YouUs Omori Budae-jjigae Ramen is a decent cup of instant army stew with ramen that packs a surprising amount of heat. It pays to be different, so unlike its other budae-jjigae brethren, YouUs doubled down on the spice. It might not be Buldalk, but there’s still plenty of capsaicin infused into this cup of noodles. Even better than that, YouUs decided to go with a “fresh packet” that contains the budae-jjigae sauce. Looking forward towards the future, I think this is the way to go. Dehydrated ingredients save weight and work well enough, but its hard to beat the flavor of the ingredients that didn’t already lose most of their moisture. I seriously hope more companies start to do this. It just might bring in a whole new flavor revolution!
Flavor:
Not a ramen with the most diverse number of ingredients. There were: slices of hot dogs (sausage), spam, and spring onion. That’s about it. Omori Budae-jjigae Ramen also doesn’t really taste like budae-jjigae to me. It has the flavor of kimchi-jjigae until you snack on one of the mystery meats. The flavor of said mystery meat isn’t all that great. It could have been plastic or soy instead of anything resembling meat. One thing I did like was the “fresh packet" (That’s what I’ve been calling it…). The packet keeps the sauce and ingredients moist, so they actually taste like real food.
Spiciness:
These were way spicier than I expected to get from a cup of budae-jjigae. This cup of noodles had me sweating bullets and put a bit of fire in my mouth. I suspect most of the spiciness comes from capsaicin, because it coated the inside of my mouth.
Smell:
Just like with the flavor, Omori Budae-jjigae Ramen also smells like kimchi-jjigae or kind of like Shin Ramen. The budae-jjigae aroma only shows itself when you get a bite containing the mystery meats. Without these ingredients, the flavor and the smell would just scream kimchi stew. I can also catch a very faint smell of the ramen noodles, buy the aroma is secondary to the smell of the soup.
Noodles:
Meh. These noodles were far from the best noodles I have ever had… The noodles were your basic ramen, but that wasn’t the problem. They werr much too soft and swelled with liquid very quickly after making them. This was probably due to the cooking method, which had you nuke these noodles for three and a half minutes in a 700 watt microwave. I could barely get the molten bowl of ramen out of the microwave. I suggest you undercook these noodles, because the cooking time requirement was much too long. One thing I did like was the size of the noodles. These were thin, so I felt they paired nicely with the soup and other textures.
Overall:
YouUs Omori Budae-jjigae Ramen isn’t a bad attempt at instant budae-jjigae, but why do I taste kimchi-jjigae instead? I feel like this cup of noodles just missed the mark on having an authentic flavor. It’s definitely not my favorite cup of instant budae-jjigae out there in ramen land. However, it’s still good enough for most, I think. If you’re a fan of either kimchi-jjigae or budae-jjigae, then this will be a worthy purchase.
Do you prefer budae-jjigae or kimchi-jjigae? How about spam or hot dogs? Let me know 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.
