On February 28, the Cherry Hill West Asian Culture Club hosted its annual Spicy Noodle Challenge. The club has hosted the challenge since 2023. Just last year, the club shared their traditional event within the school community, challenging their peers to see who would volunteer in this spicy event. The West community joined in, cheering for their friends in this lively event.
The spicy noodles used in this contest were the Buldak 2x Spice from the famous brand, Samyang. The brand first launched its first product on September 15, 1963, and the contest flavor in January 2016. The term Buldak means “spicy chicken.” This “spicy noodle challenge” gained popularity in 2014 on a YouTube channel, “The Korean Englishman,” who challenged his friends to see who could eat the spicy noodles in the fastest amount of time. Since then, people all over the world have been trying these spicy noodles and filming their reactions. Famous YouTube creator Nina Guerrero, known for her dancing covers, uploaded a video of her trying this infamous noodles.
The rules of this competition consisted of who could eat the spicy noodles in the shortest amount of time without water or milk. The spice level scores a 10,000 on the Scoville scale. Some peppers on the same range of spice are jalapeno peppers, serrano peppers, and Fresno peppers. This year, 20 contestants took on this challenge: Aris Santos, Ann Roby, Allison Stoltzfus, Nate Goldwasser, Mr. Conte, Maxwell, Bowe, Dominic Faltz, Tyler Hawley, Andy Nguyen, Justice Balmes, Ioannis Kyriakou, Pedro Morales, Shazil Qureshi, Jamie Scott, Helena Zintz, John Zintz, Olivia Bekas, Jahnae Ferris, and Max Ivory. Freshman Ann Roby brought the heat during LB1, eating the spicy noodles under 1 minute and 4 seconds. Following on, LB2 winner was senior Thinh Nguyen, who finished in under 57 SECONDS!
When LB1 winner Ann was asked to rate the spiciness from 1 to 10 and her overall experience, she stated, “The spice level was like a 5/10, and the overall experience came in waves, regarding the pain.” Some tips she gave were, “If you wanna do the challenge, just try and ignore the spice and don’t do mouthfuls at a time”. The only thing running through her mind during the challenge was “trying not to choke.”