Klein Forest’s Asian American Pacific Islander Student Association, also known as AAPISA hosted a spicy ramen challenge open to all students on Nov. 6, where students could win a total of $35 worth of Amazon gift cards, plushies and a ramen family pack.
“Ramen was kind of getting viral and we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we can literally do this,’ club president An Minh Pham said. “It was supposed to be a fundraiser, but we decided to do it for funsies and to get our name out there.”
Buldak ramen became popular this year on social media platforms such as TikTok due to its spiciness. This helped the spicy ramen challenge gain a lot of attention from students, where over 85 students signed up and half of the students showed up to the event.
“I decided to compete because my friends from band were participating, so I joined them,” Bryan Bui said. “I felt pretty confident that we were going to win, because I felt that we had the squad.”
Students were divided into groups of five and had to work together to advance each round.
“Being in a group helped my teammates and I strategize a way to eat them the quickest,” Keenan Jones-Thomas said. “It helped individual morale as we all uplifted each other.”
As each round progressed, more teams were eliminated and the spice levels increased. At the end of each round, students were given a break and allowed to regroup with their teammates.
“During the breaks we got to eat and drink ice cream, milk and water,” Evian Johnson said. “That really helped me progress further into the competition.”
In the final round, the last group was split up into five individual competitors, and were now competing against each other.
“The hardest part was absolutely the end,” James Rahman said. “Not only was I already really full, because I ate three heaping plates of it already but I had also tried the spiciest flavor that they had already.”
Due to the extreme spice, the winner was determined by whoever could eat the most noodles, leaving Rahman victorious.
“It didn’t really register with me,” Rahman said. “I was still getting over the suffering from the spiciness but after I had gotten home and threw it up I felt good about myself being first place.”
The students who competed in the last round noodles were left out of breath and struggled with the effects from spice.
“It tasted like absolute hell itself,” Johnson said. “It made me feel like I should regret all my life choices and never touch spicy things again.”
