Marumiya Instant Bibimbap with Rice — 254g

Bibimbap you heat in the microwave, with the rice already in the box. Gochujang, the Korean fermented chilli paste, sweet as much as hot, gives it a savoury warmth, and under the sauce sit eight toppings: carrot, bamboo shoot, lotus root, soybean sprouts, minced beef, wood ear, stem lettuce and sesame. If you want a hot meal out of the cupboard in three minutes and you like something with chew in it, this is it.

丸美屋 ビビンバ. Marumiya bibimba. The pack romanises it "Bibimba"; in Australia you will mostly see it spelled bibimbap. Same dish either way. One thing the packet insists on: stir it right through once it is heated. That is the last step, not an optional one.

This is a Japanese take on a Korean dish: made by a Japanese company, for Japanese supermarkets. It is not a Korean product and does not pretend to be one. You can taste that in the vegetables: lotus root and bamboo shoot are Japanese choices, and Japanese eaters notice it too. Worth knowing before you open it.

What you're getting

• Mildly spicy, and sweet with it: gochujang warmth rather than chilli heat. Japanese buyers genuinely disagree about how hot it lands, though: some find it too much, others say it is barely spicy at all. If you are sensitive to chilli, treat it as a maybe rather than a safe bet.
• You chew this one. The lotus root, the bamboo shoot and the stem lettuce all keep their snap. It is a bowl with chew in it rather than a soft one.
• The rice comes with it. Inside the box is a sealed tray of Japanese short-grain rice and a separate pouch of topping: you are not buying a sauce to pour over rice you cooked yourself.
• Two of the eight have names worth getting right. Yama-kurage is dried stem lettuce: a vegetable stem named for its snap, no jellyfish involved, whatever the translations say. Kikurage is wood ear mushroom, a genuine fungus and the soft, springy one.
• It is a modest bowl: 254 g, 160 g of it rice. Right for a desk lunch or a smaller dinner, and a big appetite will want something alongside it. The photo on the box is styled, what is in the tray is one honest single serve.
• This is Marumiya's everyday supermarket range rather than their premium one, a weeknight product in Japan, and priced there like one.
• Allergens: contains wheat, sesame, soy and beef, so there is no vegetarian way to eat this one. The seasoning also includes a seafood extract of unspecified type, so if you avoid fish or shellfish, this is one to skip. Read the pack's own label before you rely on ours.

One expectation worth setting: this is not the stone-bowl version with the crisped rice crust. You tip, heat and stir, so there is no seared bottom and no toasty edge to it.

Heating it: peel the lid right off the rice tray, tip the pouch of topping over the rice and level it out, then rest the lid back on loosely. It will not re-seal, and it is not meant to. The pack's own guide is about three minutes at 500W, or two and a half at 600W. Check the middle before you stir, and if the rice is still firm underneath keep going: it can want noticeably longer than those times suggest. Never use a toaster oven or a conventional oven, never heat it with the lid still sealed, and skip the microwave's automatic reheat setting. Then stir it right through.