I love to eat Buldak ramyun, amazing flavor.

I can generally enjoy very spicy food (I use Habanero hot sauce regularly), but I only put about 1/2 to 2/3 of this noodle's packet in it. It is insanely spicy.

Anyways, cool backstory to read about.

I made the mistake once with a black pack of Buldak, and put the whole thing of sauce in it. My wife and I shared the bowl and cried all the way through. It's unbelievably spicy. My local asian store sells bottles of buldak!

I keep a supply of those. Both the "Hot" and the "insane" (I think they call it 4X hot) variants. They are great. I also found that they sell the sauce in bottles.

It works to mix one packet of those with 100% of the sauce with some other unspicy or plain ramyun to tone it down a little an avoid wasting any of the precious sauce packets.

> There is a clear market for instant noodles in the U.S. that’s growing

I suspect this may be related to changes in the affordability of healthier foods. I've been eating a lot of ramen for that reason lately anyway

Lots of people also just like them for comfort food. They were one of my favorite snacks as a kid and I was fortunate to have access to plenty of healthy food.

To this day, if I see a new noodle flavor I feel compelled to try it. Same with sodas even though I don’t drink much soda

+1 totally agree. My fridge is full of healthy stuff, and my pantry has a lot of of this sort of comfort food. Every now and then that 'instant spicy ramen' craving kicks in and I go for it.

Rice, chicken, and potatoes in bulk are leaps and bounds cheaper than instant ramen considering both caloric and nutritional content. It might be a sign that young Americans do not feel comfortable cooking at home.

Which is odd..

Rice - throw it in a rice cooker.

Potatoes - poke some holes in it and put it in the oven for an hour. Don't even need to wrap it. You can put some oil and seasoning on the skin if you want to.

Chicken - What is hard about cooking chicken? Getting the pan hot?

Not that hard to make those things taste even better too. People should really learn to cook. Pretty good for you and saves you money to boot. Given how expensive fast food is nowadays (a rip-off) you'd think it'd be a given.

or that depression is more common than anyone would like to admit.

The best Buldak ramen bowls are when you top the noodles with eggs poached in the spice broth. Yum! So good. I like the cheesy versions too. Perfect for midnight cravings.