Ran across this one at the Pacific Ocean Marketplace I sometimes shop at. It comes in its own bowl and is marked as "EXTREME SPICY". Inside the bowl were 3 packets: one of what appeared to be fresh, not dried or fried noodles; one marked cooking sauce; and one that was all in Korean but appears to have a mix of seaweed and sesame seeds. Weight of the entire thing is 7.79 oz, but a lot of that is the water weight in the noodles.
The directions suggest to warm the noodles briefly before cooking, so I did. After that, put the noodles and 1/4 cup water in the bowl, cover loosely with lid, cook for 90 sec (1000w microwave, I went for 75 in my 1100w oven), then add sauce and dried flakes and stir. I followed the directions except the microwave time.
The first thing that hit me was almost a barbecue sauce smell from the sauce. I took the packet of flakes and poured it all in, not realizing how much was in the packet, so the next thing was a pretty pronounced seaweed aroma. I let it sit for a couple of minutes for all that to mix together and coat the noodles, and then took my first taste.
Noodles were chewy, a little soft but still pleasant. The taste was definitely seaweed barbecue sauce, which isn't really at the top of my list flavor profile-wise. The heat hit pretty quickly but wasn't overpowering by any stretch. I gave that first bite a solid minute and still had some tingle on my tongue so kudos there! As I continued to eat, the heat continued to build - and introduced some sniffles! Bumping the heat score up to 7/10.
Nutritional details: 380 calories, 3.5g of fat, and 10g of protein. 2,010 (!!!) mg of sodium.
Verdict: Pretty good, though way too much seaweed for my palate. At $4.49 or so for the single bowl, I'm not sure I'd do them again, but I'd definitely recommend them.
Heat: 7/10
