Yeouido IFC Mall snack restaurant, underground route: Hyeonseonine

Today I want to share a review of a budget-friendly snack restaurant I visited after watching a movie and shopping around Yeouido. By the way, this place also does instant tteokbokki (spicy stir-fried rice cakes cooked at the table)!!

Hyeonseonine Premium IFC Mall Branch: the basics

• Address: 10 Gukjegeumyung-ro, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, IFC Mall B2, Hyeonseonine Premium, South Korea
• Hours: Mon–Fri 11:00–21:00 / Sat–Sun 12:00–21:00 (last order 20:40)
• Takeout and delivery available

How to reach Hyeonseonine through the IFC Mall underground passage

This budget-friendly snack restaurant, Hyeonseonine Premium IFC Mall Branch, isn't in the shopping section of IFC Mall like you'd expect — it's on the outer edge, away from the main shops and restaurants. When you get off the subway, there's an underground passage near Exit 3 that connects directly to IFC Mall and The Hyundai Seoul. Follow that passage all the way, and you'll find the entrance right next to the moving walkway. Don't come up through the exit and try to find it from street level — come straight through the underground passage from the subway, and it's much easier to find!

Plenty of tables: solo diners and Yeouido office workers

The place isn't tiny, and it's mostly filled with small two-person tables, so there are quite a lot of them. There are also lots of tables set up outside, where some people eat food from the convenience store and others eat the snack restaurant's food — it felt kind of shared. Those might technically be convenience store tables, but plenty of people were eating Hyeonseonine's food there too, and nobody seemed to mind.

There were also people eating simple convenience store meals alone, so it felt like a fine spot for solo dining too. This place must be legit, because even though I visited at 3pm — not really mealtime — most of the seats were already full. The photo was actually taken during a lull when a few people had left.

Hyeonseonine's main dishes, sides and how to order at the kiosk

Hyeonseonine is mainly built around tteokbokki, with most of the menu being tteokbokki and its side dishes. Beyond that, there were only rice bowls and ramyeon added on. Honestly, I liked that the menu was this simple — it felt like a sign of a good restaurant. Tteokbokki is ₩6,000, the instant version is a minimum of 2 servings at ₩22,000, and the various add-ons range from ₩1,500 to ₩3,000.

You order through a kiosk. Unfortunately, Apple Pay isn't accepted.

Review event and self-serve bar

Hyeonseonine is running a review event where you get either fried rice cakes or a savory mayo rice ball. Write a review on just one of Naver, Google, or Daum and you get one item — even if you write reviews on multiple platforms, you only get one gift per visit. I didn't write a review this time, but since you just need to show the review to staff, it seems worth trying.

It's a snack restaurant, but there's a self-serve bar to make things more convenient. The self-serve bar had pickled radish, sundae (blood sausage) salt, and wet wipes, plus various small plates and a water dispenser — very handy.

Honest review of the 23,000-won Hyeonseoni Set

• Hyeonseoni Set ₩23,000
• Soda (zero-sugar cider) ₩2,000
• Curly Busan fish cake ₩4,000

I ordered the Hyeonseoni Set, which comes with tteokbokki, fried snacks, sundae, and gimbap (seaweed rice roll). I really wanted instant tteokbokki again, but since I'd had it the day before, haha, I went with the regular version this time. Usually set menus come in small portions, but each item here was pretty generous, so I ended up leaving a lot behind. (Even though this was my first meal of the day at 3pm after eating nothing all day, I still couldn't finish it.)

Sundae (blood sausage) and gimbap (seaweed rice roll)

First up, sundae and gimbap! The sundae may not look like much, but it was packed with plenty of offal and blood sausage. The flavor wasn't anything special, but it felt fresh.

The gimbap is the basic kind, but it wasn't small at all, so I could take nice big bites.

How chewy is Hyeonseonine's tteokbokki?

And then the tteokbokki!!!! This is the main event, right? Even though I went around 3pm, there were still plenty of customers, and I guess because turnover is fast, even though the rice cakes were just scooped straight in, they weren't soggy at all. Pure chewiness!! The portion felt like it could've been for two people.

Curly Busan fish cake and its broth

I added this fish cake because I wanted the broth. The fish cake itself was about average, but the broth — the real reason I ordered it — was honestly so good, haha.

Are the fried snacks still crisp?

Lastly, the fried snacks — the color alone gets a pass from me. The batter was pale, which made me think they used clean oil. The fried snacks weren't soggy at all and seemed crispy, but honestly I'm mid-orthodontic-treatment and my teeth hurt, so I couldn't chew properly and just swallowed things down, so I'm not 100% sure. My friend thought it was a bit hard. I can't say for certain whether it was super crispy or just hard, but one thing's for sure — zero sogginess^^