Walmart Kimchi review

At my weekly Walmartian journey, I discovered they had kimchi. Yum! And there were two different brands which means I would have to see which one tastes better. By tastes better, I mean whichever one tastes the most like what I grew up eating.

First impressions:

Kings Kimchi: Glass jar. 8 ingredients. Good

Nasoya Kimchi: Plastic jar. Tons of ingredients. “Contains: Wheat”

Taste test:

Kings Kimchi: Crunchy. Ripe. Salty.

Nasoya Kimchi: Mushy. Weird. Can’t describe.

Conclusion:

Nasoya Kimchi is disgusting. 1 star; would not try again. I’ve been sitting in front of my laptop trying to think of a word to describe the flavor of this kimchi; gross, odd, unpleasant, disturbing. How one manages to mess up making something that only requires putting three ingredients in a jar and waiting, is remarkable. Maybe it tastes so bad because of the extra ingredients including carrots (?) and wheat (?). It seems people may have forgotten traditions.

However King’s Kimchi tastes identical to my mom’s kimchi; fermented, not too salty or spicy, and yummy. Well done. 4/5 stars. Recommended.

Update 02/06/20:

So Walmart appears to have stopped carrying King’s kimchi at the Walmart I go to which is sad. So I bought the redesigned Nasoya kimchi and gave it a test…It’s better than before, which isn’t saying much. It’s still the same plastic jar with weird ingredients like “pear” ???. However, it is acceptable as in this is the type of kimchi you ate going to korean church as a kid, which was store bought. Aside from this not tasting like home-made kimchi, the main difference is the Nasoya is fairly ripened kimchi while King’s is fairly fresh which has a different taste; personally, I much prefer fresher kimchi since it has more crunch and less mush. 2/5 stars: Kings is still much better in my opinion.

Dear Walmart, please start carrying King’s kimchi again. I can’t imagine it’s cheaper to import Nasoya from Korea rather than buying the locally produced Kings kimchi, that doesn’t have pears in it. lol.