Country of Origin: South Korea
A testament to the arrogance of man.
Consumption
I didn’t believe these were real; I couldn’t find anything about them online except for some instagram posts from Samyang Foods’ official feed (big thanks to Hans over at theramenrater.com for giving me the heads up on these). I didn’t even believe they were real when I stumbled across them being sold on Gmarket; I ordered them anyway. It wasn’t up until the very moment the package arrived on my doorstep and I opened the box that it really sunk in. These are real. I’ve never been more excited in my life.
So these puppies claim to be twice as spicy as the regular Buldak Bokkeummyeon; if that is in fact true this will make these without a doubt the hottest packet ramen ever created. I was so excited I could hardly sleep last night.
So these babies pretty much mimic the standard Buldak in terms of contents; nice hefty noodle block, sachet of sesame seeds and seaweed, and a disturbingly red paste. I was careful not to rub my eyes while handling these; I like my sight.
It was curiously silent as we all constructed these; Me, Josh, Steve, and guest reviewer Andy. It was almost as if we were contemplating all the steps in our lives that brought us to this one point. I know that’s what I was doing. It’s the first time I was almost feeling regret before eating them. Have we hyped them up too much?
Short answer; hell no. My first mouthful someone made me laugh and I snorted a whole bunch of this up the back of my throat and into my nose; the pain was unbearable. I was crying, my nose felt like it was on fire, my head was profusely sweating; I was regretting every choice I made in life.
These are goddamn hot. These are goddamn delicious. They have managed to sustain the classic flavour whilst upping the heat/torture/can-someone-please-kill-me-now level. Damn you Samyang, you really are sadists. And we love it.
We actually really regret not recording our eating experience; I was dizzy, Andy looked like he was about to cry, Steve’s hands were shaking and Josh just looked all kinds of generally uncomfortable. Maybe we need to redo this with go-pros strapped to our heads.
So yeah the heat just builds with these. It increases as you eat and when you let out that sigh of relief for finishing the bowl and hope things get better from here; they don’t. Things just get worse. The heat continues to build; I went through stages of “I cant feel my mouth” to “All I can feel is extreme agony”. A tall glass of milk had little effect with these. I got very dizzy after eating these; It was hard to walk and I still feel spacy as I type this part of the review an hour after eating.
These are not for the faint of heart; you will cry, you will question everything, you will suffer, and you will love every minute of it.
Oh and if you want to see a video of my head pouring with sweet sweet enjoyment you can check it out below:
Heat Level
Taste Level
The Aftermath
So pretty much all night was great for me; not a single issue and I was able to just chill and watch TV with no stress. There was probably one pretty noisy fart around 11.30pm but it was a smooth nights sleep. I was feeling pretty confident.
The morning was a slightly different story; I really felt like something bad was about to happen but 20 minutes on the john yielded no result. I thought nothing more of it and drove to work; the whole drive was that regretful “will-I-go-all-over-the-car-seat-or-will-I-be-OK?” feeling. About 5 minutes before getting to the office I was physically having to hold myself from exploding. I park the car, frantically hit the lift button, launch myself into the bathroom and let rip one hell of a stinker. It stung a bit (but not too bad), had an odd consistency (but still solid) and odd colour. There she went.
3 flames; the morning poo was frantic and frightening.
Actual physical pain was the feeling of the day. My god these bastards are hot. The act of eating this dish is an exercise in Taoist balance – you strike a balance of leaving your mouth open far enough to let cooling air wash over them, but not too open, because the air seems to ignite the pain receptors in the back of your throat. You balance the delicious taste with searing pain and the urge to skoll any liquid with the knowledge that some liquids can kill you.
As with all really spicy dishes, the endorphins and numbness kick in about halfway through, giving you a mild respite. However they are then overwhelmed by the sheer heat of the sauce as you continue on, hands shaking, stomach burning already, the heat getting more and more intense as the sauce concentrates at the bottom of the bowl, increasing the sauce:n00ds ratio until it feels like you’re eating actual lava. For the endurance spicers only.
The entire afternoon I could feel the progress of the noodles through my small intestine – a slow-burning fuse that I could actually track through my gut. Regret for me came at around midnight that night, a clawing at my belly from the fire-demon within indicated that I had better not risk a sneaky toot to let off some pressure. I scurried out of bed like a beaten child, and perched on the throne for my beating. However, nothing happened beyond a small squirt, and it was then I knew: This was going to take a while. 6 hours and 3 visits later, my exorcism was over. I felt like Mandela getting out of prison, like Rocky at the end of the fight with Drago, like Frodo destroying my the Ring. It was done, although the actual process wasn’t incredibly painful, it was simply the time taken to complete the evacuation to a point where you feel safe to fart again.
6 flames – not overly painful, but it’s gonna take a while to get through – you can’t keep this in your colon, so you’re just waiting on your lower intestine to finish his business.
I’m amazed, usually upping heat levels comes at the consequence of losing flavour. The 2x fire was just as delicious as the standard with the added Mike-Tyson-punches-to-the-face of chilli. “You shovel in some ramen, you make every attempt to not let it touch your lips, you chew and you swallow”; seems basic but I had to keep reminding myself HOW to eat. After getting to the half way point, you realise that much of the flavouring had trickled to the bottom; “Oh you thought the first half was hot?” I knew this was the case going in (Samyangs friend noodles always do that) but found myself forgetting this as soon as the torture began.
I was sweaty, I was uncomfortable and I was having out of body experiences (perhaps not to that extreme). I kept finding myself just blankly staring into the distance as if staring into the void of death begging for relief. I wanted to create a new tag, extreme heat doesn’t do this ramen justice, it’s in a league of its own.
The regret was pretty non existent for me. The true regret was the first few hours after consumption sitting there with your conciousness banging around inside your meat tomb. The endorphine rush after eating these gives a very subtle high once the dizziness subsides. This is not a lunch at the office snack if you have a business meeting to attend at any point in the afternoon. You will lose your train of thought and you will sometimes forgot what words are. The poops have been burny, its not a kill me now burn, its a dont you EVER forget what happened burn, lest we forget, huh? It’s a warning that if you ever go near this buldak or his sons again, there will be trouble. Once again Samyang putting up the goods that burn on the way in, not as much on the way out.
3 flames today, there was a definite tingle to the poops.
So the boys asked me to join them for a guest review and seeing their level of excitement at the arrival of these n00ds, I promptly accepted…. talk about baptism of fire. The first few bites were bearable, I was even beginning to think I have some super resistance to hot food as everyone else was already sweating buckets; oh how wrong I was. These were hot, really hot. In fact so hot that it felt like someone was constantly blow-torching my lips throughout the whole painful yet euphoric process. The taste was amazing which is surprising considering the heat these demon tentacles were releasing. Getting through the whole portion brought on emotions that I did not believe existed, once done trying to decide whether I felt proud of one of the hardest experiences I have been through in my life or if I should be worried that my eye balls were sweating.
The experience did not end with the last bite, the heat continued for at least 25 minutes. Spells of dizziness followed and as my sinuses were probably completed melted, what felt like molten lava kept dripping in the back of my throat.
The regret commenced as soon as two hours after. My stomach walls were encasing what felt like nuclear fission. Pain would commence in a small corner then slowly spread throughout my insides. My 5pm Gym session had to be cancelled as lifting weights whilst almost giving birth to a horned demon did not seem a great idea at the time. I managed to hold and get through indoor soccer at 8pm, the porcelain throne visit after being quite uneventful as my stomach and guts took one for the team.
7 flames for me, the pain was brutal.
Overall Porcelain Punishment Level
Sorry Samyang; no Seal of Approval for these ones.