Tteokbokki, Korean Rice Cake, isn't something i crave about even when i was in Korea but Alex's very good table tennis kaki could not stop singing praises on the Line chat group about an instant Tteokbokki cup he found at Jurong East Big Box.
He eventually bought like over twenty in one go and kindly passed us one to try. Actually, it was for me since our poor Alex doesn't know how to enjoy spicy stuff.
Inside the cup were just two packs of ingredients; one contained hard, uncooked pieces of rice cake and the other was supposedly the sauce that, in my honest opinion, either make or break a serving of Tteokbokki.
Now comes the problem; there's no English instruction on what i should do!!!! And being the good and efficient Singaporean that i truly am, i am at a fix when there's a lack of direction! How can!?
Thankfully, i remember Alex's friend had posted the English instructions for us on the Line app and i took quite a while to search for it! As i am not into microwaved food, i opted for the second option!
Do the pieces of rice cake remind you of something? For me, they kind of looked like plastic pieces and indeed, their texture was like plastic.
I poured hot water in and instead of the recommended two, three minutes; waited for more than six minutes before i opened up the top and drained out excess water.
Next would be the sauce!
I greedily used my fork to pierce through a piece and popped in into my mouth. Expression was unbelievable; bloody thing hadn't softened!!!
Mom came to the rescue and heated up the entire serving on the stove! Damn, the traditional method is nevertheless still the best.
The texture improved markedly after mum's intervention although i could not quite agree that i enjoyed the tteokbokki. Guess the key issue was that i didn't drain out more water, resulting in an extremely diluted sweet and spicy sauce.
Xeldon, can buy me another one? :P
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Where To Buy
From Big Box @ Jurong East
Pricing
One Cup - Less than S$3