Apple House ddeok-bok-ki

Apple House is one of the better known 떡볶이 restaurants in Seoul, pronounced ddeok-bok-ki.  It’s a hole in the wall type place, located in a small alley way behind the main street.

This was the line at 9pm on a Saturday night, 30 minutes prior to closing, so I’m guessing the line gets pretty fierce at prime times.

It’s a little hectic once you get inside; it’s a cash only operation so hit up the ATM machine before you go.

You mark off what you want and hand the order slip to one of the many waiters zipping around.  I’m not gonna explain the whole menu but the point I want to make is that it is dirt cheap!

Everything is self-service here; utensils, bowls, water, the little yellow radish rings.  I guess that’s how they keep the prices down.

Sauced fried dumplings (무침군만두) 4 for KRW 2,000.  The sauce was great, sweet and spicy.  They are 50 cents a piece so I don’t want to nick pick but our dumplings were cold, they could have been great.

Stir-fried blood sausage (순대볶음) KRW 3,000.  For those of you that like blood sausage this dish was phenomenal!  They used the same sweet/spicy sauce from the dumplings but stir frying the blood sausage added a nice savoriness.  Blood sausage can be a heavy and gamey but the sauce helped to balance that out.  And the sausage casing they used was firm and chewy, it was perfect!

We ordered the ddeok-bok-ki that you cook at your table (즉석떡볶이) for KRW 2,500 per order and an order of noodles for KRW 3,000.  I was not impressed with the ddeok-bok-ki, nothing really stood out.  I thought it was too soupy and thus a little bland.  I’ve definitely had better ddeok-bok-ki but you also have to factor in the price.  Its KRW 8.000 for all that food and its enough to feed two people.

The only way to evaluate this place is based on their prices, our entire meal came out to KRW 13,000, you can’t beat that!  It’s cheap and fun to eat but it’s not gonna be the best food you’ve had.  The sweet/spicy sauce they use in all their dishes is the secret to their success.

Rating:  7 out of 10.

애플하우스:  02-595-1629 near Gubanpo station (line 9).

http://www.wingspoon.com/spotDetail.nhn?cityId=3339&townId=14023&spotId=12796