Seoul snack bar with adjustable spice powder tteokbokki: Hyeonseoni-ne

They say tteokbokki (spicy stir-fried rice cakes) is women's soul food. I really love it too — why are women so drawn to spicy food anyway? Buldak, tteokbokki, mala tang… need I say more 🤭

Maybe it's a stress reliever? Spicy food is addictive for sure. Which tteokbokki brand do you like — Yeoptteok, Sinjeon, and so on... (I heard Yeoptteok even came out with jellies and apparently they're amazing lol, that surprised me...)

Hyeonseoni-ne has been getting buzz for tteokbokki in Seoul, and since there's a branch in Seoul I got curious and went to try it. I'd never had it before so I was even more curious how it would be.

Where is Hyeonseoni-ne Cheonggye Instant Branch? Walk in beside the café

Hyeonseoni-ne Cheonggye Instant Branch feels less like a regular restaurant and more like a small tent-style stall, so first-timers should double-check the location before heading over. You have to walk in beside the café to actually spot the shop, and I wandered around a bit. It's not as eye-catching as you'd expect, so look around carefully if it's your first visit!

When I arrived, one table was already eating, and it looked so good that I wanted to dig in right away. (Definitely feels like a Cheonggyecheon go-to snack bar...) The menu had a good range and I liked that you could choose the spice level. After some thought, I ordered instant tteokbokki to go.

How long the instant tteokbokki takeout takes, and what's in the box

The takeout order at Hyeonseoni-ne Cheonggye Instant Branch came out way faster than I expected — I was surprised. I was still looking around when it arrived, and they even explained everything kindly. Almost no wait, which is great, and I think it'd also work well for anyone who wants a quick snack during a busy stretch.

Look at what's in the instant tteokbokki! Rice cake / fish cake / jjolmyeon noodles / dumplings / vegetables / egg! Pretty generous, right? And it's jjolmyeon (chewy noodles), not ramen noodles, which makes it even better.

How to adjust the heat with the powdered sauce

I'd ordered it a bit spicy that day, and it came with two sauces. One was a broth-style sauce, and the other was a powdered sauce. They explained that the powder adds extra heat, so I shouldn't add too much at first — add it little by little to adjust the spice level.

So I tried the base flavor first without adding any sauce, and even that alone had a subtle spiciness in the seasoning. It was spicier than I expected, so I only added a little of the powdered sauce. (I'd recommend considering the taste of whoever you're eating with before adding it.) I liked that even people who enjoy spicy food but don't want anything too intense could adjust it to their own taste.

Rice cake texture, fish cake soup, and rice mixed into the leftover sauce

The tteokbokki was packed with rice cake, fish cake, egg, cabbage, and more, and everything blended really well with the sauce — genuinely delicious. The rice cake especially had soaked up the seasoning so well that I kept reaching for more. At first I wondered if the portion would be enough, but by the end I was surprisingly full. (Not sure if it's rice cake or wheat rice cake... but it's so chewy.)

And when you're eating tteokbokki, there's one thing you absolutely cannot skip — fish cake!!

Eating the fish cake soup alongside it, the texture and taste were completely different from the fish cake inside the tteokbokki, and it disappeared in no time 😋 After working through most of the rice cake and fish cake, I mixed rice into the leftover sauce, and as always, that combo never fails. Isn't rice basically mandatory with tteokbokki broth? Lol I always mix rice in. Apparently this is pretty hit-or-miss person to person though (I heard someone was surprised to hear that I mix rice in haha).

After finishing, I found myself thinking, "I should come back again." Highly recommend it as takeout too!