Haitai Singdandong Hot Chicken Tteokbookkki Rice Cake Snack: I used to buy Haitai tteokbokki rice snacks from HMart regularly, so I was very pleased to see these Korean snacks at my local Lawson convenience store in Tokyo, though I hadn't tried this particular flavor. The normal ones are satisfying sweet, savory, and spicy glazed rice snacks shaped like large, ridged elbow macaroni, crunchy rather than chewy like the actual tubular rice cakes you get at a Korean restaurant. They were reliably good, the type of snack I would always manage to buy when I made an out-of-the-way trip to HMart in NYC's Koreatown (or almost every week when I lived near one in Kendall Square in Cambridge). The packaging on this bag has substantially more flames, and while my spice tolerance is not the highest, I was curious what a spicy chicken-flavored version might taste like. They have the exact same shape and texture as the type I know and love, but the spiciness is definitely intense – while it might not seem too bad after a couple, the heat builds up quickly. That spiciness is balanced out a bit by the surprising sweetness of the glaze. It does have a meatier flavor than the original, but taste more like a barbecue sauce you might put on chicken wings than chicken wings themself. Overall, I still prefer the original because I couldn't ever eat more than ~5 pieces without feeling like I needed a break, though I guess there's some natural portion control built in. 3.0/5.0

lawson korean haitai singdandong hot chicken tteokbookkki rice cake snack 3.0