The Koreans enthusiastically love to eat spicy food. They dip hot chilies into gochujang, the red pepper paste, and add piquant chili powder to cooking. Of course eating spicy food causes irresistible pain, but often people tend to hunt for even spicier food to cool down the frustration although it may seem contradictory. This is because the taste is not solely being agonizing spicy but it is addictively delicious. Recently, the Korean style of spicy flavor has become a representative keyword of Korean diet as it has captivated the taste buds around the world. We present the spicy trio of Korea: Tteokbokki, Hot Chiken Flavor Ramen(Buldak-bokkeum-myeon), and Daebak ramyeon.

 

1. Temptation of red sauce, Tteokbokki

Tteokbokki is an all-time favorite Korean traditional snack with chewy rice cake, fish cake, and various vegetables with sweet and spicy gochujang. Mixed with red sauce, tteokbokki seems to be flaming hot, but in fact, it is rather pleasant and savory making it difficult to stop once you start. Gochujang is a key ingredient of tteokbokki, which goes through fermentation, so umami kicks up unexpectedly not like generic hot sauce.

Tteokbokki is well liked as it is an enjoyable dish for everyone, plus it is cheap and satisfying. In fact, it boasts a staggering number of 2.62 million ‘#tteokbokki’ hashtags on Instagram, garnering a tremendous popularity all over the world. Accordingly, innumerable unique recipes of making one’s own scrumptious tteokbokki are shared on web-based platforms, which shows it is one of the iconic foods representing the spicy sensation.

 

 

# Even BTS and EXO fell in love with Tteokbokki

Last year, BTS members’ passionate cravings for tteokbokki became a topic at home and abroad. While Jimin of BTS was having tteokbokki in Dongdaemun, the photos of him sweetly greeting to his fans went viral amongst BTS ARMY fans across the globe, who naturally increased the world interest towards tteokbokki. In particular, a reality show called ‘Law Of The Jungle’ which airs on SBS invites a host of celebrities to travel to the wilds, which featured BTS’s Jin in the Kota Manado series. Before his departure to the jungle, he said, “I was told that you’ll get to miss spicy food a lot when you are in jungle”, and was seen enjoying plates of tteokbokki with other celebrity guests. Not to mention, EXO Chanyeol who is known to be tteokbokki maniac, transformed himself into a daily chef by revealing his personal tteokbokki recipe on social network.

 

 

# Tteokbokki Special Zone, Sindang-dong

Sindang-dong is famous for table-top tteokbokki which boil instantly in front of you with all the ingredients added to please your tongue. There are a lot of eateries serving tteokbokki along this neighborhood that it’s called Tteokbokki Town. Compared with bunsik tteokbokki, a snack house style where tteokbokki is continuously boiled to reach thick in taste, table-top tteokbokki is immediately cooked so it tastes rather lighter. It is prepared by adding ramyeon, rice cake, gochujang, and various types of noodles to the hot pot, where you can also cook fried rice in the remaining broth, which is more than sufficient as a meal. Recently, eggs, vermicelli, fish cakes, jjolmyeon, and ramyeon have become the most basic ingredient, and a range of toppings including squid, shrimps, and cheese can be added to give a new taste.

 

2. The origin of spicy noodle, Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen

Buldak-bokkeum-myeon is an instant noodle based on the flavor of chicken, which is stir-fried without rich and savory soup. It became so popular in the overseas that it is called ‘Samyang noodle’ after Samyang Foods, which manufactures this spicy ramyeon. In fact, Buldak-bokkeum-myeon has grown into a lucrative export champ since its launch that the export surged from USD 76.15 million in 2016 to USD 215.15 million last year. To keep up with the momentum, Samyang Foods is also strengthening the lineup of the Buldak series. Now they have released a different variations of up to 12 Buldak including Bulak Ramen Carbonara, Buldak Ramen Curry, Buldak Ramen Mala along with the original flavor. For the spicy fanatics, ‘Challenge Bibim Ramen’ has been newly launched. This product is characterized by being able to freely adjust the spicy taste, as it consists of two liquid sauces with ‘challenge sauce’ separately added from the basic liquid sauce.

 

 

 

# Fire noodle challenge goes viral on YouTube

Buldak-bokkeum-myeon has attracted great attention not only in Korea but also abroad because of its unique, crazy and fiery taste. As the perception that even Koreans who are accustomed to the spicy taste has surrendered went widespread, the Fire Noodle Challenge has gone global since 2016. It was buoyed with unprecedented popularity when people were in burning pain after sensing the spicy taste, and numerous videos of the challenge was posted on YouTube regardless of nationality. Lately, one of the YouTube channels called ‘Soviet girl in Seoul’, run by a Russian girl who deals with interesting contents about Korean culture, tried the noodle and said in tears, “I heard people eat buldak-bokkeum-myeon as if drinking water, and I curse even when drinking water.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

# Buldak-bokkeum-myeon in myriad transformation

In Korea, the most popular fusion ramyeon is ‘Chapaguri’, which is a mixture of Chapaghetti and Neoguri. The fusion Buldak-bokkeum-myeon is also soaring in reputation to neutralize the spiciness, so often people combine it with Nongshim’s Chapaghetti or Ottogi’s Spaghetti Bokki cup. Similarly, eggs, milk, and cheese are frequently added on for a savory and pleasant plate. With the skyrocketing attention, Buldak Sauce has been released to be purchased on its own, and a series of variations such as Buldak Mandu and Buldak Tteokbokki are also available in the market. There is even Buldak Bokkeum Kimchi made from buldak sauce.

 

3. Spicy, spicier! Daebak Ramyeon

Daebak Ramyeon, famous for the ‘extremely fiery spicy flavor’, is a representative product of Korean spicy sensation. It is a ramyeon developed by Shinsegae Food when the spicy fever received a considerable amount of attention. Made with bhut jolokia, commonly known as ghost chili and perhaps the world’s hottest, ‘Daebak Ramyeon Ghost Pepper Spicy Chicken Flavor’ hits 12,000 Scoville Heat Units, which indicates the spiciness. This is about three times higher than Shin Ramyun(1300SHU) and Buldak-bokkeum-myeon(4400SHU), which were widely recognized as spicy ramyeon, and also 40 times higher than bell peppers that are frequently used as ingredients.

In addition to the ghost pepper spicy chicken flavor, Daebak Ramyeon has dared the world with the Mexican Habanero chili version for another spicy kick, which is available in two flavors: ‘Habanero Kimchi Jiigae’ and ‘Habanero Spicy Chicken’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

# Halal Market Spot On, Daebak Ramyeon

Malaysia is particularly infatuated with Daebak ramyeon. According to Shinsegae Food, the accumulated sales of ‘Daebak ramyeon’ launched in Malaysia exceeded 5 million units. It has been confirmed that even in Islamic countries, which maintain restrictive food habits for religious reasons, it is possible to win a ‘jackpot’ as long as they are halal certified. Furthermore, Shinsegae Food, the creator of Daebak ramyeon, has established a local joint venture with Malaysia’s Mamee Double-Decker in 2017 called Shinsegae Mamee, and launched Korean halal foods including snacks and sauces to develop the global halal market.

 

# Korean spicy flavor towards Asia

The sales of Daebak ramyeon will expand to the Asian region. As Daebak ramyeon is showing strong sales growth in China, Shinsegae Food plans to expand its business to the Asian region. The Ghost Pepper flavor began selling in November last year at Tmall, the largest online shopping mall in China, which sold 100,000 units in a week. The remaining volume of 100,000 units is expected to be sold out as well, so additional 200,000 units were shipped to China in early December. Singapore also started exporting the Ghost Pepper flavor in last October, which resulted in complete sold out of 100,000 units, and extra batch of 200,000 units were dispatched.