I was looking up chocolate shops for Valentine’s Day, and that was when I first heard the rumor that a handmade caramel specialist had opened in Hongdae. Apparently it actually opened around last summer. As someone who loves Henri Le Roux’s caramels, there was no way I could skip it. It sits on the road running from Hongdae toward Sinchon, not far from the heart of the alley where all the dessert shops are clustered (not inside that alley itself, though..). The area around there has a whole crowd of dessert shops: MOBSSIE, Bsweet On, Gâteau Maman, Cacao Boom, La Main Douce and more. I really love that kind of atmosphere.
The front
A clean, tidy interior. A lot of shops in that neighborhood open at 2 p.m., so I’m glad this one opens at noon. Two o’clock is past lunchtime, so if your meal happens to wrap up around 1:30 the timing gets a bit awkward.(Though if you factor in the time you spend queuing, 2 p.m. does make sense..)
Today’s haul
Custard pudding, a salted butter caramel macaron, and five caramels. Five caramels for 3,200 won, which is cheaper than I expected. Compared with Henri Le Roux’s, that is, sadly. Considering what goes into fresh caramel, this is probably the normal price. The macaron was 2,000 won and the pudding 3,700 won, both of which look reasonable to me. The reason there are only four caramels in the photo.. is that I tasted one ahead of time so I could post it on Twitter.
It isn’t just the fresh caramels, this shop’s signature, that are good: the quality of the macarons and the pudding is very high too. I doubt there are many places in Korea working at this level. On top of that, every dessert I ate today carried this shop’s own distinctive caramel character, which left an even stronger impression. I’d like to come back again and again and try all the different kinds of desserts.(Including the honey milk caramel pudding..)
The display inside
Roughly like this. So many kinds of caramel, right?
Fresh caramel specialists aren’t all that common even worldwide, (though plenty of places do sell fresh caramel; it isn’t a terribly difficult thing to make..) so I’m delighted that a specialist shop has opened in the middle of all this. I have a feeling I’ll be dropping by often from now on.