Hwangnidan-gil pie shop 11:30 first batch queue: Gyeongju Tokyo Pie

Traveling around Gyeongju, you eat a lot of delicious food, but before heading home you always end up wondering what to bring back as a gift. If you've been looking for a Hwangnidan-gil souvenir for your parents, family, or friends, a Hwangnidan-gil dessert seems like a pretty solid choice. And with Chuseok (Korean thanksgiving) coming up soon, bringing home a box full of Gyeongju desserts after a fun trip when you go see family doesn't sound bad either!

That's the spirit in which I ended up choosing Gyeongju Tokyo Pie! My parents live in Busan, so the last stop of this Gyeongju trip was visiting their house. On the last day of the trip I packed up a bunch of things to bring as gifts, and Gyeongju Tokyo Pie got the best reaction from my family out of all of them.

Honestly, if you pass by Hwangnidan-gil where Gyeongju Tokyo Pie is, you probably can't just walk past it. The smell of genuinely delicious pie stopped me in my tracks. I was thinking of just trying one, but then I saw they had a gift set, and thought — this is it! — and bought the gift set too.

What kind of shop is Gyeongju Tokyo Pie? Whole-apple handmade pies on Hwangnidan-gil

Gyeongju Tokyo Pie is really well known as a great spot on Hwangnidan-gil for grabbing pies to take away. It sells handmade pies, and it's famous for having a big whole apple baked right inside.

True to its name, Gyeongju Tokyo Pie has a bit of a Japanese feel to it, and the baking style is Tokyo-style too, which I liked even more. It sits right at the center of Hwangnidan-gil, so you'll definitely pass by it, and if you catch the smell of the pies, you'll probably end up buying some just like I did. There's a set bake time to know about!

Gyeongju Tokyo Pie batch times and how long you wait

Gyeongju Tokyo Pie bakes come out twice: 11:30 for the first batch, 14:30 for the second. I'd heard that on weekends a line forms 30 minutes before the bake, so I checked out of my accommodation at 10am and drove straight to Gyeongju Tokyo Pie.

And there was still a line waiting, wow. But I still got my pies safely. Is there really any smell as good as freshly baked bread? I got into the car holding freshly baked pies from Gyeongju Tokyo Pie, and the smell was so good it was almost unbearable.

What's in the 27,000-won 6-piece, 3-flavor premium gift set

What I bought was the 6-piece, 3-flavor premium gift set from Gyeongju Tokyo Pie, priced at ₩27,000. It's made up of 6 pies total: 4 apple, 1 red bean, and 1 chocolate.

I liked it better as a gift than a single-flavor set, since everyone gets to try a few different flavors. In particular, having 4 apple pies — the signature menu item with a whole apple inside — made it easy for the whole family to share. It's a great snack to grab while walking around Hwangnidan-gil when you're feeling peckish, and it's just as good a gift to pack up at the end of a trip — the packaging and the lineup really suit both!

How does the whole-apple pie taste?

Gyeongju Tokyo Pie's apple pie is different from your typical apple jam pie!! It's not just sweet, or something with a bit of chew — it has a whole apple baked right in, and the flaky, crisp pie texture paired with the fruit cooked through by the heat really worked well together.

It's not overly sweet, more of a mellow apple flavor that isn't too much, which made it a great dessert to have with coffee or tea — really good as a gift. Everyone in the family could eat it without any hesitation, since apples themselves are a fruit almost nobody dislikes. And out of all the bread types, pie is one that pretty much everyone enjoys. With the layered cross-section and the whole apple showing through, it looked amazing too.

Is it a good souvenir to bring home from Gyeongju?

It's not just the signature whole-apple handmade pie — the lineup also includes red bean (angko) filled with sweet red bean paste and chocolate (chocolat) filled with sweet chocolate, a mix that people of all ages would like, which makes it good as a gift, but also as a souvenir for yourself.

The packaging looked nice and wasn't heavy, so it was easy to carry around while traveling. I thought it'd be nice to bring a box home and enjoy it as a dessert there too. When picking a gift while traveling in Gyeongju, I tend to look for something that feels like I actually bought it there myself rather than a generic souvenir, and Gyeongju Tokyo Pie was a good choice in that sense. Being able to stop by the shop while wandering Hwangnidan-gil, buy some, bring it home, and share it with family felt like sharing the memory of the trip too.

Above all, being a dessert makes it an easy gift to give without feeling like too much — not too light, not too heavy, so I think the person receiving it would like it too. I took photos of the cross-sections of the apple, red bean, and chocolate pies I ate. By the time I took those photos, quite a bit of time had passed since we got them, but it was still delicious!!!!! We ended up talking about how good they must have been fresh and warm while eating them happily as a family.

If you're looking for a Hwangnidan-gil dessert while traveling in Gyeongju, a light Hwangnidan-gil snack, or a Hwangnidan-gil gift for family or friends, I'd say Gyeongju Tokyo Pie is worth putting on your list!