Bon Go Jang’s Truffle Cream Pasta attempts to combine luxury with the food of the common folk, instant noodles. It strives to do so by incorporating truffle oil or much more likely, truffle flavored oil, which is a synthetic alternative with the aroma of truffles (synthetic 2,4-dithiapentane). The outcome is lackluster… Not because of the more than likely lab created truffle oil, but because of the choice of noodles. The noodles are chunky and unrefined. They lack the elegance of a proper noodle selection for a bowl of cream pasta, with or without truffle oil. This dire mistake alone manifested a cup of instant noodles that is less luxury and more migrant dressed in fancy clothing. And just so you know, I’m not referring to myself. The noodles! Seriously, the noodles!
Flavor:
To paraphrase this entire write-up on Truffle Cream Pasta, I would ditch the noodles and save the sauce. The sauce isn’t super complex, nor does it contain a plethora of ingredients. This light cream based sauce is actually quite tasty, despite some of its shortcomings. There’s not a whole lot of ingredients… You only get: noodles, small bits of chives (I guess?), and tiny pieces of mushrooms. That’s it! There were a decent… amount of mushrooms, but I could barely taste the mushroom pieces because of the truffle flavored oil. The “truffle oil” is so overpoweringly strong that it covers the flavor of the very few ingredients that actually made it into this cup. The mushrooms are more for texture than anything else. The cream is tasty, but it is super light. It’s not cheesy like an alfredo sauce, but has the consistency of light cream or milk. You’re basically getting faux truffle oil and cream in this cup of noodles…
Spiciness:
I can safely say that unless you are incredible sensitive to spice, these noodles are virtually edible for everyone. The spiciness is ultra-mild, but not completely missing from this cup of instant noodles. The spiciness comes mostly from black pepper, but honestly, I’m guessing. It does have a black pepper flavor, but the gentle sting seems to last for much longer. There might be a touch of red pepper in here as well, because of this. Anyways, the spice is used to enhance the flavor, nothing more, nothing less.
Aroma:
The aroma of Bon Go Jang Truffle Cream Pasta is heavily noodles. These fat and ugly looking noodles have a strong smell to them that actually begins to eclipse the truffle flavored oil. I didn’t think this was possible, but it sure is the case with this ramen! Of course, the truffle flavored oil lends another dominant fragrance to the cup of noodles. In case you didn’t know, truffles and their oil have an extremely strong flavor and aroma that can’t be mistaken for anything else.
Noodles:
Ah… This was a serious mistake from Bon Go Jang. I really didn’t care for the noodles at all. Having tried and reviewed some of their other products in the past, they basically repurposed the noodles. I wish these noodles were more like pasta noodles and less like fat ramen noodles. The flavor and texture combination just doesn’t feel right in a cream pasta. These noodles are mega thick and super dense to boot. Why Bon Go Jang didn’t choose a flat noodles like fettucine or even thin pasta noodles escapes me… The noodles hold up well to the creamy mixture, but that’s about it. These are not the ideal noodle…
Overall:
I have to dish out a little respect to Bon Go Jang for doing something outside the box. However, there is some room for improvement. For god’s sake, please, lose the chunky ramen noodles! This would have been a respectfully delicious cup of noodles if it weren’t for the choice of noodles. The flavor of the cream sauce with the truffle infusion is an interesting choice of flavor. It’s not half bad at all. If Truffle Cream Pasta actually had “pasta” like mentioned in its name, I would have found these noodles a worthy option for snack. However, this combination of cream sauce and fat noodles just fails to work for my palette in the end. It’s a shame, because the sauce is actually pretty darn tasty. I guess my overall verdict for these noodles is a meh. They are average with the current noodles. If you’re really into the flavor of truffle flavored oil, then you might find Truffle Cream Pasta quite satisfying. In my case, I think I’ll take a hard pass…
Have you ever gone hunting for truffles? Do you have any experience eating truffles you would care to share with everyone? Let me know in the comments! I can’t wait to hear back from you!
If you’re interested in hearing more about Korean snack nuts or instant ramen, check out my on-going series, Noodle Story: An Exploration of Korean Instant Noodles and my other series, I Think I’m Going Nuts: An Eyeful of South Korea’s Little Snack Nuts, here on Medium.
