Samyang 2X Spicy Noodles

Posted on Dec 16, 2018

I mean this with greatest sincerity: Korea has some of the best instant noodles on the market right now. Invented in Japan by Momofuku Ando for Nissin, instant noodles have become the reliable and ultra-affordable quick calorie intake option for millions of people around the globe. But look past the Maruchan and Top Ramen you’ll find sitting on megamart shelves and you’ll find a wide variety of instant noodles with things like flavors and textures beyond bland and mushy. Samyang is one of these noodle brands, and the crown jewel in its collection of flavors is the Hot Chicken Flavor line.

In 2017, Samyang released a new level in the Hot Chicken Flavor lineup: haek-buldak-bokkeum-myeon. There’s a lot of different names for it in English: Nuclear Fire Spicy Noodles, Extreme Hot Chicken Flavor, but we like to name it after the big English words on the label: 2X Spicy Noodles. These are, supposedly, the hottest noodles you can buy on the market.

Are they as hot as they say there are? Click the jump and find out.

So, why are they “2X Spicy?” This is in comparison to the regular Hot Chicken noodles, which are around 4000 Scovilles hot. The 2X Spicy noodles are naturally twice as hot as that for a mouth-blistering eight thousand Scovilles. Now, this is around the heat level of a fresh Jalapeño pepper so it’s not inhumanly hot. A lot of serious chiliheads were even claiming to be disappointed by the heat level, with one Amazon review claiming they grow chilies in their own back yard hotter than this. Here at Eggware.XYZ, however, we’re normal and mortal humans. 8000 Scovilles is a lot of heat. The hot sauce varieties we use around our house peak at 4000 Scovilles on a good day. We fear the 2X Spicy Noodles. We are terrified of them.

But what’s life without a little challenge, huh? We purchased two bowls of this stuff at our local Asian grocery store, while also picking up a case of Shin Ramyun noodles. We had heard legends of the Spiciest Possible Noodle and were thrilled to have found a place so close to us that carried it!

This isn’t like a lot of other instant noodles we are used to. For one, the seasoning packet is a sauce instead of a powder. Secondly, the instructions recommend draining the water out of the finished noodles before serving. These noodles don’t brand themselves as a kind of ramen in the first place, but we were surprised that there wasn’t going to be any broth at all. The noodles also come with a small packet of sesame seeds and seaweed pieces as a crunchy topping.

The sauce packet was thick, dark, and pungent. Oh, boy, the fear has already kicked in. Mixing it together with the cooked noodles led way to a pleasant orange color. When topped with the sesame and seaweed, it was very tasty looking. The only thing that betrayed its violent nature was the powerful, powerful spicy smell. Yikes!

Well, you can’t put it off forever. The very first taste was pretty mild, and… sweet? Why was it so sweet? This is supposed to be chicken flavored, we thought. It doesn’t taste anything like chicken. It’s just swe- OH GOD

  palabomeno: Oh it's oddly sweet. Not too bad, though. The sesame and seaweed add a nice touch. Oh shit there it goes. Oh fuck it is really hot. OH man it keeps gettin ghotter

The heat is a building heat and it doesn’t take a lot of time to start cranking. And it keeps going. And going. And going. And going. It does not stop. It shows no mercy. And this was the first bite! We hadn’t even taken a second! It was without a doubt one of the most intense pains we had felt in our lives.

The noodles themselves were okay, and definitely high quality. Chewy with a good thickness, they were the one driving force that kept us eating. These were miles above any kind of Maruchan. No matter how much we wanted to stop, the delightful noodles kept us coming back.

  palabomeno: HEART RACING NOSE POURING EARS RINGING EYES STREAMING BUT I'M STILL EATING BUT I'M STILL EATING

brilokuloj: Hey so I don’t know What the FUCK I did wrong but long story short I think Paula is trying to poison me?

It took much, much longer to finish this bowl of noodles than a usual cup. The worst part was the very end, where all the liquid sauce had pooled together. It felt like willingly placing a car’s cigarette lighter inside your mouth and holding it there for as long as possible. But after a brutal, devastating meal, we were finished. We ate the 2X Spicy Noodles. The indigestion it gave us kept us up through the night and burned well into the next day.

Well, does that mean they were any good? Yes and no. The flavor was very peculiar - why was it so sweet? Why didn’t it taste anything like chicken? It wasn’t a bad flavor at all. We’d gladly eat the 1X Spicy noodles if we can find them… But I doubt anybody is eating these noodles for the flavor. The spice is the star of the show, and it delivers. It takes it to your door, brings it inside, opens the box, and starts hitting you with what’s inside. Sure, serious spice addicts might not be THAT impressed, but this is going to be hotter than almost anything you’d find outside of a specialty store.

Overall, this is kind of a one-trick pony. It promises extreme heat, and it delivers. Beyond that, it’s not really that impressive. It’s a good trick, but this is the kind of thing that you want to eat once and never have to eat again. I mean, would you watch a Youtuber do this more than once?

It’s not even the hottest ramen in the world anymore: The embarrassingly named “PuckerButt Pepper Company” (what is it with hot sauce companies?) has out the “Culley’s World’s Hottest Ramen”, which doesn’t have an exact Scoville rating but is made with Carolina Reaper peppers. Still, the 2X Spicy Noodles are going to be much hotter than anything else you could find in a supermarket without having to make an online order.

Even though it’s a one-trick pony, it’s a good trick! It’s hot! It’s fun to eat! If you’re the kind of person who like painfully hot food you will enjoy this. If you aren’t, you won’t! It’s pretty simple. But make SURE you can handle it before you buy a dozen packs - Warden is lactose intolerant and couldn’t even drink some milk to soothe the burn! Our apple juice bills are now through the roof!

Categories: food

Tagged: instant noodles samyang spicy

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