taekyung Nong San, which is part of the Nongshim company as can be seen on their logo. Interesting! This is a combo of tteokbokki and noodles. Let’s check it out!
Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free from the sticker, however the sticker mentions items not present; may not correctly correlate to this products so check for yourself. To prepare with microwave, Add 80ml water to the line in the cup. Add noodles, veggies, and seasoning. Microwave for 3 and a half minutes. To prepare on the stove (how I’ll be doing it) Add 160ml water to a pot and boil. Add noodles and cook for a minute and a half. Add veggies and seasoning, stir in, and cook an additional minute and a half.
A wet sachet of sauce (see it being implemented on the episode of Instant Noodle Recipe Time below).
Finished (click to enlarge). Added spring onion, soft egg, sesame seeds, and chili flake. Wow – this one is amazing. The noodle is a glass style and works well with the sauce and tteokbokki. Tteokbokki came out splendidly. The sauce is literally full impact yummy. I don’t eat many instant varieties except for mukbang, and I’m happy to say there are two more varieties of these bowls I have to review and they will both get mukbang-ified. The flavor is a sweet, spicy one with a thick luxuriant sauce. This is absolutely excellent and it was very hard not to go caveman on this and gobble it down. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8809061679000.
Someone on social media alerted me to the existence of a new spicy variety on the market. This is The Knight Of Fire Ribs. I’ve reviewed The Knight Of Ribs (in fact, that was on the 2018 Top Ten Instant Noodles OF All Time list). This is a spicy version and we shall see exactly how spicy it is. Let’s give it a try!
Palkin The Knight Of Fire Ribs – South Korea
Detail of the packaging (click to enlarge). Contains pork. To prepare, boil noodles in 550ml water for 4 minutes. Drain, saving 5 spoons water (5 * 15ml = 75ml). Add in sachet and reserved water and return to boil on low heat for 10 seconds. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
A large retort pouch. See it in use on the Instant Noodle Recipe Time episode below.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added spring onion. Noodles are thick with a nice chew to them. The sauce from the retort pouch contains pork and potato and a lot of flavor. It doesn’t smell spicy to me, but once I took a bute it seemed like a bit of a dirty trick! This stuff is spicy – I think maybe habanero spicy going on. A very respectable heat, however I think the regular knight is much, much better; I just found myself wanting that flavor instead of the spicy infused one. 3.5 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8809402741410.
So you might be wondering – you haven’t reviewed this popular South Korean variety before? Well, yes and no. I’ve had it quite a few times – South Korean versions as well as ones manufactured in the United States. However this particular version is made for Europe and Oceania, so a different export version. I try to hit every version of everything- especially ones people have lots of access to. This one is generally a nice spicy seafood soup – let’s check it out.
Nongshim Neoguri Seafood & Spicy Ramyun – South Korea
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Contains fish and crustaceans. To prepare, add everything to 550ml boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Note the instructions mention dried kelp, which was not present. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The noodle block.
A dry base sachet (watch this being used on the episode of Instant Noodle Recipe Time below).
A sachet of flake.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added spring onion, shrimp, carved squid, Busan fishcake, egg yolk, sesame seeds, and pepper flake. The noodles are just about the thickest ramyun I’ve found and work just perfectly with a broth. Strong seafood flavor and great heat and hallmarks of this variety. Lots of seaweed and bits of vegetable galore. 4.0 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 031146150304.
I’m sure there are some folks out there figuring this is going to violently spicy. Well, that’s just not the case. Not everything that Samyang Foods makes has an angry little chicken on it! Let’s see what we have inside this big bowl!
Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Contains seafood. To prepare, add boiling water to fill line and cover for 4 minutes. Add in sachet contents. Finally, stir and enjoy!
A wet soup base sachet. To see the sachets in action, watch Instant Noodle Recipe Time video below.
Dry garnish in this one.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added egg, spring onion, Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts, pork, and chili flake. Noodle is thick and chewy but more along the lines of their standard ramen. However, the broth is where the udon taste comes in a little more I suppose. It’s tasty and has a hint of spiciness. Myriad green onion and sesame seeds. Enjoyable. 4.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8801073211452.
Here’s something pretty fascinating. First off, thanks to Empire International for sending these over! This is from Indonesia, is only 160 calories for the whole package, and… yeah. It’s konjac (pronounced like cognac).- These noodles are incredibly low cal and I’ve honestly had mixed resilts. I’ve had them that are horrible before – thicker noodles. But recently tried some that were thinner and they worked well. These are dry, and I haven’t tried them that way before, so we shall see how it goes. Let’s find out!
Fitmee Konjac Fried Korean Noodle – Indonesia
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add noodles and vegetables for 400ml boiling water and cook 3 minutes. Drain. add remaining sachet contents. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The block of konjac noodles.
Dry seasoning base.
A wet sachet of seasoned oil.
A dry sachet of vegetables.
Chili powder.
Finished (click to enlarge). Added spring onion. The noodles are kind of rubbery as they employ tapioca flour. Some might be put off by this, but I think they have a certain charm to them. I’ve had konjac noodles before I disliked, but that was completely due to their gauge. These are nice. Flavor is on point with a good spicy hit which is reminiscent of fire noodle. A nice quantity of vegetable and really quite innovative and unique. 3.5 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8997006449945.
No, this is NOT noodles. But it’s a tie in that’s for sure. These are little surimi (fish) sausages to enjoy as a snack, flavored like Buldak Bokkeummyun. I’ve seen these all over recently in different ways – some packs call them ‘Kid’s Bong’ and they come in a variety of flavors. These sounded interesting! Couldn’t resist. Let’s take a look!
Samyang Foods Hot Chicken Flavor Sausage – South Korea
Here’s the wrapper (click to enlarge). Contains fish. To prepare, open by pulling tab, extend sausage. Finally, eat sausage.
The package contains three of them. Note the little red tab.
Finished. I rally didn’t know what to expect with these little sausage things. What I found was they were pretty good – a little chew and a nice seafood and spicy hit from that definitive Buldak Bokkeummyun flavor. Spicy level, not through the roof, but definitely there. For a snack, I’d give these 4 out of 5 stars. EAN bar code 8801073940079.
Okay, alright. It’s another Buldak spicy thing and this time its not topokki and ramen, it’s just topokki. What’s exciting about this is that this is the export version. I’m usually not happy about getting export versions; I want the local versions; te ones that people in their respective countries find at the store. But what’s cool is that this is now available in the United States – and I’ve seen it here recently. This is original Buldak Bokkeummyun flavor – there’s also a Carbo version as well. For those of you who are asking ‘what’s a topokki?!’ here’s a little info from Wikipedia –
Tteok-bokki (떡볶이) or stir-fried rice cakes is a popular Korean food made from small-sized garae-tteok (long, white, cylinder-shaped rice cakes) called tteokmyeon (떡면; “rice cake noodles”) or commonly tteok-bokki-tteok(떡볶이 떡; “tteok-bokki rice cakes”).[1][2] Fish cakes, boiled eggs, and scallions are some of the most commonly added ingredients. It can be seasoned with either spicy gochujang (chili paste) or non-spicy ganjang (soy sauce)-based sauce; the former being the most typical form,[3], while the latter is less common and sometimes called gungjung-tteok-bokki (royal court tteok-bokki). Today, variations also include curry-tteok-bokki, cream sauce-tteok-bokki, jajang-tteok-bokki, seafood-tteok-bokki, galbi-tteok-bokki and so on. Tteok-bokki is commonly purchased and eaten at bunsikjip (snack bars) as well as pojangmacha (street stalls). There are also dedicated restaurants for tteok-bokki, where it is referred to as jeugseog tteok-bokki (impromptu tteok-bokki).
Haemul-tteok-bokki, (해물떡볶이; “seafood tteok-bokki”) uses seafood as a sub ingredient.
Galbi-tteok-bokki (갈비떡볶이; “short ribs tteok-bokki”) is a tteok-bokki uses short ribs as an ingredient.
Ra-bokki (라볶이; “instant noodles tteok-bokki”) and jjol-bokki (쫄볶이; “chewy noodles tteok-bokki”), are quite similar. They both add noodles to tteok-bokki. ra-bokki and jjol-bokki differs from the kind of noodles added to tteok-bokki. ra-bokki adds ramyeon noodle, and jjol-bokki adds chewy noodles which are used to make jjol-myeon.
Alright – let’s cook it up and I’ll do my best to lay waste to it.
Samyang Foods Buldak Hot Chicken Flavor Topokki – South Korea
Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, add topokki and sauce to the bowl. Add water to fill line (note it’s much lower than on most noole cups. Microwave at 1000W for 2 minutes and 30 seconds with the lid on. Finally, stir and enjoy!
The sextet of tines here are daunting! Check this out for a full list of forks – it’s really quite fascinating!
The pouch of topokki.
A wet sachet containing the spicy sauce.
Finished (click to enlarge). Chewy topokki is of good quality and plentiful. The sauce is sweet and very spicy. It’s tasty as well as hot – the heat level reminds me of the topokki buldak ramen they produce. 4.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8801073910270.
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