This is not a joke. This is a real product that actually exists, for better or for worse: Samyang Buldak Banana Flavored Spicy Ramen. Just like the Buldak Thai Crab Curry flavor that I reviewed a couple of episodes ago, this was sent to me by my friend The Fat Hipster. He does food reviews, including a lot of noodle products like this one, so thank you very much for sending this my way because this is not easy to get a hold of.
The Verdict:
| Product: | Samyang Buldak Banana Spicy Ramen |
| Origin: | South Korea (Chinese market) |
| Noodle Quality: | 8/10 |
| Spice Level: | 7/10 |
| Overall Score: | 3.5/10 |
This is manufactured by Samyang exclusively for the Chinese market. If you don’t live in or near China or know someone there who can get these to you, you’ll have to head to eBay or a similar online marketplace to buy this. And should you buy this? I guess we’ll find out. When it was announced last year, I figured maybe it would be a Buldak version of Filipino banana ketchup, but those who came before me and had already tried it said that wasn’t the case. It’s legitimately Buldak with banana flavor.
I might as well take this opportunity to mention up front that bananas are one of my least favorite foods on the entire planet. I actively hate ripe bananas. Now, a severely underripe banana that’s super tart and will give you a stomach ache? Yes – weirdly enough, that is the only form of banana I would eat, despite the gastrointestinal regret I’d experience afterward. Anything riper than that tastes like what I imagine poison would taste like. That’s how much I hate bananas. I am certainly not the target audience for this flavor, but I have to push forward because it’s the last Buldak noodle flavor in my stash that I haven’t reviewed. Maybe once the Buldak sauce mixes with the banana element, it will be transformative in a good way. I have my doubts, but let’s see how it goes.
Inside the pack, you’ll find a block of Buldak wheat noodles, a sauce packet, a powder packet, and a dried toppings packet. These are your standard squarish Buldak noodles; nothing special about them that I noticed. The sauce is a very typical Buldak blend containing chili pepper, MSG, soy sauce, sugar, chicken flavoring, onion, garlic, and curry powder. In the powder packet, we’ve got milk, sugar, more MSG, and whey, and I’m willing to bet some banana flavoring as well. The dried toppings look to be banana-flavored cereal puffs, if the translation is accurate. The sodium for the whole thing is 1270mg. This is not vegan because of the dairy ingredients, and I also cannot say for certain that the chicken flavoring in the sauce isn’t real. Those of you with dietary restrictions, be warned.
Unlike other Buldak flavors, there is no stir-fry step here, and you don’t keep any water – that’s what the instructions say. Make this however you want, obviously, but I always follow the instructions when I review. After cooking and draining the noodles, I added the sauce first, which had exactly the standard Buldak chili aroma I expected. Next came the powder, and that didn’t smell so hot. It smelled kind of like powdered banana, but more like banana candy than an actual banana. Kind of chalky, really. I stirred that in before adding the banana-flavored puffs, which brought more of that sweet, chalky banana aroma. This could have turned into a creamy, sweeter-than-normal Buldak, in which case I’d have been fine with it, but the smell was not promising. I had to press onward for science.
Noodles:
You’ve heard me talk about Buldak noodles a lot, so I’m not going to get into too much detail. I love the chew on them. You’ll never get me to say an unkind word about the pack version of Buldak noodles.
- 8/10
Spiciness:
The spice level is potent despite the milk and whey and the creamier-than-usual Buldak sauce. No, it’s really hot. I’d say it’s up there with the Carbonara flavor. It’s very lingering on my lips and tongue, not so much the back of my throat, but it’s a very hearty, potent spice.
- 7/10
Overall:
God, it’s weird. The flavor is very hard to describe. Well, no, maybe it’s not hard to describe, but it’s probably hard for you to imagine. It literally tastes like Buldak sauce followed by banana. If you ate a pack of the original Hot Chicken flavor and then chased it with a bite of banana, that’s what this tastes like. I don’t think it’s as awful as I expected, but it’s strange, and I don’t really think it works. Buldak sauce is sweet, savory, a little smoky, and very spicy. You all know what bananas taste like. Literally merge those two things together, and that’s what this is. I tried one of the little crunchy bits on its own, and it kind of tasted like a stale, slightly crunchy banana chip. I do like the texture that brings, but I’m just not sold on this flavor. Since I hate bananas so much, I decided to bring in somebody who actually enjoys them and see what she thought. For the first time in the channel’s history, my wife joined me to do part of the review. We’re not going to make this a habit, because I don’t want her to get a big head about it!
A Second Opinion
My wife hadn’t heard my part of the review before trying the noodles. As a person who likes bananas in most of their forms, she didn’t taste very much banana here at all. She described the slightest hint on the front end, almost like someone had opened a banana Laffy Taffy across the room. It was a very faint flavor to her. What she did taste was a pretty sweet noodle, a vague hint of something almost citrusy on the back end, and what she thought was a nice amount of spice for Buldak. She enjoyed it just fine but certainly wouldn’t seek it out. Nothing about it was remarkable or exciting to her, and the banana was a total miss.
To me, it tasted like eating a Buldak noodle and then taking a bite of banana-flavored candy, rather than a real banana. She agreed that it was an artificial banana flavor, but to her it was more like the smell of banana Laffy Taffy than the taste. I’ve never had banana Laffy Taffy, so that was the perspective I needed. After a few bites, all she had left on her tongue was the spice. Overall, she found it too sweet but otherwise pretty innocuous and gave it a 5 out of 10. It’s fine. It’s there if you need it, but it’s not exciting. If you’re a banana lover excited about the banana flavor, she didn’t think you’d detect it all that much. Thank you, dear. Don’t come for my job.
My Final Score
My wife likes bananas on paper but wasn’t getting much banana flavor out of this. I’m thinking that because I hate bananas so much, I’m probably getting more of that weird banana flavor on the back end than she is. I don’t know, this is a tough one. It is definitely not a flavor I’d seek out again, and I am certainly not going to finish this bowl. The lowest score I’d previously given a Buldak flavor was a 4 out of 10 for the Corn flavor, which I thought was pretty not great. I like this one just a little less than that.
- 3.5/10
Final Thoughts
If you’re like me and hate bananas, you’re not going to like this. If you’re like my wife and do like bananas, you’re probably going to be underwhelmed. This was the very last Buldak noodle flavor in my pantry that I hadn’t reviewed yet (at the time of this review). I’m glad I tried it, but at the end of the day, it’s just a weird flavor. I don’t understand what Samyang was doing with this. I’m confused, and I have a lot of questions. At least it’s not totally inedible – if you really want to try it and make up your own mind, I don’t think it’s outright awful, but neither of us was particularly impressed.
Continuing the Journey:
- For another more successful fruit-flavored Korean noodle, check out Paldo Strawberry Bibimmen.
- Want another unlikely sweet noodle idea? Take a look at the awful Myojo Ippei-Chan Yakisoba Strawberry Shortcake Flavor I reviewed a while back.
- For a different sweet Buldak flavor, try Samyang Buldak Sweet Spicy Ramen.
