The Thai and Korean "spicy" levels are NOT standardized in any way whatsoever.
And you must learn this on your own.
this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
347 points (99.2% liked)
Lemmy Shitpost
37191 readers
3589 users here now
Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.
Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!
Rules:
1. Be Respectful
Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.
Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.
...
2. No Illegal Content
Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.
That means:
-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals
-No CSA content or Revenge Porn
-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)
...
3. No Spam
Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.
-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.
-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.
-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers
-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.
...
4. No Porn/Explicit
Content
-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.
-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.
...
5. No Enciting Harassment,
Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts
-Do not Brigade other Communities
-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.
-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.
-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.
...
6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.
...
If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.
Also check out:
Partnered Communities:
1.Memes
10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)
Reach out to
All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
At the restaurants, just make sure they laugh at you a little when you order. Then you know it's the good shit.
The best Thai noodles I've ever gotten was in some hole-in-the-wall place called Thai Kitchen 2 or something. Got my usual 4/10 spice level (at least, what I usually get at my local place)on some Pad See Ew and I was in physical pain the whole time, but it was goddamn delicious.
The likelihood of my eating the spiciest thing I can find for dinner has risen to 100%.
Any idea how Korea ended up with spicier food than Japan or 80% of China?
I can believe that Korean food has gotten spicier in the last 30 years, but I think it's worth noting that Korean food was already plenty spicy before any of those financial crises, much more so than Japanese food, and all but a few specific Chinese regions.
I am sad they don't have a graph of capsacin content and unemployment over time.
Shit's closer to entertainment than food
Indeed, the shitting is entertainment (assuming you're not the subject)
I'm convinced Buldak x2 spicy ramyun is a psyop.
Shit is spicy but only moderately.
Do you have bowels of steel?
Buldak 2x was the first time I've had felt spiciness in my intestines. I will try 3x but only once and then probably stay at 1x.
I have a fun story about this.
I once purchased buldak at my local supermarket, not knowing what it was. I thought they were regular instant noodles.
They were actually painful. I had to drink an entire glass of water between every mouthful. I eventually gave up.
A few days after, I randomly stumbled upon a news article about the exact same product that I bought being recalled in Denmark (I live in France) because it caused abdominal pains and vomiting.
When I read that, I actually went out to find those noodles since I've never really tasted food so spicy I can't handle it, and I occasionally buy something extremely spicy. Never found them, but did find the noodles OP talked about and they were fine.
Buldak is pain, Lee curry is anguish. The latter is from Glico (Japanese). I shared a portion with my wife 15 years ago, and still remember. The horror... The horror...
I wonder if the Buldak mascot is meant to be a bait and switch, or their way of saying, "sorry about your butthole, here's a cute li'l guy."
Probably a bit of both
The Korean ramen spice is so weird its so chemically and gross. Its very hot the first few times but the heat dies off if you eat it regularly.
Talking about the one with the chicken breathing fire.
Buldak
Maybe I just havent had the right ones. I've had spicy ramyeon, but not the kind that makes me regret my life or just cause pain on my tongue. I HAVE had that pain in the form of max level (5) Indian food and jollof rice, however. Well, I can eat level 5 Indian food without dying, but at that point I'm not enjoying/tasting the flavor as much as I'm just tasting tingles, so I just get level 4 as a haply middle ground.
You could try Buldak if you haven’t yet. I believe they have a 3x spicy version, if you really want to go the extremes. The regular buldak is already too spicy for a lot of people.
They do have a 3x. IIRC it was banned in Denmark because it was basically considered toxic.
I guess it affects different people differently. The Buldak brand is the hottest I've tried so far.
I think Buldak is the only kind I've had so far lol. I've had the spicy black packaging and the pink spicy carbonara kind, and I don't remember hating it at all lol. Guess I have to try the x2 spicy kind.
Try "Spicy Spicy"...
Yeah, I don't find their noodles that particularly hot. I had some chettinad cuisine (mean valuvar) that was for real. I will say though that I'm some kind of big outlier for spice tolerance.
If you visit Tokyo definitely go to Coco ichibanya and take their spice levels somewhat seriously. They go from 1 to 10, (and special 20 edition) and even with my habanero and ghost pepper loving self an eight can make me tear up.
A couple swedish dudes came and sat next to me and ordered like a three or a four and had to order several glasses of milk. I have to assume most people from their country have experienced almost no spice at all.
Youre not wrong, Indian food when spicy is so a lot more than korean buldak, no matter what %x
Neoguri ramyun is good. Spicy, but not crazy spicy like a lot of the stuff from Buldak. My wife prefers it with a half bag of spice mix, I dump in the whole bag for myself. Top with some spring onions, spam or leftover roast chicken, shredded cheese and maybe some mushrooms, crack an egg in the middle. Nice as a treat, but we try not to make it a habit. It's a lot of salt and additives.
That sounds pretty good. I think I'm about to buy some spicy ramen.
There are two kinds of people taking notes in this thread...
Buldak tries too hard imo. Pretty much inedible, hard to appreciate the flavor if it's covered in concentrated capsaicin. Shin Black and Neoguri are good spice levels and have good flavor though.