Good Ovening

Who loves a good cupcake?  Me!  When I heard there is a cupcake place in Busan called "Good Ovening" (cute name, huh?), it's all I could think about for a few weeks.  I wanted desperately to bite into a good, moist chocolate cake with delicious chocolate frosting.

In the time that I've lived in Korea, I've learned that looks can be deceiving.  This cupcake experience was no exception.

Let me start from the beginning...

Talton and I decided to go on an adventure to Good Ovening on one of the days he had off for Chuseok.  With directions in hand, along with two toddlers, one of which fell fast asleep within minutes of being in the stroller because he decided he didn't want to take a nap that afternoon, we headed out toward yumminess.

 

We hopped on the subway and prayed that P would stay asleep through the long subway ride from Haeundae to Seomyeon (16 stops! = at least 30 minutes).  He napped for about half the ride and then woke up really fussy because the 30 minutes he napped just wasn't long enough.

Having changed subway lines at Seomyeon before to go to a different destination months ago, we soon remembered just how CrAZy packed this station is.  Now would be a good time to say that we will not be taking the boys on a subway ride past Centum City (it's 3 stops from our Haeundae station and where the big mall is) from now on.  It's just too long of a ride for littles like them, and, like I said, Seomyeon is just not an easy or spacious place to navigate.

Once we reached street level, it took us some time to find the cupcake place because we actually passed the street up and found it retracing our steps back to where we started.

Here it is, Cafe Good Ovening.  How cute is this place?!  It was hidden in the middle of a super busy area in Seomyeon.  Thank goodness someone gave me directions so I had an idea of what to look for!

 This place is adorable and cozy inside!  Seeing as though we had two kiddos that had been in the stroller for way too long and getting them back in the stroller is way harder than letting them out, we grabbed our cupcakes and hit the road.  This nice lady behind the counter gave the boys some suckers which actually helped to keep them quiet as we walked back to the subway.  As Parker only wanted to be held, the sucker also managed to soak my shirt along with Parker's drool dripping off his hand.  Whatever.  It was worth it, because like I said, he was quiet for the time being.

Take a look at these amazing cupcakes!  They definitely know what they're doing when it comes to decorating.

They have flavors such as:
Mint Condition, Caramel Flower, Chocolate Cloud (This would've been my first choice, but they were all out!), Sun Flower, Funky Berry, Cappuccino Planet, English Tea Party, Banana Chocolate, Cotton Candy, Red Velvet, Coco Bird, Orange Beach, Peanut Pumpkin, Espresso, Cookie & Cream, Vanilla Dream, and Cacao Matcha

You can see the price is 4,500 won, which comes out to about $4 in the U.S..  We bought a box of 5, but you can also buy them individually or in a box of 9.

 

 

On our walk home, we came across...

This poster of Psy outside a cell phone store was the second poster of its kind I had seen in less than 10 minutes.  For those of you that don't know who Psy is, he is a South Korean rapper whose song "Gangnam Style" blew up internationally this summer.  If you haven't seen the video yet, take a few minutes and watch it now.

There were many, many food carts selling all kinds of Korean goodies everywhere today.

For whatever reason, there are always people in hospital clothes and wheelchairs sitting outside restaurants smoking and drinking.  Maybe the hospital wristband and oxygen tank aren't enough to remind them not to do these things.  The irony is not lost on me.

 You can see that it was now dark at this point.  It took us over 3 hours to get there and back between the walk to and from the subway, the rides on the subway, finding the cupcake place, and buying the cupcakes.  T and I have decided that if we ever go back to get cupcakes from there again, only one of us will be going and the other will stay home with the boys.  I hate making them sit in the stroller for that long.  It's no wonder they get cranky; although, they did pretty well all things considered.

a waffle food truck - there was another on the corner across the street

 When we got home, we tried out the cupcakes before making dinner.  :)

A few of them did a bit of tumbling, but it's no wonder because Connar begged to hold the box.

First up, Vanilla Dream.  We quickly discovered that the "vanilla dream" was the icing, not the cake itself.

Connar can testify that the icing on the Vanilla Dream was, in fact, a dream.  :)  He was like a Smurf when all was said and done.

Next up, Cacao Matcha.

This was definitely not what I was expecting, not that I knew what "cacao matcha" even meant.  I guess I was expecting more of a chocolate cake, but that's not what this was.   Now I know "cacao matcha" is basically chocolate and tea.  Um, no thank you.  That is not up my alley.

Parker wanted to try it and decided to smell it first.  That's my boy!  Just like his momma!

Next was Cookie and Cream.

This is Red Velvet.  It wasn't as red as bright pink, more like strawberry cake.

All in all, I'm glad we tried Good Ovening.  The icing was pretty good, a little grainy, but good.  The cake part of the cupcake was not that great.  I'm not sure if it was because they weren't fresh or if that's just how they make their cakes, but it wasn't moist and soft.  It was really dense and compact.  I'm sure I'll go back (by myself!) at some point to get Talton some of the other cupcakes we didn't get a chance to try today as well as the chocolate one I had my eye on, and hopefully I'll be able to report better news about the cake portion itself.

I would like to kiss whoever came up with the name of the cafe, Good Ovening, though...I just love coming across places with catchy names.  :)