Paju outlet-trip café: mango bingsu and bungeoppang, Fruit Forest

On the way to the Paju outlets: a mango bingsu café near Simhaksan

Fruit Forest Paju Direct Store (과일의숲 파주직영점) is a fruit dessert café on Dolgoji-gil in Paju, near Simhaksan mountain, and I went because it's called a holy land of mango bingsu (shaved ice dessert). I had set out for the Paju outlets, ate lunch at a restaurant near Simhaksan first, and then headed to a café nearby. I love bingsu anyway, so when I heard "mango bingsu holy land," I had to go to Fruit Forest Paju Direct Store!

What are the parking and seating like at Fruit Forest Paju Direct Store?

There's a parking area below the building. When we arrived at the café, we found spaces for parking down below the building.

Inside, it's roomier than I expected, with floor-to-ceiling window seats, cushioned sofa seats and even terrace seating. There are window seats and sofa spots with colorful cushions, so I spent a moment deciding where to sit. There's a terrace too.

On one side is the counter for ordering drinks and desserts, and fruit desserts are on display. The display case was packed with yellow mango desserts, so there was no way I could not order the mango bingsu, haha!

Fruit Forest bingsu menu and the price of fresh mango bingsu

Fruit Forest Paju Direct Store has several fruit bingsu, including fresh mango, peach and melon. Looking at the menu, the range of bingsu was quite wide.

We ordered the fresh mango bingsu! It was ₩32,000. At first I thought that was a bit pricey for bingsu, but once it came out, the amount of mango was seriously huge.

How much mango is in the ₩32,000 fresh mango bingsu?

The fresh mango bingsu comes with mango piled on so generously that it nearly covers the bowl. Mango rings the top of the shaved ice, and there's even a scoop of ice cream in the middle. The mango is scored so it's easy to eat, and it looked easy to scoop up piece by piece. A generous pour of mango sauce on top made the whole thing glow yellow.

If you like mango, the look of this bingsu alone will catch your eye, haha. It was such a hearty mango bingsu — you can tell from the photo there's a lot of mango, right? It nearly covered the whole bowl.

Mango sauce also came separately, so you can add more to your taste as you eat. There was already sauce on top, but I liked that extra came on the side.

The ice and toppings of the fresh mango bingsu

Around the ice cream in the middle were small cube-shaped toppings, and the ice was white and soft. I scooped up the mango piece by piece and ate it together with the shaved ice underneath, and it was great to scoop up together.

The mango pieces themselves were big, so every bite had plenty of mango. I like mango anyway, so eating a bingsu this full of it put me in an extra good mood, haha.

I'd said I was full from lunch, but once the bingsu arrived it was so tasty that I kept eating. Bowl cleared!

Giant bungeoppang out front: custard cream and red bean

They also sell bungeoppang (fish-shaped pastry) in front of Fruit Forest Paju Direct Store. I came out after the mango bingsu meaning to just walk past, but watching them bake the bungeoppang made me want some again, haha.

These were giant bungeoppang, bigger than the regular kind, and we had one custard cream and one red bean. Fresh off the griddle, the outside was golden, and when I split one open it was packed with custard cream and red bean! I never expected to eat bungeoppang after mango bingsu, but once I saw them I couldn't just walk by.

So that day, before the Paju outlets, I ate lunch at a Simhaksan restaurant, had mango bingsu at the Paju dessert café Fruit Forest, and finished with bungeoppang, too, haha. I came out to shop, but it was a day where I was more serious about eating!