{"id":64444,"date":"2026-06-28T15:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=64444"},"modified":"2026-06-28T15:13:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:13:00","slug":"hes-reviewed-over-2300-varieties-of-instant-noodles-meet-south-koreas-ramyeon-critic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=64444","title":{"rendered":"He\u2019s reviewed over 2,300 varieties of instant noodles. Meet South Korea\u2019s \u2018ramyeon critic\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


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For many, instant noodles are a quick, cheap meal designed for convenience. But for Ji Young-jun, Korea\u2019s pioneering \u201cramyeon critic\u201d, they represent a lifetime of history, complex food science and a rapidly growing cultural phenomenon.<\/p>\n

Ji\u2019s unconventional journey into the world of noodles began during a period of personal frustration. After enduring consecutive failures on Korea\u2019s gruelling college entrance exam, he enlisted in the military. It was while wandering the aisles of the military commissary that he found an unexpected spark of inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore finishing my service, I set a humble goal for myself: \u2018Let\u2019s taste every single instant noodle available here,\u2019\u201d Ji says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAstonishingly, that simple objective completely revitalised my military life and filled it with excitement. I wanted to carry this amazing energy into the civilian world, so in 2013, I began sharing my detailed reviews on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a decade, Ji balanced his passion for instant noodles with a stable career as a primary school teacher. However, as global interest in Korean culture surged \u2013 driven in part by K-pop and a craze for Buldak Ramen \u2013 Ji noticed a glaring void.<\/p>\n

While American reviewer Hans Lienesch had achieved global fame as \u201cThe Ramen Rater\u201d, Korea lacked an independent, professional critic dedicated to the craft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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For many, instant noodles are a quick, cheap meal designed for convenience. But for Ji Young-jun, Korea\u2019s pioneering \u201cramyeon critic\u201d, they represent a lifetime of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[9174,4334,1878,5657,272,1736,25565,725,5246,20647],"class_list":["post-64444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-critic","tag-hes","tag-instant","tag-koreas","tag-meet","tag-noodles","tag-ramyeon","tag-reviewed","tag-south","tag-varieties","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/64445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}