Guest Blog Post: Ashley Reviews the Ddeokbokki Chip & Question for JFN: Which NFL Team Do You Root For, and Why?
Good morning, Junk Food Nation. It’s a beautiful Saturday and my Brownie Brittle contest has three days left – keep those re-tweets going; contest ends Midnight EST on Monday (er…so…11:59pm. Yeah).
This morning, I actually have a question I’m seeking the answer to for all of you out in Junk Food Nation: Which NFL Team do you root for, and why? With football season coming around the corner (NEXT WEDNESDAY WOOT WOOT), I’m curious to see where the loyalties of my readers lie. I’m one of the few Buffalo Bills fans because I grew up in Western Upstate New York – and old loyalties dies hard. What about you? I know I have some Pats and Redskins fans out there…where else? Let me know in the comments below.
Today’s junk food review comes again from reader Ashley F. who has been living in Korea since 2010. The junk food is a chip based on the Korean dish of Ddeokbokki, or Tteokbokki, or topokki. What is it? Well, I just happened to have some last night for dinner:
Ddeokbokki
I know it looks like a weird mish mash of food with two eggs in it and at first glance it looks sort of unappealing, but SLOW DOWN. Basically, think of it as a pasta dish. The “rice cakes” (those things that look like penne) are basically like gnocchi, but made with rice flour rather than potato. Big thick chewing noodles in a Korean red chili paste sauce, with onions, spinach and other veggies cooked into it. That’s it. Just a Korean “pasta” dish. It’s DAMN tasty too.
So when I saw Ashley was reviewing a snack BASED on this dish – well, I was VERY intrigued. Take it away, Ashley!
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This is review is coming to you on the heels of a hurricane that was supposed to hit Seoul pretty hard (though it did batter the southern half of the country and others as well–let’s hope relief efforts are going well), so I stayed in my apartment because I was repeatedly warned that shit was going down. And then it didn’t. So I headed out to my local E-Mart and picked out something random–a chip-type snack based off a very popular snack here called Ddeokbokki.
Ddeokbokki Chip: The Money Shot. Hot flavor! And a cute professor on the front too!
It’s made of ddeok, the glutinous rice cake I mentioned last time, but not the kind made for desserts. It’s covered in a spicy, semi-sweet sauce that usually has odeng (fish cake. sounds gross, isn’t) mixed in. It’s great when you’re sober, fantastic when you’re drunk and evil if said snack makes a reappearance due to overindulgence in said spirits. It’s one of my favorite foods, actually, western or Korean. I’d eat ddeokbokki on my deathbed. But this snack? Not so much. And here’s why.
Ddeokbokki Chip: Professor Ddeokbokki? It looks like a hot dog.
I say chip-like snack because it isn’t made out of anything I recognize as a potato. They’re shaped like penne rigate, don’t have much weight to them and are slightly sticky to the touch. Let’s also look at the calorie count.
Ddeokbokki Chip: Math makes my head hurt
Ye gods, why are there 800 some-odd calories in 180 grams of this stuff? Why? Is it actually made out of pasta? Deep fried pasta?? What is this?! There’s only so much reading Korean will do for you here; my best guess is that is a crazy deep-fried pasta concoction.
Ddeokbokki Chip: Like a mini-churro except savory and deep fried in some sort of orange-red flavoring
Like the feel, the taste is a bit sticky at first. Sweet hits, then a kind of weak ‘spicy’ flavor that doesn’t hold much heat at all. The chip collapses easily and has a greasy mouthfeel. I’ve got you salivating, right? I don’t know how to describe the taste accurately; it’s too sweet and not spicy enough with a texture that just misses the mark completely. Ddeokbokki is chewy, obviously you’re never going to get that quality in a chip, so why try? Why not skip the tubular thing and just go for straight potatoes flavored with ddeokbokki spices?
Ddeokbokki Chip: Hollow man
But that’s just me. Like, honestly, the taste I could deal with–it’s the texture of the chip that puts me off entirely. And the 800 calories. Can’t overlook that. I’ve nothing against snacking, but 800 calories should leave me weeping tears of ‘oh god, why did I have to finish that so fast and when can I have more?’ I had two of these and was like, alright. Done. And my friends did the same.
So all in all, I was disappointed. Especially with the elderly ddeokbokki grandfather on the front of the package. His kindly looks are deceitful, unfortunately.
CHEESE TEDDY GRAHAMS!?
Oh–And I also included the picture of the Cheese Teddy Grahams, next to its completely normal-looking chocolate counterpart. Today I was looking through the cookie aisle and found butter flavored Teddies. What gives, guys? If you’re thinking they mean simple butter sugar cookies, be careful. I thought the same thing and had straight up butter as the cream of a cookie here once. Blech.
On that note, happy snacking.
–Ashley
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Cheesy Teddy Grahams….YIKES.
Sad this snack was so bad. The one thing I think is funny is that most Koreans I know consider Ddeokbokki a street food snack akin to our hot dog off the street or a slice of pizza on the corner. Can you imagine if you were just walking through the park and there was a cart serving steaming hot bowls of spaghetti and meatballs? Can you imagine!?
……actually, that’s not a bad idea. Somebody get me a food truck, quick!
So there you have it – another review of straight-from-Korea junk food. Thanks so much Ashley – and again, nice nail polish 
PURCHASED AT: ACTUAL KOREA
COST: no clue
Thoughts? Please comment below (I always reply) or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s hang out. Sincerely, Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 13 Comments
Redskins. I root for the teams that I grew up with – Caps, Wiz, and Orioles, but not Ravens or Nats, they weren’t around. It has taught me much about long suffering and hope.
@V-Tsien – How dyou feel about the Cooley release?
Saw a pasta food truck on that food truck show on the Cooking channel.
I grew up with the Pats, but this was the nightmarish era before Parcells and they offered little beyond the inevitable 4th quarter substitution when an aging Steve Grogan would come in and throw a bomb TD to Stanley Morgan on his first play, but they’d lose anyway. So when I really got into football I became a Chiefs fan because of Christian Okoye and, don’t laugh, Steve DeBerg. The man could run a play action that would make you weep. Fooled the TV cameramen most of the time. And then Derrick Thomas, of course. And Dale Carter. Remember Dale Carter in his prime? Wow.
@Dana – I remember you telling me at one point you were a Chiefs fan. Yikes. Steve DeBerg was the man though. Cassel and Bowe and Jamaal Charles aren’t a bad unit, but KC must miss the Tony Gonzalez days…
I like the idea of a spaghetti and meatballs cart – like hot dog carts in NYC – just a little pushcart run by one guy where you can get a steaming bowl of linguini with turkey meatballs while getting yelled at by a New Yorker for shaking on the parmesan cheese too slowly. “What are you, Mario Batali?! You’re holdin’ up the line!!!”
@Teresapalooza – I just have this gross vision of sopping wet pasta. You’d need to build in a pasta strainer right there on the top of the cart.
I’ve said this before but I grew up liking all the teams that were rivals of my dad’s favorite teams. So him being a bills fan and them not having much of a rivalry besides the pats I went with them. It definitely helped that my Aunt had season tickets so I’d go to a couple of games each year as a birthday and christmas gift. I also really liked Bledsoe and I was so excited to see him play but my first game was actually the game after he got injured so I actually got to see Tom Brady’s first true start which looking back now is pretty cool. I was also there when they started the record for consecutive wins and when they finally broke it. The tickets actually have some awesome photo taking skills that in the background you can see it saying if I remember right “18 in a row”. I need to go find that ticket now.
Time for my awesome math skills for the nutrition of these. They actually have 5.125 calories per gram so if they were to be a standard serving size of 28 grams they would be 143.5 or labeled as 140. So they aren’t actually that bad compared to other chip like products.
@Nick – Witnessing Brady’s first start IS pretty cool. Those Bledsoe days were awesome though – even as a Bills fan I liked him.
@nick, are u a bruins and a Celtic fan too?
@JFG, I still have the classic light blue bledsoe jersey as well as a david megget one aha
@Will, I’m not much of a fan of basketball and just watch for the story lines. I get into hockey a little but I’m a Anaheim Ducks fan just because when I was little I loved the mighty ducks movies. Got to stay loyal to your childhood=]
@Nick – MIGHTY DUCKS! Classic. FLYING V!!!!
@nick, +1 on the megget jersey. That’s just GREAT!
I have a Irvin Fryar jersey
@Will, Fryar was before my time. Looking at his wikipedia page his last season with the patriots was the year I was born=p