Mild tteokbokki for two and fried rice, Yongsan: Hyeonseonine

Bringing you a restaurant diary again after a while haha. Hyeonseonine is famous as one of Seoul's top three tteokbokki spots, and I'd heard it was good for ages — it's opened a bunch of branches since. So I figured, if I'm going, let's go to the original! Headed to Hyeonseonine Yongsan Main Branch.

Since it's been open a while I assumed there'd be no wait of course. Went on a Friday evening... and there was a wait...

Location and hours of Hyeonseonine Yongsan Main Branch

• 🏠 Address: 서울시 용산구 한강대로 39길 2-13
• ⏰ Hours: Daily 11:00-24:00 / Last order: 22:40 / Break time: 14:30-16:00
• 🚊 Subway: Line 4 Sinyongsan Station Exit 6 / also walkable from Yongsan Station
• 🚗 Parking: Not available

How does a Friday evening wait work?

When I first arrived... there were people sitting in that Benz... so I was like, what? Where does the line even start? Turns out you register for a CatchTable wait inside and just sit anywhere haha. One odd thing — you register separately for instant or signature menu, and I registered for instant, but they asked again once I sat down, so I guess it doesn't matter too much?!

And this claw machine next to the waiting area... does it actually work? If you can play it while waiting, that'd be pretty fun haha.

Waited about 20 minutes and got in. The menu was posted on the fridge haha.

Mild, medium, or spicy — which one did we pick?

The signature Hyeonseonine combo set looked tempting, but I was craving instant tteokbokki that day, so we ordered the tteokbokki for two plus fried rice.

There were three spice levels! Medium is a bit spicier than Shin Ramyun, and spicy is apparently three to four times spicier than Buldak... I'm decent with spicy food, but my sister can't handle spice, so after some back and forth we went with mild!!!

A food-cart-shaped interior

The inside was bigger than expected. I thought it was just a regular snack restaurant, but almost every table had beer on it, which was a little surprising haha. And the pointed roof — I thought that was just for the exterior design, but the inside had it too! Apparently it started out as an actual street food cart, and the whole shop is designed to look like one — pretty neat.

Grabbed a ton of pickled radish and fried snacks from the self-serve bar. Putting fried stuff... into the tteokbokki... is surprisingly good?

Cooking tips and the standard set for instant tteokbokki

Since we ordered instant tteokbokki, had to carefully read the tips posted on the table. Looks like it's just about controlling the heat and stirring. That's my sister's job—

The tteokbokki for two and fried rice we ordered arrived. They brought the fried rice along right away instead of it being an add-on order later. The tteokbokki comes standard with jjolmyeon noodles!! Two eggs and four dumplings too. Man, those dumplings were seriously delicious... gave my sister one extra egg and I ate an extra dumpling haha.

Set it to 9 then dropped to 4 once it started boiling. Kept it at 4, stirring while waiting for the broth to reduce a bit. Stirring duty went to my sister~.~

How was the mild tteokbokki?

Looked delicious once done. I've seen people add cabbage to Yeoptteok lately too, and there was plenty of cabbage here, which made it taste a bit sweet! Mild doesn't mean not spicy at all though — it was exactly the kind of moderate spicy-ness you'd expect. Just a solid, classic tteokbokki flavor? Can't even imagine how spicy the spicy level would be...

I'm the type who eats cereal even after it's gone soggy, so I just dropped the dumplings straight in. My sister can't stand that so she dipped hers separately... And the rice cakes were incredibly soft. Softest rice cakes I've ever had in my life.

Gave all the eggs to my egg-obsessed sister...

The rice cakes look a bit pale but they're still soft and the sauce soaked in better than expected. I'm usually the person who likes rice cakes least in tteokbokki (fish cake and noodle person, always), but Hyeonseonine's rice cakes were genuinely delicious. No wonder it's famous as a top Yongsan tteokbokki spot... ah, so this is why it's one of Seoul's top three~

Finishing with fried rice, porridge-style

Time for the Korean dessert of choice: fried rice. It didn't look like much, but it was surprisingly filling? Felt like ending with fried rice would be the perfect finish...

You're supposed to just stir-fry the rice yourself, but my sister's team porridge-not-fried-rice, so she didn't scoop out much of the broth... She said regular fried rice doesn't taste like the tteokbokki sauce, so we made it porridge-style with lots of broth instead (obviously her idea...).

There was corn in it, so it had good texture too and was delicious. Sweet, and with rice added it was properly filling. Two people sharing the tteokbokki for two plus fried rice is the perfect combo.

Scraped the fried rice completely clean and left very satisfied ❤

The textbook definition of tteokbokki! Spicy-sweet sauce + soft rice cakes + the combo of dumplings, fish cake, jjolmyeon, and cabbage — this is a tteokbokki that literally everyone would love, no exceptions.

Days are getting shorter now so it was already night by the time we left. Somehow the place felt even more atmospheric at night. Well, I've now checked Hyeonseonine off my top-three tteokbokki list. Onward with the tteokbokki tour, hehe.