I’ll Fight Anyone Who Says You Shouldn’t Put Cheese on Your Ramyun

This is Bad Kimchi, a monthly column by Noah Cho about how food and cooking can inform our identities.

I’m often sad when I think of how ramen has become a trend in the US. It’s so oversaturated that David Chang, one of the chefs most linked to ramen as a result of his first hit restaurant, Momofuku Noodle Bar, declared ramen dead in 2015. It’s not dead—people will still line up and wait hours for a bowl of noodles. Which is fine, if the noodles are good and worth it. Often, they’re not.

I live in Oakland, where I’ve developed an unhealthy hatred for one of the most popular places to eat in the area: Ramen Shop, located in the tony Rockridge district. Like most restaurants of note in the Bay Area, Ramen Shop is a place where you can expect to wait in line for several hours—tempted there, perhaps, by the bona fides of the chef-owners, who trained at the holy California culinary temple of Chez Panisse and then spent a short time in Japan presumably learning how to make noodles from ramen masters. But I do not like the noodles at Ramen Shop. I’ve eaten my share of ramen around the world, at places both high and low, and it just isn’t to my taste.

Ramen, to my mind, is a utilitarian food. It makes me think of Japanese businessmen slurping up a bowl, standing up at a counter during a quick lunch break or before they head out for a night of drinking. When ramen became something twee here—when artisanal noodles and wood-finished bars started hitting the US with accompanying cocktails and four-hour wait times—something was lost.

I wish ramen would go back to what it was for me as a kid: comfort food, something for the dark night of the soul, a thing to soak up your regrets and get you through a rough day. For me, one type of ramen has always remained its same, humble self. And you don’t go to a fancy restaurant for it. You go to an Asian market and look for the deep red package, with its giant Hangul characters; its promise of spice and comfort. You go for Shin Ramyun.

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Shin Ramyun has been around for most of my life. Since its inception in 1986 in Korea, Shin Ramyun has grown to be one of the most popular, recognizable, and accessible types of instant noodles on the market. Though most Western college kids probably only dabbled in Maruchan “Oriental” Flavored Ramen or something similar, those of us in the know in the ’90s preferred Shin Ramyun. Its piquancy, beefy broth, and springy noodles are comforting in the best way, a spicy and noodly blanket to both warm your heart and destroy your stomach.

I wish ramen would go back to what it was for me as a kid: comfort food, something for the dark night of the soul.

You’ll notice that Koreans call ramen ramyun (or ramyeon, depending on who is doing the Romanization). Myun is the Korean food for noodles, similar to –men or –mien in Japan and China. Most ramyun one encounters outside of Korea is Shin Ramyun, or one of the other equivalent brands.

Korea does not have the deep noodle soup respect of other East Asian cultures, and there is no snobby Korean Ramen Shop equivalent that’s come to the US—though places like Jeju Noodle Bar in New York are trying to change that. When it comes to Korean noodles in the US, people might be more familiar with naengmyeon, the cold-broth noodle that originated in what is now North Korea, or jjajangmyeon, the black bean noodle dish that came about as a fusion of Chinese and Korean cooking. All of these noodle dishes are comfort foods for Koreans. For me, though, while all of these noodles bring me peace, nothing has been there for me like Shin Ramyun.

I cannot tell you how many times I turned to Shin Ramyun to dull my pain or despair during my college days and early twenties. After the worst breakup of my life, through tears and sniffling, I made a giant pot of Shin Ramyun at three a.m. I was not willing to wait in line at a sit-down place for the privilege—my shame and my glory were mine alone to enjoy, noodles slurping in the dark, deep night. I used three packets and ate the whole pot myself, soon passing out from either the heartbreak or the sodium overload.

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Like most instant noodles, Shin is inexpensive. Though it’s seen some price hikes (and goes for an almost egregious $2 at Berkeley Bowl), it still stands as a reasonable snack to eat without breaking your wallet. Instant noodles are also infinitely customizable: Leftover meat? Throw some on top of your instant noodles with a poached egg and some green onion. Now you have a complete meal, and you’ve used some leftovers to boot! You’re a real chef now!

My favorite way to customize Shin Ramyun is one that’s courted great controversy amongst my Korean friends and family. It was one of my brother’s ex-girlfriends who first introduced me to the practice of putting a rubbery Kraft Single on my Shin Ramyun. She was, like my brother and me, a multiracial Korean, and had lived in Seoul on and off. Her family always put Kraft Singles on Shin Ramyun, and she showed my brother and me how she did it: She made the noodles, arranged them so they made a slight peak in the middle of the bowl, and then gently placed a Kraft Single on top. She waited a few seconds for the shitty cheese product to start melting, and then began pulling the noodles through it as she ate. Each noodle was coated in Kraft as it passed through, like a car going through a car wash. The noodles became glossier, waxier-looking. It looked awful. It looked intriguing.

So I tried it, and I was hooked. It was like a mangled version of Korean mac and cheese, spicy and tangy, and it made me want to take a nap afterward. I asked my other Korean friends about it, and inevitably got one of two responses: 1) “Of course you should eat it with cheese, what the hell is wrong with you?” or 2) “You’re a monster, what the hell is wrong with you?” Sometimes I felt like my love of cheese ramyun was another marker of my biraciality—American consumerism and bad cheese blending with my Koreanness, turning into something weird. But then I went to Seoul and saw American cheese slices in convenience stores, labeled “ramyun cheese.”

My favorite way to customize Shin Ramyun is one that’s courted great controversy amongst my Korean friends and family.

Shin Ramyun with cheese, egg, and green onion is still my preferred way to medicate myself after a trying day. Sometimes I don’t even bother with the egg or green onion; instead, I just go for the cheese, broth, and noodles. When it’s cold and I don’t want to do anything or go anywhere, I take comfort in knowing that a pristine package of Shin Ramyun is always waiting for me in my pantry, its spicy charms calling out to me. Yes, you, it says, come here, come into my warm embrace. Every time, I am helpless to resist.

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You can get Shin Ramyun in various forms, from the familiar cup-noodle style to the “Big Bowl” varieties. Nongshim, the parent company that makes Shin Ramyun, also released Shin Black, which is pork-based rather than beef-based. I know many people who prefer Shin Black to the original flavor, but they’re wrong. It tastes fine, but it’s neither as spicy nor as comforting as the original flavor.

A bowl of ramen at Ramen Shop in Oakland will cost you nearly twenty American dollars. You are paying for the ambiance, and for what their website calls “artistic, organic, and sustainable ramen.” But maybe you don’t want that kind of ramen. Maybe your noodle tastes run toward a more comforting style. You can turn your car around and drive five minutes southbound to Koreana Plaza, where you can buy twenty packets of Shin Ramyun for the same amount.

I know which noodles are worth my time and money.

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