After unboxing, cooking, and tasting the new 10,000 SHU Buldak Bokkeummyun, now there’s yet another new variety! This is Samyang Foods Ddokbokki Buldak Bokkeummyun. Really excited to try this one – if you are not familiar with what this flavor is, watch the video for a little background!
Found this one up at China World in Richmond, BC. This one’s confusing as it seems to say it’s a rice cake snack, however it has flour. It doesn’t say whether it’s rice flour or wheat flour. Anyways, I thought this was relevant since it was next to ramen snacks. Let’s take a look!
The import/distributor sticker (click to enlarge).
Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free but check for yourself. To prepare, open bag. Insert hand. Grip one or more snacks. Place in primary face hole. Masticate. Finally, salivate, swallow, and enjoy!
Interestingly shaped pieces.
Finished (click to enlarge). The shape is interesting which gives a nice mouthfeel. The crunch is very strong and they require a little bit of extra chew to crunch them – they’re kind of hard. The flavor is a spicy and sweet one which is reminiscent of spicy tteokbokki sauce. Not bad. As a snack, I give it 4.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 8809413880122.
Cooking Korean Food With Maangchi – Books 1&2: From Youtube To Your Kitchen
This is super tasty stuff – definitely should try it!
South Korea has the highest per person consumption of instant noodles in the world. It’s not a surprise that their instant noodle are quite good – usually the noodles (known as ramyun) are thicker and accompanied by a spicy broth. These are my very favorite varieties of South Korean instant noodles – hope you enjoy!
This one is like a bowl of candy to me. We start with nice quality noodles, and then the broth takes over. The broth has a kind of chicken and jalapeno flavor to it. The flavors play off of each other quite nicely and deliver both a strong bite as well as a mellow comfort food flavor in one bowl. The vegetable packet includes little chicken pieces. Original review
Thick and chewy ramyun noodles are augmented by a broth with a good consistency – a little thickness was very good. Also a slightly sweet, seafood and spicy flavor to it I thoroughly enjoyed. Original review here
The noodles are perfect – what I like to find in ramyun! Thick and chewy. The broth is amazing – an excellent level of heat balanced with a respectable amount of seafood flavor. The added vegetable pieces hydrated quite well. Top notch! Original review
The noodles are of a good ramyun gauge – lots of them as well. The flavor is a kind of seafood and spicy thing and there’s a sweetness going on as well. The supplied vegetables did great – this was an amazingly good stir noodle! Original review
This is the first instant noodle on the top ten to be marketed towards vegetarians. What surprised me about it was the broth had such a full flavor to it; deep and satisfying. The noodles are slightly larger in gauge than your run of the mill instant, which is common of South Korean ‘ramyun.’ Magnificent stuff! Original review
The noodles are out of this world – soft and chewy, with a nice width and thickness – very hearty. The sauce coats everything and there’s more than enough of it. It has a rich black bean flavor augmented with peas, cabbage and other veggies. This is the best jjajang I’ve ever tried. Original review
These noodles – wow. I think the best addition to South Korean ramyun has to be cheese. Well, not only is cheese included here but it’s got just the perfect notes of spiciness and strong, rich flavor. The little guy with the sign that says cheese noodle rocks as well. Original review
The noodles plumped up just perfectly – thick and a good chew. The broth is more of a sauce and it’s very rich – spicy and sweet – like an adult version of Spaghetti-O’s which I find delectable. Original review
The noodles are very good – nice thick ramyun. The broth has a seriously spicy kick to it and a very peanut aroma with pork notes. The vegetables hydrated very well. Back with a vengeance! Original review
It’s red. It’s got a thick spicy and sweet sauce. It’s got ramyun. It’s got topokki. This was a real find – Just looking at the picture makes me want some right this instant. The most wonderful big bowl of noodles I’ve ever had. Original review here
Topokki time! Okay so you’re probably thinking ‘what? Yesterday he reviewed rice porrige and now it’s rice cake?!’ Well, this one has topokki (Korean rice cake) as well as noodles in it. One thing to note as well – see where it says to keep it refrigerated? I saw pallets of these where I got it that weren’t. To be honest, I think putting that on certain instant products that have these kind of fresh noodle packs inside is a way to give the illusory guise of something less shelf stable, making one think it’s higher quality. Honestly though, that kind of thing doesn’t really phase me. So! What is topokki? Wikipedia for ya –
Tteokbokki (떡볶이; also known as teokbokki, ddeokbokki, topokki, and dukboki)[1][2] is a popular Korean snack food made from soft rice cake, fish cake and sweet red chili sauce.[3] It is commonly purchased from street vendors or pojangmacha. Originally it was called tteok jjim (떡찜) and was a savory braised dish of sliced rice cake, meat, eggs, and seasoning.
Following the Korean War, a new type of tteokbokki became very popular. While the older version was a savory dish, this latter type was much spicier, and quickly became more popular than the older traditional dish. In addition to traditional ingredients, this tteokbokki used gochujang, a fermented, spicy paste made from chilli peppers, along with fish cakes. Other ingredients added to tteokbokki include boiled eggs, pan-fried mandu (Korean dumplings), sausages, ramyeon (which then becomes rabokki/labokki 라볶이), a variety of fried vegetables, and cheese. These days, many kinds of tteokbokki are popular such as seafood tteokbokki(해물 떡볶이) or rice tteokbokki(쌀떡볶이). Flour tteokbokki was popular in early days, but rice tteokbokki is more popular these days. Sindang-dong in Seoul, where tteokbokki was first sold, is still very famous for the dish and treated as the mekkah or the center of tteokbokki. Since tteokbokki has become one of the most popular dishes, one will easily find a place to enjoy eating tteokbokki in Korea.
So topokki is a chewy, savory and spicy conglomeration of pure love and joy. It’s one of my absolute favorite South Korean foods. Recently, my wife and I discovered Chi Mc food – it’s kind of what you’d consider Korean bar food. The place we found has cream cheese topokki which is quite possibly the finest food ever to pass into my being. The fried chicken’s amazing too. I’ll stop drooling now – on with the Hurricane!
Here’s detail from the side panels (click image to enlarge). Contains fish. To prepare, empty everything out into the big cup. Add hot water to the fill line and stir. Cover very loosely and microwave for 3.5 minutes. Stir and enjoy! NOTE – usually since microwave times are for 600w microwaves and I have an 100w, I tried it at power level 6 and it didn’t work. I recommend 1000w at the 3.5 minutes and slightly longer for lower wattage ovens.
Detail of the lid (click image to enlarge).
An included fork!
A fresh noodle block.
The topokki pouch – there’s a sachet of silica gel/dessicant inside – DO NOT EAT IT unless you want your meal to become TRAGIC.
The soup base sachet.
A little powder but mostly dehydrated vegetable.
The sauce sachet.
Has a spicy sweet and spicy scent.
Finished (click image to enlarge). Added spring onion and kamaboko. The noodles came out quite nicely – a good texture. The topokki came out a little on the rubbery side; it really needed more time in the old microwave. I ran mine at 50% power thinking that a full 1100w would kill it, but I think that 1100w would probably be perfect. The taste is spot on – fiery topokki! It’s kind of like Chef Boyardee met the grim reaper – sweet and savory meets fiery heat. This is kind of like a sauce I would liken to adult Spaghetti-O sauce – delightfully good. The vegetables hydrated very nicely. This is a bowl to covet. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 788821003805.
I tell you what – this is amazing stuff. You could make one seriously bad ass lasagna ala Korea with it – like an inferno of deliciousness. ChoripDong Tokpokki (Spicy Rice Cake) Cooking Sauce
This is a perfect recipe for topokki – trust me on this you need to try it if you haven’t.
So you’re hungry, lazy, and you’re 12 years old or in a college dorm. Well, I’m sure most of you know the rest – you smash up a pack of Top Ramen and sprinkle the seasoning pack in, shake it and you’ve got some kind of funky potato chip bizarro-land thing. Well, in Korea they took that concept a step further and have products that are marketed to be enjoyed that way!
As you can see, the little guy has a big mallet. He’s going to smash the package, open it, take out the flavoring packet and add it to the contents and shake.
Yep – a standard noodle seasoning packet! Who’dve thunk it?
So here’s what it looks like with the seasoning on it pre-shake. It kind of melds into the noodles so not going to bother with a shaken up photo. This one was pretty good – a little sweet but definitely has heat. I liked it – 3.25 out of 5.0 stars. Get it here.
© Hans Lienesch and The Ramen Rater, 2002-2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used non-commercially, provided that full and clear credit is given to Hans Lienesch and The Ramen Rater with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Products reviewed are copyrighted by their respective owners.
