You may remember my giant steam bun(hobbang) from my previous blog. The bun which was as big as my face?
We arrived to have hobbang for lunch at this famous cafe near Gwanghwamun area in Seoul but realised they were only available from 2pm. While we waited, we decided to try another famous dish, Chilli rice cake (dduk bok yi -떡뽁이). The best part was that we get to cook it on our table. This is called instant dduk bok yi(즉석 떡볶이). You can also add extra ingredients such as instant noodles, vermicelli, fish cake or chewy noodles . Instead of ordering our usual ddukbokyi, my friends suggested pizza dduk bok yi. What the??
As you can see below, we ordered the extra chewy noodle on top, only S$1.70!
Doesn’t this look spicy and delicious? It was starting to get chilli outside and this was just perfect dish to warm us up. And then final ingredient arrived…
Mozzarella cheese was sprinkled on top as our final step. We now have pizza dduk bok yi!
Cheese on top of dduk bok yi wasn’t my thing. It just didn’t seemed to go together, but my friends loved it. I picked around the cheese as you can see below.
As I am writing this I have a sudden craving for dduk bok yi right now… I might have to head out to Korea Town to see if I can find decent cafe or restaurant. Hungry!!! 🙁 I tend to gain 2-3 kg while I am in Seoul for a week. The reason is there is breakfast, morning tea, lunch, snack and then dinner and supper and repeat for a week!
While we were waiting for hobbang to be ready, we stopped by a Coco Bruni cafe nearby and had some lovely cakes and teas… The cafe is a chain so you will be able to find it in many locations in Seoul.
The cakes were so delicately made and melted in our mouth so smoothly. Such a different texture and taste to what we just had…
Now back to hobbang. This is the man behind this wonderful hobbang. He was making them earlier and waiting for them to rise and now he is steaming them.
Finally, they are ready. I have been waiting for these for 3 hours!!
We ordered 3 buns with 3 different fillings. I think the owner thought we were 3 little piggies…. The first one is with red bean paste filling. This is my favourite but today it seemed too much red bean paste. The second one is with cooked sweet potato filling and this was new, not bad at all. The third one is mixed vegetable with pork. A bit like Chinese dumpling except it’s a giant bun. Out of 3, the one with vegetables and pork was the best. I noticed a lot of people of taking them back to the office or home.
This cafe is not hard to find but if you are not familiar with the area, it might not be easy. I would recommend your hotel to call the cafe and write down the direction. Remember, the buns are not ready before 2-3pm in the afternoon. Have ddukbokyi as your main and hobbang to take away to your hotel. One side of the cafe is called Bbang Hana palgu and the other side is called Sanhane cafe. Strange…
Cafe name: Bbang Hana pal gu (translation – selling one bun) Tel: +82-2-756-0189
