Yeongjongdo dessert café takeout with two babies: 5PM sunset hour

5PM sunset hour: the café we return to on every Yeongjongdo trip

There's a café I always think of whenever I go to Yeongjongdo — 5PM sunset hour. There are plenty of pretty cafés and famous dessert shops on the island, but this is the place where I specifically crave salt bread. And my favorite item on the menu is the salt bread ice cream.

5PM sunset hour

This time too, my husband and I stopped by a Chinese restaurant for lunch, and once we wanted dessert afterward, we naturally headed to 5PM sunset hour. After a heavy meal, I crave something sweet but not too heavy, and the salt bread ice cream here fit that mood perfectly.

What we ordered at 5PM sunset hour and the salt bread we packed to go

This time we ordered 2 Americanos, a cup of ice cream to share with Yuan, a salt bread ice cream for my husband, and butter rice cake. We also packed a plain salt bread and a ham-cheese salt bread to take home. Those are still sitting in the fridge — every time I see them I think I should eat them soon, but somehow I still haven't gotten to it.

What does the salt bread ice cream at 5PM sunset hour taste like?

When I come to 5PM sunset hour, the first thing I think of is always the salt bread ice cream. The combination of warm, salty bread with cold, sweet ice cream works better than you'd expect. The savory butter flavor and subtle saltiness of the salt bread itself balance out the sweetness of the ice cream, so it feels far more delicious than a dessert that's just plain sweet.

When you eat salt bread on its own, the butter aroma and clean saltiness take center stage, but paired with ice cream the contrast really comes through. The cold, soft ice cream melts first, followed by the crisp yet chewy texture of the salt bread. Add in the buttery richness, and each bite delivers sweet, salty, and savory notes in sequence.

I think the texture of the salt bread's crust is especially appealing, while the inside was soft and savory with a subtle butter flavor. Eating it with ice cream actually made the bread's plainness stand out even more. It's not a flashy dessert, but there's a reason it keeps coming to mind.

I love the salt bread ice cream here so I come back for it often, and I ordered one for my husband too. It's nice when we get the same thing, but there's also fun in each picking a different dessert to share.

Cup ice cream shared with the baby, plus the butter rice cake

Yuan and I shared the cup ice cream. When you go to a café with a young baby, it's a bit easier to pick something the baby can actually eat rather than bread or cake, so this time we went with the cup ice cream together. Yuan seemed to like the sweetness too and ate well as we shared it.

I was also curious about the butter rice cake so we ordered that as well. As the name suggests, it has a rich, savory butter flavor, and offered a different chewy texture from the salt bread. Rather than sticking to just different kinds of bread, adding a rice cake dessert like this made the menu lineup feel a little more varied.

How is the Americano at 5PM sunset hour?

The Americano was an easygoing choice to pair with dessert. Rather than a strongly bitter style, it leaned toward a familiar, mainstream coffee taste — personally it reminded me a bit of Starbucks Americano. If you prefer a nutty, clean Americano over one with strong acidity, this one should go down easily.

The staff kindness that made takeout with two babies easier

This time we ordered takeout. My husband waited in the car with the babies while I went into the café alone to order. But while I was waiting after ordering, my second baby had a poop emergency. When you're out with two babies, things really do happen at the most unexpected moments — and of course it happened right as we were waiting for dessert.

My husband needed a bit more time to handle the baby in the car, so I asked if the ice cream items could come out a little later. It would normally be awkward for takeout food to be delayed after ordering, but thankfully they waited, and thanks to that I was able to handle the baby situation without a hitch.

When you're out with two babies, small kindnesses like this can matter just as much as the taste of the food or the café atmosphere. Even though I couldn't take my order right away because of the baby, I was personally grateful they waited. Thanks to that, I didn't have to rush around worrying about the ice cream melting and could handle things calmly instead.

Going out to eat and to cafés with two kids always means something unexpected happens once or twice. This time too, right after a satisfying lunch at the Chinese restaurant, we suddenly had to deal with the second baby's diaper — but in the end, we managed to take care of the kids and still get our dessert to eat in the car.

Days like this make an ordinary dessert outing stick in memory even more. Having lunch with my husband, stopping by a café with the kids, sharing salt bread ice cream — it doesn't have to be a day with special plans for these little family moments to feel good.

Why 5PM sunset hour is worth recommending as a Yeongjongdo dessert café

And once again, after eating the salt bread ice cream, I understood why I keep coming back here whenever I'm in Yeongjongdo. The combination of salt bread and ice cream is simple but reliably delicious. The contrast between the salty bread and the sweet, cold ice cream makes each bite more appealing than the last.

It pairs especially well with coffee. After a bite of the sweet ice cream, a sip of Americano cleans up the palate, and going back to the salt bread ice cream brings out the butter's richness and the ice cream's sweetness even more clearly. It's a great combination for an after-meal dessert.

I also packed a plain salt bread and a ham-cheese salt bread, so next time I'll take my time eating them at home. The ham-cheese one in particular, with its salty ham and cheese, seems like it would make a heartier snack than the regular salt bread. If you like the savory butter aroma of freshly baked salt bread, I'd recommend packing some to enjoy with coffee at home.

There are so many cafés in Yeongjongdo that it can be hard to decide where to go, but if dessert is the goal, I'd recommend 5PM sunset hour. It's especially worth a visit if you like salt bread. You can choose from plain to ham-cheese salt bread, and there are menu items like my favorite salt bread ice cream that you'll only think of at this particular place.

It's fun to seek out new cafés every time I go to Yeongjongdo, but somehow once a place wins me over, I keep coming back. For me, this is that kind of café. This time too, a hearty lunch at the Chinese restaurant followed by salt bread ice cream at 5PM sunset hour made for an ordinary but genuinely good day.

I'll probably stop by again the next time I'm in Yeongjongdo. And this time, I really need to finally eat the salt bread and ham-cheese salt bread sitting in my fridge.