Dorothy Y.
Yelp
Call me crazy, but I was taking an afternoon nap and dreamed of eating tteokbokki with my colleagues without knowing this eatery is near my hotel. When I was walking around Ballston Quarter's food hall and saw this, I knew it was a sign to eat this. I've actually never had tteokbokki before in my life. I insisted on trying the tteokbokki here even though the place is supposed to sell corn dogs.
I got the half and half corn dog because I wanted to have some mozzarella to try the cheese pull but still regular dog. I opted out of sugar dusting on this. I don't know what's traditional, but I wasn't looking for something sweet. I forgot what I added in terms of condiments but it included ketchup, garlic powder, some aioli thing, and maybe another condiment.
The batter was thicker than I expected. I can see why people need to drown this in sauce, because it can get quite dry and tasteless. It wasn't too rough in the mouth at least. The mozzarella inside did give a slight cheese pull, but it's hard to achieve if you're biting the whole circumference of the dog at once. It's hot.
The bottom half was the beef hot dog part. It's actually a very nice hot dog with beef taste and not too salty. If I knew beforehand, I would've chosen the classic dog with just the beef hot dog, no mozzarella.
Also if I knew beforehand I prefer the all beef hot dog, maybe I should've gotten the hotdokki, which is the beef hot dog cut into chunks and put into a bowl of tteokbokki. It's $0.50 cheaper than ordering them separately. Not sure if the portion of each is different though.
Similar to the corn dog, the tteokbokki tasted similar as how I imagined it to taste. The sauce was sweeter and more tomatoy than I expected. I was thinking something savory and spicy. There is heat here but it comes and goes. I don't recall needing to drink water in between bites, but this level of spicy isn't something I want to shove into my mouth. I'd call it medium spicy.
The tteokbokki had a nice chewy texture. I appreciate how the texture didn't change that much from the beginning to end of my meal. I don't know how long they've had this cooking for, but I'd assume the rice and starch would get stiff and tough. It didn't happen here. I was a bit tired of eating this by the end. I would've been happier eating a third to a half of this portion. Is this portion meant to be a main or a side?
The fish cake was too floury for my liking.
The egg was overcooked. The yolk turned green already.