Cheongju rice cake shop pizza sulgi, microwaved 5 seconds: Tteokmama

South Korea, nation of foodies.

Bread, snacks, rice cakes, food in general — trends move fast here, with new and inventive things popping up constantly, haha.

The hot rice cake right now is pizza sulgi! Hahaha. Just a little while ago it was all about danhobak siru (sweet pumpkin steamed rice cake), and things move fast!

As a dessert blogger (lol), I had to try pizza sulgi before anyone else, haha. Today I'm sharing my visit to Tteokmama Cheongju Yullyang Branch, a rice cake shop in Cheongju, where I picked up a whole tray of pizza sulgi.

Where is Tteokmama Cheongju Yullyang Branch? Parking and café space

Tteokmama Cheongju Yullyang Branch is a rice cake shop at 94 Gonghang-ro, 1st floor, Cheongwon-gu, Cheongju. It's small, but there's parking right beside the store.

There's also an indoor café space, which is great since you can eat in.

They were also selling songpyeon (half-moon rice cake) for Chuseok — oesaek kkae songpyeon (five-color sesame songpyeon), bean songpyeon, mosi songpyeon (ramie leaf songpyeon), and more varieties, haha.

Pretty gift sets and packaging. >.<

What's on the menu at Tteokmama Cheongju Yullyang Branch

Pretty fruit mochi. Since they steam everything fresh each day, most items are in limited quantities — if you go a bit late, a lot of the rice cakes may already be sold out.

The trendy sulgi (white rice cake) family. Beyond pizza sulgi, there were also strawberry jam sulgi and honey baekseolgi (white sulgi), so plenty of variety — and the strawberry jam sulgi is especially pretty, right? A combo of heart-shaped baekseolgi and strawberry jam sulgi would also make a great thank-you rice cake gift. Tteokmama Cheongju Yullyang Branch's strong point is the huge range of rice cakes, many of them beautiful, so you've got a lot to choose from.

There were also gangjeong (crispy rice snacks) on offer.

With Chuseok coming up, there was a variety of songpyeon too. The five-color songpyeon was especially pretty, hahaha.

Tteokmama's rice cake of the day

A 9-piece pizza sulgi tray costs 22,000 won

Pizza sulgi at Tteokmama Cheongju Yullyang Branch, a rice cake shop in Yullyang-dong, Cheongju, costs ₩2,500 per piece. A 9-piece box set is ₩22,000, which is ₩500 cheaper than buying them individually.

Plus it comes packaged as a whole tray, so it'd make a great gift or thank-you rice cake. Doesn't it look super appetizing, haha?

The visuals alone are amazing! Seeing them all lined up as a tray is so much prettier than looking at just one piece?! Which makes it feel even better suited as a gift, haha.

What does Tteokmama's pizza sulgi taste like?

Tasting it myself, there wasn't a ton of cheese in it, but you could sense a cheese base at a moderate level! Probably because they were thinking about how well it would go with the rice cake.

But honestly, I didn't expect tomato paste to pair so well with rice cake. And pairing so well with baekseolgi of all things! Normally baekseolgi is a bit dry, so I'd never managed to finish a whole piece in one sitting!

But pizza sulgi has a chewy, fluffy baekseolgi base loaded with moist sauce, giving it a savory feel that went down easier than a sweet snack. It's great as a full meal too — I thought it'd be nice to stock up in the freezer and eat one each morning.

Should you reheat pizza sulgi? 5–10 seconds in the microwave

I wondered if it should be eaten warm and considered heating it up, but eaten cold that same evening it was still moist and delicious enough. For reheating, they recommended microwaving in 5–10 second bursts.

Better to take the plastic off before microwaving, right, haha? Being able to stock up and eat it later makes it an even better healthy snack, I think.

My verdict: the combo of pizza and sulgi worked better than I expected, haha. Trying out different kinds of rice cakes is more fun than I thought, haha.