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Looks like we have a Korean boy band with a ton of dudes. Yep. There’s a lot of these tie-ins in Korean varieties. There used to be one that was called DJ Doc which was a tteokbokki and ramyeon variant that was really great – that was the first one I’d seen. Anyways, can’t complain about tteokbokki, that’s for sure. Let’s give it a try!
Ah, tteokbokki. I really wish I knew about this stuff when I was a kid. Wondrous tubes of rice flour – like big Beefaroni, slathered in a nice sauce. Better yet, with cheese. If you’ve not tried it, you’re really in for a treat once you do, trust me on this. No, not ramen, but definitely something you’ll find on the instant noodle aisle at a Korean market.
Well, damn. I thought that this was a rapokki but I was wrong. So, time to review a bowl of tteokbokki. Not quite a noodle, but found where the noodles live. Let’s cook it up.
I reviewed the bowl version of this quite a while back and they were pretty good, so when I saw the cups, I decided to give them a shot. Here’s the first one I’ll be doing. This is made in South Korea and packaged for the US market.
Rapokki is a combination of ramyun (Korean instant noodle) and tteokbokki (rice cake tubes). This one has a black bean sauce. I have a feeling this will be wonderous. Let’s find out. Oh, and this is made in South Korea, however packaged for US sale.
Oh hey now I’m psyched. I love rabokki. It’s a combination of tteokbokki, a rice cake tube, and ramyeon. Alone, kind of bland, but paired with tteokbokki sauce, it’s absolutely delightful. Now, you might wonder how to pronounce tteokbokki. It’s a soft t or a hard d. I heard multiple times that it was one of the hardest words for westerners to pronounce in Korean. Well, I watch a few videos and figured I had it down. One day, I had a violent toothache. I mean ready to take an ice pick to the ice pick pain I was experiencing. I hate going to the dentist. It was so bad I begged my wife to take me. Well, they took pity on me and took a look on the spot. They said we can fix it or pull it. I said let’s yank that beast. I opted for the nitrous oxide – laughing gas. I swear, I’d love to have a tank of that stuff. Anyways, that gas really got me going. After I was all gassed up, I spoke to the doctor, a young Korean guy. Well, I was pretty happy what with all the gas, so I thought I’d see if my Korean was any good, so I asked if I could try it on him. So, I said tteokbokki. He said it was pretty good. Then he took that thing out of my head. Thanks, man! Let’s make some rabokki – I have some tteokbokki left over to use with it. Let’s cook!
Well ladies, this is the end of the line… I don’t have any more of these. This should all things considered be my favorite of the set – in theory. I love tteokbokki and adding noodle to it is a great way to go. Let’s try this last of the trifecta I found.
This is another one of these noodle and tteokbokki varieties – with an exceedingly funny name. Mac and cheese flavor huh? Sounds good – let’s hit it up!
Nope it’s not ramen so don’t start, but it was on the ramen aisle at local store Boo Han Market in Edmonds, Washington. Let’s check it out!
After a couple years, here’s The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten South Korean Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition. It’s been a sort of tough go lately; so few new Korean varieties have crossed my desk. Usually they’ve all been ultra spicy ones, and while good, they’ve not been ones that are top ten listers. There should be a few new ones to the list for next years list that have yet to be published, though. If you’ve an instant noodle company in South Korea, I’d love to review your products. I used to receive samples from the larger companies quite often, but unfortunately not so much recently. This list is comprised of varieties from South Korea that I’ve reviewed up to my 4,300th review. With that, here’s The Ramen Rater’s Top Ten South Korean Instant Noodles Of All Time 2023 Edition!
I recently got an email from a company called BNB Global who is a big distributor for Paldo products here in the US. Paldo is a South Korean company that makes some great varieties – some of which I haven’t tried yet – here’s a special look at some of these new varieties! Enjoy and check ’em out!
Okay so for those of you who don’t know what tteokbokki is, you needsta figure that out because it’s really quite nice! This is both tteokbokki and ramyun; hence, rabokki. Let’s give this a try.
Here’s one from James in Lakeside, CA – thanks again! Wow – this looks burly. I had to read around to verify cooking instructions and they aren’t hard to cook – just wanted to do it right. This will be my first mukbang I’ve done in ages – not only that, I’ve been hardcore on diet and exercise lately, so not only will it be spicy, it’s going to be a gut buster. Egad. Let’s give it a shot!
I’ve seen a lot of these Yopokki variants lately and this one definitely piqued my interest and my wife loves tteokbokki and cheese – and then there’s ramen in there too! It’s a win, win, win! Found this at Asian Family Market on Aurora and 130th in North Seattle – rad store – go check it out! Let’s crack this big pack open and see what dwells within!
Oh boy, oh boy… I did a big sort of all the noodles I had in my hampers and one thing I found was a huge amount were expired – not just a little, but like expires in 2018 (it’s 2020). Now that my noodle hoard has dwindles (I think I tossed a good 50 packs/cups/bowls), I saw someone else touting this one as a new add to their stash. Well lo and behold, this one made the cut – it expires next week, so I’d better get on it. Not only that, this sounds like a mukbang if I’ve ever heard of one. Let’s do it.
First off, let me say that I did a mukbang with this one an it’s at the bottom. Definitely the spiciest one I’ve done in quite some time.
Two days in a row of varieties with long names! This one does NOT include noodles, however it’s topokki. What’s that? Wikipedia, if you please –
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!
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!
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!
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 –
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!
