There were numb tongues, tingling lips, and milk chugging on Breakfast this morning after the hosts tried a brand of South Korean ramen noodles that have been recalled in Denmark for being too spicy.
Three flavours of the noodles have been banned by authorities in Copenhagen, but Breakfast hosts Daniel Faitaua and Chris Chang joined producer Cameron Joe for an on-air tasting.
Faitaua was the first to give the South Korean-made buldak noodles a go — eating so much at once viewers could hear the crew begging him to stop.
“Not hitting me yet… still okay folks,” he said, mere seconds before lunging for a glass of milk that was on standby.
“This is a mess,” laughed host Jenny-May Clarkson, who elected not to try the noodles. “This is great telly.”
Faitaua said the dish was spicy but not “hot to the point that I’m going to start fainting”.
“My tongue is numbing up,” he added, offering the ramen to Clarkson before passing it on to Chris Chang.
“Get it down you,” said Clarkson, egging Chang on.
Chang said: “I can’t say I’m going to wolf it down like you did Daniel.”
“What possessed you do to that?” added Clarkson.
“It’s quite tasty,” said Chang, adding that his lips were tingling due to the spice.
In a statement last week, New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle told 1News the ministry “is aware of Denmark’s recall of Samyang noodles due to concerns over high levels of capsaicin, the active component of chilli peppers”.
“Because Samyang noodles are also available in New Zealand, we are looking into this issue,” Arbuckle said.
“As always, if we consider there to be a food safety risk, we will take swift action, including recalling the product for public safety.”
