Sinnonhyeon tteokbokki shop full in a heat wave: Deokjane Bangatgan

Deokjane Bangatgan near Sinnonhyeon Station: full even on a heat-wave day

This is Deokjane Bangatgan, a tteokbokki spot near Sinnonhyeon Station that I genuinely love! It's so famous that every time I go there are so many people. Recently I went during a really hot spell thinking no one would be there, but it was almost completely full haha. If you eat in the shop, they put potato salad on top of the tteokbokki too, which is such a good combo, and the rice cake texture is the best. There were office workers on late shifts, couples on dates, people picking up takeout — all kinds of people.

How takeout waiting numbers and the self-serve bar work

At the store entrance there was a waiting number system for takeout orders, and the menu was clearly explained too. Everything looked so delicious I wanted to order a bit of everything haha.

If you eat inside, you can just grab mandu/jjolmyeon sauce and side dishes from the self-serve bar yourself. The staff were all so kind too, which made picking up takeout even more pleasant. That tteokbokki smell the moment you walk in, ugh... getting hungry just thinking about it.

Deokjane Bangatgan is such a well-known tteokbokki spot in Gangnam that it's been on TV a lot too — at this point pretty much everyone knows about the garaetteok (thick cylindrical rice cakes) here haha.

What is on the menu at Deokjane Bangatgan?

The main dish here is chewy garaetteok tteokbokki! I've been coming to Deokjane Bangatgan regularly for years now, and while prices have gone up a bit compared to a few years ago, it's still delicious and reasonably priced. Maybe because of the heat and general laziness these days, I keep craving snack food like tteokbokki, fried snacks and sundae. When you're craving something, you just have to eat it, right~.~

The menu at Deokjane Bangatgan, known for its chewy texture and garaetteok! Besides tteokbokki, there's bibim mandu (spicy mixed dumplings), fish cake, sundae, fried snacks, ramyeon, gimbap, jjolmyeon (chewy cold noodles) and more, plus set menus, so you can order whatever suits your taste. I feel like I've tried almost every item on the menu at this point and it's all good... Of course the tteokbokki is the best, but definitely order some of the other items alongside it too!

The weather is this hot and the place is still packed to the brim — that's a real hotspot for you. If you're looking for a good snack restaurant in Gangnam, I recommend Deokjane Bangatgan! They got my takeout out fast too, so I grabbed it and rushed off to catch my bus haha.

Tteokbokki, sundae, gimbap and fish cake taken home

Ha, looking at these again, the food still looks so appetizing! I ordered tteokbokki, sundae, gimbap and fish cake. I've also gotten mul-tteok (rice cake in fish cake broth) here before, and they included the broth for that too! Even though it was takeout, it tasted exactly the same once I got it home — so good. The tteokbokki sauce was tasty enough that I dipped everything else in it too. Once you try it, you'll really understand why it's so famous, and you won't be able to just walk past Deokjane Bangatgan again haha.

How is garaetteok different from thin wheat rice cakes?

The tteokbokki at Deokjane Bangatgan near Sinnonhyeon Station felt a bit different from the wheat-flour rice cake (milk-tteok) tteokbokki I usually eat. The rice cake itself is chewy and plump, so there's a real bite to it, and it's the kind of taste that keeps coming back to mind. It kind of just clings to your mouth — when you take a bite, the rice cake's texture hits first rather than the sauce, and then the sweet-spicy sauce follows after. That's how good the garaetteok itself is. You really have to try it once! There's probably nobody who's never tried Deokjane Bangatgan, but there's also nobody who's tried it just once haha. Personally, I think the sauce matters, but the rice cake has to be good for tteokbokki to be truly delicious — the fun of chewing the rice cake and its texture seemed to help the sauce soak in even better. And the sauce wasn't overwhelmingly, painfully spicy either, which made it even more enjoyable.

A Gangnam snack restaurant for solo meals, lunch or takeout

When I was younger I don't think I ate snack food that often, but lately I keep reaching for simple, tasty, good-value snack menus that never leave me with regrets. Snack food isn't anything fancy, but once you start eating it, the satisfaction is bigger than expected, and eating it after a while somehow puts you in a good mood haha. Most of all, there aren't actually that many options when you want tteokbokki in Gangnam, so I liked that this place was easy to get to around Sinnonhyeon Station. Craving tteokbokki now? Just head straight to Deokjane Bangatgan, no need to think twice haha. It's good for a casual lunch with a friend, a simple meal before heading to a café, great for eating alone, and good for takeout orders too.

Adding boiled eggs to the tteokbokki at home

I boiled the egg myself at home and added it haha. The fish cake broth was really refreshing and tasty, and the tteokbokki had wheat rice cake mixed in with the fish cake too, so I just cut it into bite-sized pieces. Cutting it was fun too — the rice cake felt chewy even while I was cutting it, that's how appealing it was.

Ha, the look of it alone makes you feel the chewy texture. The original Deokjane Bangatgan location is right here near Sinnonhyeon Station, and it's so popular and famous that it even came out as a meal kit!!?!? Bursting with savory flavor... office workers around Gangnam and Sinnonhyeon Stations, I'm so jealous — you get to go to Deokjane Bangatgan for lunch whenever you want!!!

Nom nom, it's snack food but I'm still getting my rice in with gimbap (seaweed rice roll) too haha. When am I ever going to diet ugh... a place this good is basically cheating, but I ate happily anyway haha. If you're looking for something simple near Sinnonhyeon Station or a great snack restaurant in Gangnam, I recommend Deokjane Bangatgan — you'll really fall for it haha.