Kimchi and mozzarella cheese may seem like an unusual pairing, but I was still curious to try the Bibigo Kimchi & Cheese Rice Balls from Costco. As a big cheese lover, I couldn’t wait to bite into the gooey, flavorful mozzarella. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed by just a small chunk of cheese and underwhelming rice.
Location in Store
These rice balls can found in the freezer section at Costco near the Ajinomoto Fried Rice and the Bibigo Beef Mandu. The item number is 5762216.
Taste
I’ll cut right to the chase, I find these disappointing and wouldn’t purchase them again. The rice itself doesn’t have too much flavor but it does have some heat. I find the rice isn’t super salty or flavorful but packs a punch of heat that hints after you take a bite. The texture of the rice is sticky and clumps together in big hard chunks.
The cheese is only a small ball of mozzarella that’s in the middle of the rice, it’s not spicy and tastes like pizza mozzarella. Because the cheese is firm and shaped in a ball it’s hard to get cheese and rice together in one bite unless you cut the cheese into tiny pieces.
The amount of cheese is also disappointing, there’s a lot more rice than cheese. Overall these aren’t amazing, the flavor of the rice and cheese separate is just okay but combining them together doesn’t work.
Cost
The bag contains 10 individually packaged kimchi rice & cheese balls and costs $19.99 Canadian. After trying them I feel this is totally overpriced in my opinion.
Convenience
The kimchi & cheese rice balls need to be kept frozen and the best before date is about nine months from when I purchased them. They could be used as a side, appetizer or even a snack.
They’re very easy to heat up, you just microwave them in the package they come in. I don’t love the idea of microwaving things in plastic, so I felt a bit turned off that there wasn’t any other heating instructions on the bag other than heating them in the microwave/packaging.
Nutrition
Calories
One rice ball contains 180 calories, three and a half grams of fat, 33 grams of carbohydrates, one gram of fibre, two grams of sugar, five grams of protein and 480 milligrams of sodium.
Ingredients
The ingredients list is pretty extensive! The cheese inside is a “processed mozzarella cheese food filling” and there’s MSG in the rice balls if you’re sensitive to that. The rice balls contain wheat, anchovy, shrimp, soy and milk.
Scoring
Taste: 5.5/10
Cost: 5/10
Convenience: 10/10
Nutrition: 4/10
Overall
Walk on by!
These kimchi & cheese rice balls aren’t great and sure aren’t sure $19.99 Canadian in my opinion.
FAQ
10
180 calories.
Not in my opinion, no.
Have you tried the Costco Bibigo Kimchi & Cheese Rice Balls? What did you think of them? Drop a comment below!
Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. This product was purchased by Costcuisine for the purpose of producing this review. The opinions in this review are strictly those of Costcuisine. Costcuisine is not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. In the event that Costcuisine receives compensation for a post from the manufacturer of a product or some other third party, the arrangement will be clearly disclosed (including where the manufacturer of a product provides Costcuisine with a free sample of the product).
Seems they forgot the kimchi. And they don’t look like other “balls”, more like a japanese 7-11 rice snack shape!