Late-night Yongsan tteokbokki spot with draft beer: Hyeonseonine

A Yongsan tteokbokki spot open late

I went to Hyeonseonine Yongsan Main Branch, a Yongsan tteokbokki (spicy rice cake) restaurant famous for its spicy sauce. I'd been hanging out at Yongsan IPark Mall and ended up visiting a bit late at night, and it was easy to find since it's close to both Yongsan Station and Sinyongsan Station. Even though it was late, the place was nearly full, with people constantly coming in for takeout and delivery riders going back and forth — I really felt how popular this place is.

The first thing I noticed right after walking in was the photos. Old photos of Hyeonseonine were on display, so you could see the restaurant's history at a glance. When I first visited this place a long time ago, it was more like a plastic-tented street stall, but now it has a nice building and has opened up quite a few branches.

How to order and the self-serve bar

At Hyeonseonine Yongsan Main Branch, you grab a seat first and then order at the kiosk. Following the friendly staff's guidance, I sat down first, placed my order at the kiosk, and grabbed a small plate, salt, and pickled radish from the self-serve bar. I'd read reviews saying you could grab frying batter powder from the self-serve bar to sprinkle on the tteokbokki, but when I went it had all run out. 😢

What's in the 26,000-won Hyeonseoni combo set

This is the menu board at Hyeonseonine Yongsan Main Branch. The prices are fairly reasonable, so you can order a lot and still eat your fill without worrying about the bill. I ordered the Hyeonseoni combo set. For 26,000 won you get tteok-twi-sun (tteokbokki, fried snacks, sundae/blood sausage), mini gimbap (seaweed rice roll), and fish cake — a great value combo that I really liked.

The food came out pretty fast. Just look at how massive the Hyeonseoni combo set was. I ate this with just one other person haha, and the portion was seriously huge. It looked like it could feed three or more people easily. For the sundae, you could choose whether to mix in offal, and since I'm not a big fan of offal, I asked for just the sundae.

How spicy is medium, really?

Hyeonseonine's tteokbokki lets you choose between mild, medium, and spicy. According to the menu, mild is a nostalgic flavor even kids can enjoy, medium is spicier than Shin Ramyun and the most popular choice, and the signature spicy level is the ultimate heat that even spice-loving maniacs favor — delicious but seriously hot. Based on that description I went with medium, and by my standards even medium was pretty spicy. 🌶 I kept sucking air through my teeth the whole time I ate. I saw some people ordering the spicy level and just thought, wow, how much spice can they actually handle? If you're a serious spice wimp, I'd recommend ordering mild.

The tteokbokki rice cakes were chewy and delicious, and there was plenty of sauce, so I could dip the sundae and fried snacks into the spicy tteokbokki sauce, which I loved.

Fried snacks and fish cake soup

The fried snacks were a mix of gimmari (seaweed-wrapped glass noodle rolls), sweet potato, squid, and mandu (dumplings), and they were quite large. Of all of them, I enjoyed the gimmari the most.

The fish cake soup had a whopping three fish cake skewers in it. You've gotta have fish cake broth when the tteokbokki gets too spicy or something gets stuck in your throat, right? The moment I took a sip of the broth, I thought, this is drinking-snack material.

Open till midnight, a draft beer with Korean snack food

Hyeonseonine Yongsan Main Branch is open until midnight, with last order at 10:40pm. So I ended up having a late-night drink with the Korean snack food as my anju (drinking snack). Maybe because the place gets so much foot traffic and the beer turns over quickly, the draft beer tasted pretty good, which was a nice bonus.

If you join the review event, you can get a refreshing slushie or a tteokbokki size upgrade, so it might be worth taking part. A slushie to cool down your stomach after all that spice sounds perfect, right? That's it for my review of Hyeonseonine Yongsan Main Branch, a Yongsan tteokbokki spot and Yongridan-gil favorite. Next time I come back, I want to try the jeukseok (instant) tteokbokki too. I ate well and full today!