The Korean grocery aisle at Saraga is lined with colorful snacks. Photo by Darcy Leber.
ALEX MCCARTY | STAFF REPORTER | armccarty@butler.edu
YEJIN SHIN | STAFF REPORTER | yshin1@butler.edu
For students tired of the same old Atherton meals, Saraga International Grocery can satisfy their curiosity. It is a popular multicultural grocery store in Indianapolis, offering various foods worldwide. If one wants to challenge themselves with foods that are hard to find in American cuisine, Korean is the perfect choice.
First-year elementary education major Clara Williams finds comfort in these dishes.
“[Korean food] seems a lot more warm, but not in the temperature,” Williams said. “[It’s] in the feeling you get from it … so comforting. Everything is warm, tasteful and feels like it is cooked from the heart.”
The Butler Collegian ventured into Saraga to experience Korean food, escaping from the usual campus offerings. Korean food is famous for being both healthy and spicy. Some dishes are extremely spicy, like tteokbokki and kimchi. The Collegian tried noodles, snacks and drinks ranging from mild to super spicy.
Convenience food
What is more college-core than a cup of microwave noodles? Brands such as Cup Noodles have dominated the college scene for decades, whether on the stained turntables of dorm room microwaves or the meals in a 15-minute window between classes.
Korean microwave noodles take it to the next level. The Collegian tried two brands of varying heat levels. The spiciest one is Buldak Spicy Chicken Ramen, which is known for its intense heat in Korea. A more standard version is called Chapaguri, also known as Ram-don, which appears in “Parasite”. Last but not least, the Collegian tried tteokbokki, which is made of rice cakes in a spicy Korean sauce.
Even for those with a tolerance for all things spicy, these noodles had quite the kick. The ChapaGuri Jjajang noodles were the mildest and were layered in a savory sauce and seafood-flavored seasonings. On the opposite side of the scale, the Buldak spicy chicken ramen exploded with spice but not unpleasantly. It was one of the best Korean foods from the store.
Ben Adler, a sophomore entrepreneurship and innovation major, also enjoyed the Buldak ramen.
“I would say the spice on the [Buldak] noodles was just right,” Adler said. “It had enough [spice] where you had a really good flavor going. The more you ate, the better it was, but it wasn’t overwhelming [or] an assault on the taste buds.”
The third and final dish the Collegian tried was spicy tteokbokki. The rice cakes were soft and pillowy, similar to the texture of gnocchi. The sauce was equally as spicy as the other noodles, but it coated the rice cakes in delicious layers that made it erupt in flavor. Out of everything, tteokbokki was the best.
Snacks and sweets
An undeniable guilty pleasure can be found in snacking on a share-size bag of chips or indulging in a box of snack cakes. In America, the common choice would be potato chips or Hostess cakes. Koreans seem to share this infatuation, but their approach is different.
Korean snacks come in a wide variety of flavors, including honey butter, black sesame and more. One particular snack catches the eye: seafood-flavored Tako chips. These crunchy delights are octopus-shaped puffs that combine fish and flour to create an addicting treat. This combination seemed unusual at first, but it quickly won the Collegian over.
Sophomore strategic communication major Allison Pfefferkorn has never tried Korean food before.
She enjoyed the taste of the Tako chips and thought they were similar to U.S. snacks.
“I thought it tasted like calamari,” Pfefferkron said. “[When] I had it at first, I was kind of dubious. [After] I sat for a minute, I thought it was actually pretty good. We have that kind of similar [thing], octopus and squid flavored chips in the U.S. too.”
Lotte Choco Pies, which are snack cakes with a chocolate exterior and a spongy cake interior, were next on the list. They are most comparable to American snack cakes such as Hostess Ding Dongs, with the key difference being that they contain a layer of marshmallow in the center. This results in a unique texture that gives these pies more chew than Americans might be typically used to. However, the sweet chocolate and marshmallow still make them a solid dessert option.
Drinks
These clashing flavors needed to be washed down, so the food adventure finished with some popular Korean beverages. Saraga had an assortment of Binggrae boxed milk in an array of flavors. Alongside traditional options like vanilla and strawberry, the milk came in banana and melon variations. The Collegian picked the melon flavor, and it exceeded all expectations. It uses melon juice to create an intensely sweet flavor that hardly tasted like milk at all.
The second drink was achim hetsal, a beverage made from white and brown rice. Its savory and creamy taste pairs well with raw fruits and cereal. The smooth and nutty flavor was perfect to balance out the spicy heat of the earlier snacks.
The Collegian enjoyed almost everything from Saraga and barely scratched the surface. Saraga has so much more to offer, whether it is from the Korean aisle or not. Gaining a newfound perspective through international foods is a fun way to widen one’s palette — and burn some taste buds off in the process.
