- My mom is a good cook,
but this guy cooks better than my mom, to be honest.
Sorry, Mom.
(air whooshes)
(sign squeaks)
- Hi, I'm Yangrae,
and I'm going to try other Korean men's tteokbokki.
- So tteokbokki usually is a spicy and sweet
and sticky Korean rice cake dish.
- We always put gochujang in it so it's really, really red.
Personally, I don't like spicy food,
but I really love tteokbokki.
- So tteokbokki is actually more synonymous
to like a street food in Korea.
- If I have to describe tteokbokki in one sentence,
that's gonna be Korean soul food.
- For me, the perfect tteokbokki
is like the most traditional one.
If people are giving me weird innovative tteokbokkis today,
I'm not gonna be happy.
- I really wanna eat tteokbokki now. Let's get it.
(funky music)
- In my tteokbokki I put rice cake
and fish cake and enoki mushroom and spring onion.
Honestly, I never made tteokbokki before,
but my tteokbokki was really good.
- Ooh. I can smell some fish sauce.
- Interesting.
So she got the rice cake, she got the fish cake,
she got the spring onion, she got the enoki mushroom.
- I like mushroom, yeah,
but I'm just saying this is unusual.
- So in Korean we would say jjondeuk jjondeuk,
and it's like that sticky kind of mouth feel.
So I'm just curious to see
whether it's like on the harder side or the softer side,
or like right in that like jjondeuk jjondeuk zone.
- Yeah, I'm really excited to try this one.
- Mm. Mm!
- Oh, it's actually very nice.
- This is really good, actually.
You can't go wrong with a good tteokbokki.
- Also a bit spicy. The spiciness comes later.
- I kind of get that kind of like salty, like MSG flavor,
but it's pretty decent.
- I don't know, somehow it tastes similar
to other Korean spicy ramen, which is (speaking Korean).
- I definitely, definitely think
this person has used some ramen like seasoning packet.
- I don't know how he made it.
I can still taste the sauce even inside of the rice cake,
so it's really nice I think.
- I'm glad that the spicy flavor
is really holding up to the dish.
- Me personally, I can't really take like,
you know, really spicy food,
but I think other Koreans would like this.
- And I do like the addition of the enoki mushrooms
'cause they are my favorite mushrooms.
So if that person wants to, you know, ever hang out
and chat about enoki mushrooms, I'm down.
- I would say an experienced home chef made this.
I would give it an eight.
- I would give this dish an 8 out of 10.
(bell dings)
- For my tteokbokki,
I tried my best to bring my childhood memory,
so I made it kind of unhealthy.
So I use tteok which is rice cake,
fish cake, some sugar, MSG, and red pepper paste.
I think now my tteokbokki is going to be the most close one
to the street tteokbokki, actually.
- Oh, it smells spicy. (laughs)
- Visually interesting I would say so far.
Like I like how they've got this mix
of these square fish cakes,
and they've also got like the tubular ones as well.
So they made the effort in that sense.
- These ones are not very typical ingredients.
Fish cake in tteokbokki,
normally it's very thin ones, but yeah, I prefer this one.
- And this one spring onion. (laughs)
Actually no, there's two. There's two, there's two.
- Hmm. Okay.
- I don't know if y'alls can hear it in the mic,
but this tteok is really squeaky for some reason.
I don't think it's necessarily on the cook
because I think the cook is fine.
Whatever brand this is,
like y'alls need to improve your formula
'cause this tteok is hella squeaky for no reason.
- Garlic too.
Oh, oh! (laughs) It's raw.
- I hope this is not their version of minced garlic.
- This tteokbokki is not spicy, thankfully (laughs)
but the only problem was the garlic.
I think I probably have bad breath now.
- Based off the look and the taste,
it really is just giving like a uni guy
who just tried making tteokbokki for the first time.
- I don't think there are many different ingredients
in this one.
I would say this one is pure tteokbokki
like when I was in high school
or middle school, after school,
I feel like this one is the one I ate back then.
- Maybe just like adding in some other things
to balance out the flavors
so that it wasn't just like a basic gochujang flavor.
- I give it an eight.
- I would have to give this dish a 5 out of 10.
(bell dings)
So tteokbokki that I made today is,
again, it's just super traditional.
It's just spicy rice cakes with some fish cakes
and some onions, carrots, and spring onions
just to like bring that flavor.
I tried to make it on the less spicier side
just in case there are people who are not super super spicy,
but realistically as a Korean,
you should be able to handle your spice.
- Oh, okay.
- Wow. (laughs) Really?
Is this guy chef? It looks amazing.
- I can smell fresh spring onion
and it gives more, you know, flavor, which is really nice.
- I think this man puts a lot of effort on it,
and yeah, it's really impressive.
- This looks like some home-cooked tteokbokki,
but made by really good chef mom.
- Yeah, I hope this tastes as good as it looks.
(funky music)
- Wow, it's very spicy.
- Speechless. This guy knows what he is doing.
- I like the fact
that there is like a variety of ingredients inside.
Yeah, I wasn't expecting the carrot to be this nice
you know, because it's quite unusual.
- I'm not a fan of carrot usually, but I really liked it.
- Me personally, when I try this, I wouldn't feel as guilty
because they have more, you know, vegetable.
- It tastes like a tteokbokki
from like fancy restaurant in Korea
and it's really expensive and it tastes like that.
- I'm pretty sure, you know, the man who cooked this one,
he loves spicy, yeah.
- When you cook spring onion, it lose its taste.
But this one is really fresh,
and I can taste all of the spring onion.
- My least favorite thing about this is fish cake, actually.
It feels like it's not quite cooked.
Me personally, I really like,
you know, when the fish cake is overcooked.
- It tastes like heaven. It just, I love this one.
My mom is a good cook,
but this guy cooks better than my mom, to be honest.
Sorry, Mom.
- I would give it 7.5.
- I can't give it like nine, eight,
it's just 10 out of 10.
(bell dings)
(triumphant music) - Ah, yes!
Again, coming through with the traditional flavors. Yes!
- Okay. Okay.
Maybe it's because mine doesn't taste healthy.
- To be honest, I knew it because I think I never can beat
the one with spring onion.
- If you enjoyed watching Korean men
try other Korean men's food,
do leave a like and a subscribe down below.
(funky music)