Cheongju rice cake café for Chuseok songpyeon: Tteokmama

It’s coming up soon~ ★Chuseok★ And whenever Chuseok rolls around, there’s a snack I already loved but crave even more at this time of year: tteok (Korean rice cakes)!

Those of you who read my blog often know I really love tteok. Since discovering Tteokmama’s Gagyeong Branch near my home, I’ve been going often, and then I spotted that there was a Tteokmama in Yullyang too!! It’s already famous in Cheongju for gift rice cakes! With Chuseok coming up, I was wondering where to order songpyeon, and they happened to have Chuseok songpyeon and mosi songpyeon sets, so I went to buy some rice cakes : )

Tteokmama Cheongju Yullyang Branch: location and parking

• Location: 1F, 94 Gonghang-ro, Cheongwon-gu, Cheongju-si, Chungcheongbuk-do
• Hours: 09:00–21:00
• Reservations available through Naver
• Free delivery with Naver Order
• Parking: dedicated Tteokmama parking to the left of the shop (about 4 cars)

There’s a separate parking area on the left side of the shop, between the alley by the barbecue restaurant and the next alley~ It is a tight space, but people popping in for pickup were briefly double-parking! If you’re just grabbing a takeaway, you can park here and use the shop~!

Tteokmama’s Yullyang Branch is on a corner~ Since it’s immediately visible when you enter from the intersection, I think it’ll be easy to spot!

Like the Gagyeong Branch, the Yullyang Tteokmama is absolutely huge... They say Tteokmama is among the largest rice cake shops! That means there are so many kinds of tteok inside, plus a separate café space where you can eat there-★ Since lots of people use it for Cheongju gift rice cakes too, I saw banners like this~

Once you enter, they also run a café, so there’s a drink menu to order from~ There’s a kiosk by the entrance, which makes ordering easy!

Chuseok songpyeon and fruit glutinous rice cakes

They’re such a craze these days... They sell fruit glutinous rice cakes, and Tteokmama’s are the best value! And they’re glutinous rice cakes made at a rice cake shop, you know~ Honestly, their wonderfully chewy rice cake skin is in a league of its own, which must be why the fruit glutinous rice cakes are so popular♥

This is important!!! It’s Chuseok, Chuseok! If you’re wondering where to order Chuseok songpyeon in Cheongju, I highly recommend Tteokmama. I bought and tried songpyeon from both the Gagyeong and Yullyang branches. Above all, they’re five-color songpyeon, they don’t go hard even after time passes, and you can choose sesame or bean filling, so everyone can enjoy them. And they are seriously, seriously delicious.. I often buy songpyeon from markets too, but Tteokmama makes the rice cake skin so well that I think it’s the best!

Like this~ You can see Tteokmama’s four most popular menu items, so if you’re unsure which tteok to get~ these four are great basic picks, haha.

Rice cake selection and my personal picks

Before I show you all the tteok! These are the ones I personally recommend★ In the refrigerated section, you’ll find the glutinous rice cakes and varieties of injeolmi (chewy rice cake coated in powder) I mentioned earlier~

There are also adorably shaped honey-filled tteok and jeolpyeon (plain sliced rice cakes)! The colors are so pretty... Fruit glutinous rice cakes are also sold here on one side, so if you can’t find them, look toward the refrigerators! They’re prettily cut, making them easy to pop into your mouth in one bite, haha. The boxes are pretty too, so they’d make a lovely little gift—it would make anyone happy to receive one~

And personally, I super, super recommend the injeolmi! There are two types, soybean-powder injeolmi and castella injeolmi, but I personally found the castella one sweet and delicious~ Now I’ll show you the overall selection of tteok~

They also sell sirutteok (steamed layered rice cake) in individual portions, and there were flavors of sirutteok that you don’t normally see, so I spent a loooong time deciding, haha. I was curious about the watermelon seolgi, so that was my pick!

Next is songpyeon~! You can buy five-color songpyeon as a small sampler too, so this is where I bought mine~

They had the famous pumpkin injeolmi and bite-sized glutinous rice cakes called duteoptteok too~ Since I went in the afternoon, lots of tteok were sold outㅠㅠ The mugwort injeolmi in particular was so popular that the shelf was completely empty, hahaㅠ Such a shame!

You could buy small sample portions of yakgwa (deep-fried honey cookie), or purchase it packaged in gift boxes~ It’s handmade yakgwa; I tried it last time, and it was chewy and crisp and delicious!

I also saw yugwa (puffed rice snack), various gift sets, the packing boxes they use, and cloth-wrapping options~

They even had handmade oranda (puffed-rice candy)! There are also tteok in the freezer that you can thaw and eat, so keep that in mind : )

There’s also a space on one side of the shop, like a café, where you can eat the tteok and drinks you’ve purchased~ It’s reaaally spacious, so it seems large enough for gatherings of older guests or parents too^^

How the rice cakes I chose tasted

So, what kinds of tteok did I buy? I’ll introduce them one by one★

When you buy individual rice cakes, they put them in a bag like this for you to take away! First is the pumpkin injeolmi~ I bought a small amount, and there was even a fork so I could eat it right away! It wasn’t too sweet and really... they make such good rice cake skin. So chewy, with maximum nutty flavor!!

This is mugwort castella injeolmi! It’s injeolmi coated in sweet castella crumbs, and because the rice cake itself is made with mugwort, the mugwort aroma was reaaally strong.

The watermelon seolgi was a sweet seolgi with a very noticeable chocolate flavor! I wondered whether the red part on top was strawberry-flavored, but I don’t think it was; I think the little seed-like dots were chocolate!

I also love jeungpyeon, so I picked the barley jeungpyeon! There were three pieces, and they were so fluffy, nutty, and slightly bittersweet—great as a snack that can double as a meal~

Lastly, five-color songpyeon! I chose bean filling, and aren’t the colors so pretty? I heard the colors are naturally made rather than created with standard food coloring! They were generously filled, and the outside had a nicely nutty coating of oil, so they were absolutely delicious~

If you love tteok, your eyes might spin like mine did, hahaha, so be careful when you come~ There are so many varieties, and the prices are so affordable that you can sample tteok you’ve always wondered about, old favorites, and honestly so many kinds you may be seeing for the first time!!! With Chuseok just around the corner, I recommend it for Cheongju gift rice cakes, so how about visiting to order some songpyeon~?