Another Korean snack review today! This is a bag of Sindangdong Toppokki Snack, also known as Tteokbokki Snack.
This is another mystery munching treat I picked up from Amazon. I had zero clue what it might be, which of course made it seem very interesting.
And interesting it is.
Opening the packet and I’m greeted with something that looks like pasta tubes, coated in a very shiny, bright orangey-red colour. When I dropped a few onto my kitchen counter, they sounded just like pasta tubes too.
But of course they’re not pasta. A little bit of Googling leads me to understand that Tteokbokki are spicy and sweet stir-fried rice cakes, which is clearly the inspiration behind this snack.
Tasting one is a strange experience, because they’re actually very sweet. That sugar is followed up by chilli heat. It starts off quite mild, but as the sugar disappears the heat comes out and builds up a bit more. It’s never something I’d class as “hot”, but there’s a red chilli pepper flavour and warmth in here.
Which leads me to the next flavour I get as I’m snacking on a handful of these… weirdly, I suppose, these taste to me like a red pepper and tomato-based vegetable soup mix.
It’s unusual. I’ve gone back to the bag of these multiple times, at different times of day, on different days – and I still think they have a taste of red pepper veggie cup-a-soup to them.
So they’re crisp and crunchy. They’re sweet, then they’re spicy. Then they’re a red pepper and tomato cup-a-soup mix with a dash of Asian hot sauce.
They’re definitely different. I don’t think they’re bad, but they’re not amazing either. However I couldn’t say how close they come to the taste of the real thing. Has anyone tried these before? Is this what the rice cake dish tastes like? Let me know in the comments below!
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