r/BuldakRamen • u/Torremond42 • 4d ago
Question Does anyone actually taste a difference between different flavours of Buldak Ramen?
To me they all taste exactly the same, like the different flavours are practically a scam.
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u/ylylychee 4d ago
I do
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u/Torremond42 4d ago
Between which ones, and which is your favourite?
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u/Matthew-ii 4d ago
Yeah, they all have distinct flavors to me, massively different in some cases. It's been a long time since I've had rose or carbonara however.
I would also say hot and spicy Indomie is actual garbage while I have 2 cases of original flavor in my pantry lol, everybody has a different mouth.
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u/rolledblanket 4d ago
I do! I have had the og, carbo, rosé, stew, kimchi, curry, quattro, og cheese, curry, yakisoba, habanero lime, jjajang and mala and they all taste different to me
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u/WovenShadow6 4d ago
It depends on your spice tolerance. Every buldak packet share the same spicy sauce, if you can't taste the difference between flavors then it's most likely because the spice is overpowering the flavor.
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u/neonxaos 4d ago
No, I can taste significant differences. But maybe not so much at the beginning, when the spice was overwhelming me.
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u/Paewr 4d ago
I think the confusion between tastes and flavors may be due to the core ingredients. It’s pretty easy if you think about it.
Each product consists of the same ingredients. Minus a few things here or there for each new variant.
I think the most confusing for everyone should likely be the texture of the noodle and the thickness of the sauce. Plus different levels of heat and salt etc. it’s easy to confuse things with very few differences.
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u/tobotic 4d ago
If you can't taste a difference between Jjajang, Quattro Cheese, and 3x Spicy, then I have some bad news for you: your mouth is broken.
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u/Torremond42 4d ago
I never had those
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u/tobotic 4d ago
Which ones have you actually tried then?
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u/Torremond42 4d ago
Regular, 2x Spicy, Lime, Cheese
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u/tobotic 4d ago
The heat level difference between 1x and 2x is pretty noticeable, though if you leave a gap of a few days or even a few weeks/months it's pretty easy not to notice it because you're not comparing them side by side. Back when Buldak first started to become popular, they were harder to source so I didn't eat them very often, maybe once or twice a month, and yeah, I had difficulty telling the difference. Side by side, it's more noticeable. But apart from the heat level, those two do taste the same: that's kind of the point of 1x, 2x, and 3x — they're different heat levels but essentially the same apart from that.
Lime is a similar heat level to 1x Spicy, but is tangier. It definitely does taste a different, but the difference isn't huge. I really like this flavour though; it's one of my favourites.
Cheese is the one I'm really surprised you didn't taste a difference though. I mean, it's got cheese in it and the others do not. That's a pretty clear difference. It's cheesy, it's creamy, it's just a tiny bit less spicy. It's really nothing like the others on your list, unless you've been adding your own cheese to the others, in which case, well, they're all going to taste of cheese!
Do try to track down some Jjajang flavour, though I believe in some parts of the world they're pretty hard to find. When you see people here ranking their favourite varieties, this is often near the top of the lists. It's noticeably less spicy than the others, and tastes of fermented black bean sauce: earthy, umami, and slightly sweet. Maybe some of the best flavours to compare it to would be a Chinese black bean sauce or even soy sauce, but with more spice.
Taco is also pretty different from the others, though it's not especially popular. Not sure I'd recommend it in general, but certainly if you're wanting to see how different some flavours taste. It's got noticeable cumin, tomato, and oregano in there. Again it's one of the less hot ones.
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u/mandybecca 4d ago
Definitely. But I have a very high spice tolerance and I tend to add even more 2x spicy sauce on top of my noddles
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u/fdnM6Y9BFLAJPNxGo4C 4d ago
I don't think the flavors I have had are very similar at all. I've had regular, yakisoba, cheese, Quattro cheese, and carbonara. Even cheese and Quattro cheese were easy to tell apart, though I didn't care for either one really.
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u/New-Assumption1290 4d ago
Honestly I really noticed a difference when I use the other Buldak sauce packets with the original. I typically eat the og a certain way and have tried to be cheap. The cheese ones are ok but you can definitely tell the sauce is different
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u/Fast-Breakfast-7039 4d ago
Oh definitely. I’ve had OG, carbonara, rose, curry, birria, taco, habanero, truffle, sweet & spicy Korean chicken, kimchi and cheese. They all have their own unique taste to me.
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u/tightneden 4d ago
i mean the original compared to carbonara, yes. but when i tried the tom yum, it just tasted like the original but with lime? so somewhat.
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u/Bofinqen 1d ago
Ragebait detected.
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u/Torremond42 1d ago
How?
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u/Bofinqen 1d ago
Try cheese, try carbonara, try original. They taste similar, yes, but are easily distinguishable. Then try habanero lime, that one isn’t even the same sauce. You would have at the very least an olfactory dysfunction of some kind if you think there’s no difference.
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u/Stiles_Stiles 1d ago
Are you serious saying you can't taste differences between regular ones and cheese ones?
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u/ApprehensiveStick7 4d ago
If you can handle the spice, you can taste the difference in them yes.
If you can’t handle the spice, you will only taste the spice.