Emart24 Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl Review [Korean Food]

Hello! Today’s Emart24 lunchbox is the Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl. It’s the rice-bowl entry among the various ready meals released as part of Emart’s “Crazy Cheese Festa” special lineup. The thick cheese, generous kimchi, and ham were so striking that I simply had to grab it. With its mouth-coating cheese, spicy kimchi, and salty ham all combined, it turned out better than I expected. So, let’s get right into what it’s all about!

Table of Contents

📋 At a Glance

Product: Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl
Brand/Store: Emart24 (“Crazy Cheese” lineup)
Price: 4,200 won
Weight/Calories: 320 g / 557 kcal (76% of daily sodium, fairly high in fat)
Main components: kimchi fried rice, two cheeses (cheddar cream sauce + dipping cheese sauce), pressed ham and bacon, kimchi
Notable: loaded with cheddar (no spoon included)
Verdict: ★4.0 — like kimchi fried rice topped with cheese fondue; even better eaten dip-style!

Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl Price and Features

This menu launched as a rice bowl in Emart24’s “Crazy Cheese” lineup. The concept is “a combo of cheese cream and ham-kimchi rice bowl.” It might just be the most unusual rice bowl I’ve come across among convenience-store lunchboxes. Even before lifting the lid, the hefty cheese you can see through it is quite a sight. The price is 4,200 won.

Crazy Cheese cheese cream kimchi rice bowl

Weight, Calories, and Sodium

The total weight is 320 g, with 557 kcal and about 76% of the recommended daily sodium. For a dish this loaded with cheese, the calories were lower than I’d expected, and the sodium isn’t far off a typical lunchbox. The fat content, though, is fairly high, isn’t it? Even the ingredient list shows a good amount of cheddar, yet it seems you can eat it with less guilt than you’d think.

What’s in the Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl

Let’s check the build. The moment you open the lid, you can tell right away it’s a strikingly composed rice bowl. Cheese and various toppings pile up so much that the rice is barely visible. At this rate, you almost wonder if you’re meant to stir the rice into the cheese. They don’t include a spoon, though!

Ham, Bacon, and Kimchi

First, the ham is labeled as pressed ham, but rather than Richam or Spam, it looks like a smoked-ham type. The ingredient list — pork, chicken, flour, and so on — suggests my guess is right. You can also spot small bits of bacon. And beside it is finely chopped kimchi, though the kimchi itself seems like less than you’d expect.

Two Kinds of Cheese and the Toppings

The cheese appears to be not one but two kinds. One is labeled a “milk-containing processed product,” so it’s likely a dipping cheese sauce blending buttermilk and processed cheese; the other looks like cheddar made into a cream sauce. The richer one is probably the cheddar, right?

Recommended convenience-store ready meal

On top, there’s a topping I couldn’t quite tell was crushed red pepper or real gochugaru, plus a light dusting of parsley powder for a finishing touch. Just from the overall look, it’s all but certain to be seriously rich. Still, I’m curious how the kimchi and ham accents will interact to bring out the flavor.

How the Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl Tastes

Alright, let’s dig right in. Before eating, I scooped up the dipping cheese sauce that had pooled quietly to one side and poured it over the ham and rice. It’s a touch thick — probably because I’d microwaved it — but it doesn’t seem to cause any real trouble for eating.

I took a big spoonful with rice, kimchi, a bit of ham, and the cheese sauce. While checking the build I couldn’t see the rice, so I hadn’t realized it was kimchi fried rice. Haha. Kimchi fried rice plus cheese — how could that not be good? It’s a bit different from, say, pizza cheese, but eaten with a sauce that has a slight cheese-fondue feel, the saltiness plus a touch of spice made for great flavor.

With the Ham and Bacon Added

On top of that, there’s a generous amount of stir-fried ham and bacon, so paired with the rice-and-cheese combo, it really is hard to beat. There have been plenty of lunchboxes that turn kimchi fried rice into a cheese-rice-bowl style, but I don’t think any has gone this far — practically stirring it all into a cream cheese sauce — so it felt refreshingly new. Since there are two cheeses, adding the cheddar cheese sauce to fine-tune the flavor is a nice option too.

Expert-recommended convenience-store food

Of course, given how the menu is built, no matter how good the flavor is, there comes a point where it gets a bit much. It’s a bit like the fried rice that comes with dakbal (braised chicken feet) or dak-galbi — delicious for the first bite or two, but you tend to leave a little toward the end, you know? Haha.

Final Verdict: How to Eat It and Who It’s For

So for the first bites, rather than pouring the cheese sauce on top like I did, I’d recommend scooping up rice and dipping it into the cheese sauce instead. Just managing that one thing should make it a pretty tasty meal.

It’s a fundamentally slightly spicy fried rice, but thanks to the cheese sauce, that heat is almost gone and it was genuinely tasty. It would also pair well with other spicy foods, I think. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes kimchi fried rice topped with cheese, or who loves pretty much anything with cheese on it. And if you’re in Korea and into cheesy comfort food, it’s an easy, photogenic grab at any Emart24 while the Crazy Cheese lineup lasts.

You can find the launch details for Emart24’s “Crazy Cheese” lineup, which this menu belongs to, in this (Korean source) Shinsegae Group Newsroom article.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How much does the Emart24 Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl cost?

It’s 4,200 won. As part of Emart24’s “Crazy Cheese” lineup, it’s piled with cheese, so for a convenience-store lunchbox the price feels fair for what you get.

Q. What’s inside the Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl?

It’s kimchi fried rice topped with two cheeses — a cheddar cream sauce and a dipping cheese sauce — plus pressed ham, bacon, and kimchi. Gochugaru (or crushed red pepper) and parsley powder add a finishing touch. Note that no spoon is included.

Q. What does the Cheese Cream Kimchi Rice Bowl taste like?

Personally, it tasted like kimchi fried rice with a cheese-fondue finish — savory and a little spicy. The plentiful ham and bacon add flavor, but it can feel a bit much toward the end. Rather than pouring the cheese on top, dip the rice into it to keep it tasty to the last bite.

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