Sinsa café: 6 butter sands for a housewarming gift, Butter & Shelter

What is Butter & Shelter Gangnam-Sinsa

Butter & Shelter Gangnam-Sinsa is a butter sand dessert café a 6-minute walk from Sinsa Station Exit 8. It's open every day from 10am to 10pm, and parking nearby is only possible for a very... brief... moment with your hazard lights on.

I already eat a fair amount of dessert in general, but lately there's one I've been really chasing. Butter sand! It's sold by a franchise called Butter & Shelter, and it's so good I keep coming back for more.

I'd had it a few times before as a gift and loved it so much that this time I went to get it myself. The branch I visited was Butter & Shelter Gangnam-Sinsa, right by the very accessible Sinsa Station.

The store interior and the kiosk event

Since most people take their orders to go, there weren't many customers sitting inside.

The interior wasn't exactly small, but only a table or two had customers, and besides me there were people constantly picking up takeout orders — even what looked like a Coupang Eats delivery order.

You order at the kiosk here, and they're running a Naver review event — you get a free butter sand for writing one! Such a generous deal that there's no reason not to do it.

Along with the various butter sands, as the dubu-jjonku (chewy Dubai-style cookie) trend has taken off, they're now selling that too. It was priced really cheap, so if you're a fan, definitely stop by!

On one side there were various gift boxes on display, and the boxes themselves are antique and pretty — great for gifting. I'd especially recommend them as a housewarming gift.

Set discounts, cooler bags, and what to know when buying as a gift

Butter & Shelter Gangnam-Sinsa gives a slight discount if you buy a set. Since the box itself costs something, if you're gifting or buying boxed, this is a much better deal.

But the discount only applies to those pre-fixed set menus — if you want to pick your own combination, you have to choose individual pieces and buy a box separately, and in that case there's no extra discount. Only the cookie set lets you pick whichever cookies you want with no extra charge. Also, since it's been so hot lately, carrying this around bare can feel risky, so they sell cooler bags for ₩1,500. One small ice pack comes included by default, but it looks like it won't last very long.

They also sell drinks to have in-store, and of course takeout is available too! Their signature Butter Einspänner and Shelter Einspänner caught my eye. I'll have to come back and try those next time.

And there were the various sands on display. You might wonder what's so great about these, but I believe there's no one who's tried it just once — you either haven't tried it at all, or you're hooked. At around ₩3,000 each it's not exactly cheap, but the taste is luxurious enough to justify the price.

They sold other kinds of cookies too, so take note of that. I heard the cakes here are also quite good, but my goal this time was the sands.

They also sold Basque cheesecake and a low-sugar tiramisu. Who knew tiramisu could be low-sugar! I'll have to try that too next time.

Ordering 6 butter sands packed loose

I walked out with 2 original butter sands, 2 crème brûlée butter sands, 1 choco butter sand, and 1 raspberry cream cheese sand.

I asked them to just pack it without a box, and they put an ice pack inside the paper bag too.

How to store butter sand and the taste — original vs. raspberry cream cheese

On the outside of the Butter & Shelter paper bag are instructions for eating the butter sand. Apparently it keeps for a whopping 1 year frozen. In the fridge it keeps for about 2 weeks too, for reference! Though of course I finish it before then, haha.

The 6 butter sands I bought. My husband actually doesn't like this kind of dessert and isn't into sweets at all, but even he ate this one happily.

Inside the cookie is this layer of butter and something like jam. I'm not totally sure if it's jam or caramel, but either way it's sweet and really delicious.

The one on the left is the original, and the one on the right is the raspberry cream cheese sand, which has raspberry jam in it so it's bright and refreshing. My favorite is still the original though. If you're near Sinsa Station looking for a gift, or just craving a good dessert, I recommend Butter & Shelter Sinsa!