Snack bar near Euljiro 1-ga with fish cake broth: Hyeonseoni-ne

I went to Hyeonseoni-ne Cheonggye Instant Branch, an old-school tteokbokki spot in Euljiro. The entrance is right next to Mega Coffee at Exit 3 of Euljiro 1(il)-ga Station.

There's an order kiosk to the right of the menu board, and the entrance door is just beyond it.

Step inside and you find this — Hyeonseoni-ne Cheonggye Instant Branch, decked out in old-school Euljiro tteokbokki-joint charm.

Hyeonseoni-ne à la carte menu and prices

Hyeonseoni-ne Cheonggye Instant Branch is a Korean restaurant near Euljiro 1(il)-ga Station with a wide range of individual menu items.

• Tteokbokki, per serving, ₩6,000 (spicy, medium, or mild)
• Handmade sundae, ₩6,500 (comes with organs)
• Mini gimbap, 4 pieces, ₩5,000
• Busan teukcheon fish cake, ₩1,500 each; Busan gilzugi fish cake, ₩1,000 each
• Assorted fried snacks, 5 pieces, ₩6,000 (squid, kimmari, vegetable, meat mandu, sweet potato)
• Ramyeon, spicy ramyeon, cheese ramyeon, tuna mayo rice ball

With so many menu options, it's a great place to order a bit of everything.

Set menus and what comes in the instant tteokbokki

There are plenty of set menus too, so if you're stuck deciding, picking from a set is a good move. The Baby Set is ₩13,000 and gives you half portions each of tteokbokki, fried snacks, sundae, and gimbap so you can try a bit of everything.

Hyeonseoni-ne Cheonggye Instant Branch is also known for its instant tteokbokki — order it and you get rice cakes, fish cake, jjolmyeon noodles, vegetables, yaki mandu, and egg as the base, with ramyeon, jjolmyeon, fish cake, vegetables, rice cakes, egg, yaki mandu, cheese, and fried rice available as add-ons.

The ₩25,000 Hyeonseon Combo Set: five snack bar dishes on one table

I ordered the Hyeonseon Combo Set for ₩25,000, which brings out the five signature snack bar dishes all at once — tteokbokki, sundae, assorted fried snacks, mini gimbap, and fish cakes. The food came out fast.

Can't take heat? Medium spice is the sweet spot

The spicy version is supposedly famous, but since I'm a spice wimp I went with medium. I've heard that if you go mild, it can feel a bit underwhelming by the end! The medium-spice tteokbokki here has just the right kick for a spice wimp like me — I dunked the rice cakes generously in the sauce and dipped everything else in the tteokbokki sauce too, and it was all delicious.

There's a generous amount of chewy tteokbokki rice cakes, and the sweet-spicy broth-style tteokbokki brought back memories of the tteokbokki I used to eat outside school as a kid. There's plenty of broth, which is great for dipping the sundae and fried snacks in too.

Mini gimbap

The mini gimbap (seaweed rice roll) has pickled radish, ham, egg, imitation crab, and fish cake inside, and it's seasoned just right and nutty, so it's tasty on its own,

and it's just as good dipped in the tteokbokki broth. The mini gimbap comes in bite-sized pieces, so you can eat it neatly and cleanly.

Fish cake broth cools down the spice

The fish cakes were brought out together with their broth, still warm and delicious. The fish cakes are soft and tasty, and taking a spoonful of the broth between bites of tteokbokki cools down the heat and tastes great.

Handmade sundae with offal

The handmade sundae (blood sausage) came out with organs served alongside.

The glutinous rice sundae is packed full inside — it's good dipped in salt, but it's even better dipped in the tteokbokki broth.

The organs were also cooked well, moist and tender, and delicious dipped in the tteokbokki broth.

Five kinds of fried snacks in the platter

The assorted fried snacks come with a balanced mix of five types — squid, kimmari, vegetable, meat mandu, and sweet potato — cut into easy-to-eat sizes so they're convenient to eat.

The fried snacks aren't greasy and are crispy and nutty, which I loved,

and the meat mandu was packed full inside, the squid in the fried squid was chunky, and honestly every single piece of the fried snacks was delicious!

Dipping the crispy, nutty fried snacks into the spicy tteokbokki broth was so good I finished everything in no time! For a Korean restaurant near Euljiro 1(il)-ga Station serving up tasty tteokbokki with genuine old-school Euljiro charm, I recommend Hyeonseoni-ne Cheonggye Instant Branch.