Nongshim Bokkeum Neoguri Instant Noodles deliver a new way to enjoy the much loved and insanely popular, original Neoguri Ramen. This rehash of the original features significantly less broth, I mean, none at all! If you’re a bit of a soup hater like myself, then you’ll be happy with its liquid deficiency. Unfortunately, this doesn’t come without a cost, a cost of overall flavor intensity with the curious magnification of other more subtle flavors. It’s not all bad though. It’s just different. Different from what you would come to expect from the flavors of the original Neoguri Ramen. Somehow, Nongshim has inadvertently mutated their classic into a ramen that is completely different from its earlier, classic conception.
Flavor:
This soup-less version of Neoguri Ramen has some interesting quirks with the flavor. First of all, I don’t know if Nongshim upgraded the flakes or not in this cup of noodles, but it seems like there are noticeably more reconstituted meat and veggies. It could just be because there isn’t any broth to conceal these flakes, like in the original. I searched for and managed to find: beef flakes, laver, carrots, shrimp, and some fish cakes. And there was a very generous amount of all of them.
Strangely, there wasn’t much of a fried flavor (bokkeum) as the label would suggest. I guess the Korean word, “bokkeum” has become synonymous with the pseudo-English word of, “soup-less?” I was waiting to taste some sort of artificial charcoal-grilled flavoring like some of the other ramen I have been reviewing lately, but this didn’t happen. Finally, unlike the original, this version is lacking its seafood flavor. I could barely taste any seafood flavor at all. It was mostly notes of laver, spice, beef flakes, and ramen noodles.
Spiciness:
I would classify Bokkeum Neoguri as a medium hot cup of ramen. It’s not ulcer inducing like Samyang’s noodles, but does have a little kick. It’s probably on the upper-end of what I would imagine teenagers could handle. The spiciness does tend to build and becomes quite, “mouth-hot” over time. This is definitely coming from the included pepper flavored oil.
Smell:
I can’t say these noodles smell like the raccoon-like mammalian organism on the label, but they do smell like his friend, laver. This cup of noodles smells strongly of miyeok (a type of seaweed) or miyeokguk (seaweed soup). If I close my eyes completely and give this ramen a long, drawn-out whiff, that’s exactly what comes to mind. One more thing to note is that this ramen looks visually spicy, but I’m not getting even a hint of spiciness from the smell. I guess looks can be deceiving, or… maybe not.
Noodles:
Similar to the original Neoguri Ramen, these noodles are thick. They aren’t your average ramen noodles at all. These work very well with the seafood flavor of Neoguri and remind me of a bowl of jjambbong from a restaurant. The cook ended up a little softer than I would have liked, but it still was fine because of the increased density of the noodles.
Overall:
I hate to say this, but the original Neoguri Ramen is much better for my taste. I’m not really a big fan of soup either, which is strange… I thought I would enjoy these noodles more.
A couple things I did like better in this version were the beefiness of the reconstituted beef flakes and the spice level. These two things were definitely an upgrade from the original, which ironically, were due to the soup-less nature of these noodles. Having less soup meant I could really taste the individual flakes and concentrated the spiciness, which altered the flavor quite a bit from the original.
I think the problem lies with the flavor intensity. By having all of that broth in the original for the noodles to pick up, it just has a richer flavor. The flavor of Bokkeum Neoguri is still tasty, but lacks the oomph. If you don’t like soup, then you could give these a try, but I still think you’re better off just going with the original, but with a bit less liquid.
To soup, or not soup, that is the question…
Do you prefer your ramen with or without soup? Which do you think you would choose for this cup of noodles? Let me know down in the comments!
If you’re interested in hearing more about instant ramen, check out my on-going series, Noodle Story: An Exploration of Korean Instant Noodles, here on Medium.
