DON’T READ THIS.

Remember all those chain letters from the internet’s gullible youth that would start in largely the same way, threatening that if you don’t, say, send this cereal review to 10 other people, Chaka the ogreish Chex piece will sneak into your room at 3a.m. tonight and belch directly into your mouth?

That’s exactly how cursed Kellogg’s of South Korea’s Green Onion Chex Cereal feels. If you aren’t familiar with why this cereal exists, trust me: there’s no way its taste could be more interesting than its origin story, so I suggest you read my first post on the topic before continuing. But even though it’s a great tale, I’m no longer convinced it’s more than a government coverup. Kellogg’s SK may claim that their 2004 mock election between double-chocolate Cheky and green onion Chaka—the latter of whom won the popular vote in a landslide thanks to online agitators—was rigged so kids could enjoy the chocolatey cereal they’d already planned, I think the truth could be more sinister. Perhaps, after Chaka won and Kellogg’s decided to craft a Green Onion Chex, the end result was a substance so foreboding and oppressive that they had to seal it away like an unspeakable eldritch horror.

And now, after 16 years, they aren’t charitably making up for an earlier snub. No, they’re doing damage control: the dormant Chaka’s slumber has been disturbed by 2020’s various…2020isms…and now much like Rita Repulsa, he’s finally free to conquer Earth with his many layers of cross-hatched crunchy creepiness.

Is that to say Green Onion Chex tastes bad? Well, the answer isn’t cut and dry. More like, “cut and watch your eyes water right into the bowl.”

Before the bulbous brunch-stuff even hits my mouth, Green Onion Chex nearly overloads my senses. With a color evoking Mucinex—whose mascot could be Chaka’s cousin—and a glossy, sticky sheen strong enough to make nearly the whole box of Chex fuse together into one mutated hunk, this cereal projects menace, and its smug aura mocks me.

Green Onion Chex really does taste like real green onions. That is its gift, and its curse. While Sour Cream & Onion Chex Mix is immediately delicious and readily available in U.S. snack aisles, that stuff is, ironically, less of a mixed bag than Chaka’s fare. Whereas such a Chex Mix simply dusts salty synthetic goodness over normal corn and wheat Chex pieces, Green Onion Chex is much more single minded, deeply glazing and infusing biting green onion flavor into every bite, whiff, and lingering burp. Without a bunch of additional salt and neutralizing sour cream, this can quickly become overwhelming, leaving the cereal’s darkly destined eater feeling as delirious as Caveman and Zero stumbling through the haze of Sam’s desert onion field.

Whereas with most cereals, I can make any number of comparisons and cross-evaluations with similar products and snacks of the past, there really aren’t many ways to describe Green Onion Chex besides literal pan-fried green onions. It isn’t necessarily bad, but just as I’m unlikely to crönch into an onion like it’s a Granny Smith, I can’t see much reason to eat plain ol’ Green Onion Chex for long.

And if you take one thing out of this review, let it be this: milk is not the solution to any of Green Onion Chex’s problems. Somebody ought to call Formula One, because this is the fastest a cereal has ever made it from box to bowl to spoon to mouth to trash. Granted, this is partially my fault because all I had in the house was, um, vanilla oat milk, but I can’t imagine even 2% leading to anything tastier than emerald buttermilk.

All this is to say that while Green Onion Chex is pretty vile as a breakfast cereal, that just means you’ll have to get creative. These savory little onion shells could work in a lot of other mixed munchie media: use them as salad croutons (as recommended by Justin in our latest episode), crush them up to bread chicken, or heck: use them to load up a baked potato. Between ramen, stir fry and scallion pancakes, there’s a lot of fun and versatility to be had here, just as long as you disregard Chaka’s front-of-box temptation to float this stuff in milk like square little boogers.

Though I didn’t enjoy it as a cereal, I find it hard to score Green Onion Chex too harshly. The story behind it is outlandish enough to justify the means and the lean, green ends, while simultaneously proving that a savory cereal could push boundaries instead of just leaving our palates embarrassed.

Is it worth the effort to import Green Onion Chex? For hardcore collectors and fans of the edible absurd, maybe. But for most, you’re better off buying some Chex Mix and leaving the scourge of Calamity Chaka to haunt other pantries.

The Bowl: South Korean Green Onion Chex Cereal

The Breakdown: Surprise, surprise: it tastes like green onions! And not much else! As a decidedly sticky and unsweet answer to a 16-year strong myth, Green Onion Chex fulfills its fate to a T,  but unless that T stands for “Tofu breading,” you’re gonna have a sour breakfast.

The Bottom Line: 6.66 mucus meme brains out of 10

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