Soupy Tteokbokki for A$3 | 3AM Midnight Snack Review

Ever had that craving for tteokbokki hit you at three in the morning? Happens to me all the time, honestly. The problem is absolutely nothing's open at that hour. Every delivery app shows the snack shops shut for the night, and servo tteokbokki is always a bit meh — never quite hits the spot.

These days, a bowl of tteokbokki at a Korean street food shop runs you anywhere from about A$5 to A$7. Fair enough, really — you get fish cake and egg tossed in, and it's freshly made, so it's worth the coin. But that only matters if the shop's actually open at 3am, doesn't it? So when those late-night midnight snack cravings kick in, you end up reaching for whatever instant tteokbokki is sitting in the fridge section at the supermarket.

Why I Grabbed the Daerimseon Soupy Tteokbokki

A few days back, I was out doing the groceries with the missus at a wholesale food mart in Sintanjin (a suburb of Daejeon, South Korea) and chucked a pack of Daerimseon "Back in the Day" Soupy Tteokbokki into the trolley. It was April, but the nights were still pretty nippy, so something spicy and warm sounded absolutely spot on.

Full price was around A$4, but I snagged it on special for A$3. At that price, even if it turned out rubbish, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Expectations were rock bottom, but once I actually cooked it up, I had a few thoughts worth sharing.

First Impressions of the Packaging

The bright red packaging really catches your eye. There's a pretty appetising photo of tteokbokki on the front, but if you look closely there's a tiny disclaimer saying "styled image" — so yeah, I figured the real thing would look nothing like that. Then again, when you're standing in front of the fridge section at 3am, just about anything looks good.

It says 2 serves on the pack, which was a bit awkward at the checkout considering I was buying it purely for a solo mission.

Side Panel Instructions — Done in 10 Minutes

The side panel has the cooking instructions laid out in little diagrams, and true to instant food form, it's dead simple. Rinse the rice cakes, chuck water and sauce into a pan, bring it to the boil, add the rice cakes, and cook for another 4 minutes. All up, including rinsing time, you're looking at about 10 minutes from go to bowl.

It mentions you can add veggies, fish cake, or a boiled egg if you like, but honestly — who's prepping all that at 3am? I was planning to just cook whatever came in the packet and call it a night.

What's Inside the Pack

Ripped it open and found the rice cakes sitting in a separate clear plastic tub. The label says "bite-sized rice tteokbokki cakes" — they're short, chubby little pieces, easy to pop in your mouth whole. The clear tub is actually shaped so you could use it as a bowl, which is a nice touch when you can't be bothered doing dishes at stupid o'clock. The sauce and dried topping sachet were sitting on top of the rice cakes.

Bite-Sized Rice Cakes

Took the rice cakes out for a closer look. They're a refrigerated product, and the use-by date had roughly a year left on it, so they'd be good to stash in the fridge for whenever the mood strikes. The cakes themselves are white, cut short, and just the right size to eat in one bite — exactly as advertised.

The "Secret Sauce" and Dried Toppings

Laying the sauce and dried topping sachets side by side gave me a bit of a laugh — the size difference is ridiculous. The sauce packet feels hefty and substantial, while the topping sachet is so thin you'd wonder if there's actually anything in it.

Flipping the topping sachet over, it says "processed fruit and vegetable product" — so basically dried spring onion flakes and bits. The sauce sachet has "Secret Sauce" stamped on it like some kind of official seal, which sounds fancy, but at the end of the day it's a gochujang-based sweet and spicy tteokbokki sauce. Had a quiet chuckle to myself standing in the kitchen at 3am reading that.

No Microwave Option, Unfortunately

The back panel repeats the same cooking instructions as the side. Here's the thing though — I saw the plastic container inside and just assumed you could nuke it in the microwave. But no matter how hard I looked, there were zero microwave directions anywhere on the packaging.

The whole reason you buy instant food at 3am is so you don't have to faff about with pots and the stove, so this was a bit of a letdown. Comes with a container and everything, but no microwave option — bit ironic, that. Nothing for it though, so I followed the stovetop method as instructed.

The Actual Cooking Process

Tipped the rice cakes into a strainer and there was a decent amount — looked like a fair whack for one person given it's meant to be 2 serves. Gave them a quick rinse under running water as instructed, just a few seconds under the tap. Some of the cakes were stuck together but they separated straight away once the water hit them.

The 350ml Water Trap

Chucked the rinsed rice cakes into a saucepan and added water. The instructions say 350ml of water, but it's not like I was using a measuring jug at 3am — I just eyeballed it. Pretty sure I ended up closer to 400ml. This is where I reckon a fill line marked on the container would be an absolute lifesaver.

Tore open the dried topping sachet and tipped it in — bits of dried spring onion and yellow flakes tumbled out. Felt exactly like adding the seasoning packet to instant noodles. Honestly, calling it "toppings" is being pretty generous for the amount you get, but it's better than nothing, I suppose.

When the Sauce Dissolves and It Starts Bubbling

Squeezed the tteokbokki sauce on top — it's gochujang-based, so it comes out thick and sticky. Seeing that blob of red sauce sitting on top of the white rice cakes and spring onion flakes made me want to snap a photo before stirring it in.

Gave it one stir and the broth started turning red, but the colour wasn't even — some patches were deep red while others were still pale. The sauce hadn't fully dissolved yet since the water wasn't properly boiling, but even at that stage the smell was already wafting up and getting my hopes going.

Once it hit the boil, things changed completely. The patchy colour from before evened out into a proper, uniform red, and it was finally starting to look like real tteokbokki. The spicy aroma kicked up a notch, and watching those rice cakes bobbing around in the bubbling broth — this was the moment I actually started getting excited. Obviously it didn't look like the photo on the packet, but I thought, yeah, this'll do nicely.

Honest Taste Verdict

Plated it up in a bowl and — crikey, that's a lot of broth. The rice cakes were practically submerged, so it looked less like tteokbokki and more like "soup with rice cakes in it." This is where my heavy-handed water pour came back to bite me.

Taste-wise, it honestly wasn't bad. You get that sweet-and-spicy kick, but because there was so much broth, the sauce was diluted and the punchy, peppery heat was really toned down. There was a hint of spice on the tip of my tongue, but then it just trailed off into blandness.

Up close, the broth is actually a pretty nice shade of red. The rice cakes have soaked up a bit of colour from the sauce, and you can see little flecks of spring onion floating around. But zooming in like this only made it more obvious just how soupy the whole thing turned out.

Picked one up with chopsticks and the rice cake was nicely cooked — good and chewy. You can see the chilli flakes clinging to the surface. Flavour-wise, the rice cake itself had a great, satisfyingly chewy texture, but because the broth was so diluted, the seasoning hadn't really soaked into the cakes properly. The rice cakes on their own were perfectly fine — it's just that dodgy water estimate that kept letting me down.

Final Verdict on Daerimseon Soupy Tteokbokki

Daerimseon "Back in the Day" Soupy Tteokbokki is a pretty solid effort for about A$3 worth of instant tteokbokki. The rice cakes are chewy, and the sauce delivers that classic sweet-spicy flavour. Just don't go overboard with the water like I did, and you'll be right.

If I had to flag two downsides, they'd be these. First, there are absolutely no extras like fish cake or boiled egg — it's just rice cakes and broth, which feels a bit empty. Hard to expect much for A$3, but if you've got some fish cake knocking about in the fridge, definitely chuck it in. Second, there's no microwave cooking option. The whole point of buying instant food at 3am is to avoid pulling out a saucepan and turning on the stove, so having a container included but no microwave instructions is a bit of a head-scratcher.

Next time, I'll dial back the water and throw in some fish cake — reckon that'd make a proper difference. As a supermarket tteokbokki to keep stashed in the fridge for those nights when you're craving something spicy, it does the job. Being able to cook it up whenever the mood strikes, no matter what time it is — that's the whole reason instant tteokbokki exists, and this one delivers on that promise.

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