A Tremendously Hot ‘Fire’ Tteokbokki in Hongdae
Give me 3 words if I mention this word : TTEOKBOKKI ( 떡볶이 ) ! First one, …. okay, RICE CAKES ! Second, ….. HOT ! Third, ….. EVERYWHERE ! Tteobokki is a Korean snack that you can find everywhere around Korea. Tteokbokki is basically rice cakes mixed with hot sauce made from gochujang ( Korean chili paste ) and slices of fish cakes. I firstly tasted tteokbokki when I was studying in University of Indonesia. There is a Korean restaurant on campus. So I fell in love for the first time with the taste. When I got a chance to come to Korea, I didn’t miss any chances to try tteokbokki there. Either it’s sold in the food truck located on the edge of the street, famous tteobokki vendors in the supermarkets, or even in the restaurants. Yep, you can name me as a crazy tteokbokki lover. Since I lived far from Seoul, so I could only get my favorite tteokbokki on the weekends. I usually bought it in E-Mart ( Korean wholesale hypermarket ), Daejeon. Tasting tteokbokki in its home country was awesome !!! I couldn’t even imagine it before.
But when I was staying in Seoul, I found a new spot to have tteokbokki. It is like a usual food stall, but I think the tteokbokki is so different since it’s not only a regular tteokbokki. It’s a ‘FIRE TTEOKBOKKI’. Yep, that’s what they say and it’s also written in front of the stall, 불떡볶이. 불 means fire, so definitely it’s hotter than the regular tteokbokki.
This stall is run by a spouse who serve the customers kindly. When I got closer to this stall, I found out that there’s not only fire tteobokki, but also less hot tteokbokki. So you don’t need to be worry to enjoy tteokbokki if you don’t like something that’s too hot. You also can find kimbab ( Korean sushi roll ) and twigim ( Korean fried food ). The prices are so affordable. A portion of fire tteokbokki cost me 2.500 won and a portion of twigim is also in the same price. I love their tteobokki and twigim ! The tteokbokki sauce is rich, red, and hot also the tteok itself has a really nice chewy texture, not hard to chew. I needed to gulp much water after chewing my tteokbokki. You can find shredded cabbage and slices of fish cakes inside. One portion can be shared for 2 people. A portion of twigim consists of 5 pieces of your choice. There are squid, shrimp, egg, vegetables, sweet potato, chicken-filling green chili,etc. I ordered 2 shrimp, 1 squid, 1 egg, and 1 vegetable twigim.
My friend and I were soooooooo ….. full after that. At night before I went back to Indonesia, I purposely passed the street where the fire tteokbokki stall is located and bought myself a portion of fire tteokbokki and twigim. I ate them by myself but then I gave up and saved the rest for breakfast in the next morning. Hahahaha yeah, tteokbokki breakfast is such a new experience though. Thank God, I didn’t have stomachache afterwards :p
This fire tteokbokki stall is very easy to find. It’s in Hongdae. By subway, take a subway to Line 2 to Hongdae then take exit 9. After going out of the station, turn left and in 50 meters, you can see the fire tteokbokki stall. So far, this is the best tteokbokki stall I’ve ever found. It’s totally different with other tteokbokki stalls on the street. You should give it a try then!
Have a nice day.
Aka