VISIT JEJU

This small town of Jongdal, at the eastern end of Jeju Island, is famous for its charming cafes and bookstores. Set among a group of small houses, Cafe Dongnae offers guests a carrot-based shaved ice dessert that you won’t find elsewhere. Gujwa carrots are famous nationwide and a whole range of local desserts — carrot cake, pies, etc — benefit from their wholesomeness and good flavor. As it happens, carrot shaved ice is so good, even people who don’t like carrots find it an enticing treat.

This café is very serene and has a small cafe atmosphere. It is popular in part for its large window with a view of the area. The rooftop terrace has a wooden deck with benches, and a large parking lot means you can relax without worrying.

Pineapple is a flavor that is mainly associated with summertime, isn’t it? This vitamin-rich, sweet treat can be transformed into the most amazing summer dessert, like the one on the menu at This Day N, a cafe in Gujwa-eup, Jeju City. They cut the fruit in half and then stack shaved ice and icy pineapple balls on top. It not only looks cool, it is cool!

Enjoy this and a coffee on the cafe’s terrace. The view of the blue sea and rural Jeju atmosphere will drain all your stress away. 

Please keep in mind that they only sell this pineapple shaved ice menu item until 4 p.m.

Summer exhaustion is a common problem. How can you solve this? One coffee shop in Seongsan, on the far east side of Jeju Island, has a unique name and an equally unique answer to this question in the form of a raspberry shaved ice dessert! Inside you’ll find the Coffee Drinking Cat to have a simple, nostalgic feel. Post-it notes written by happy customers line the walls. 

The dessert is served with finely crushed milk ice colored with raspberry juice and sprinkled with berries and chewy rice cake cubes. If you’re a bit more hungry, try the Gorgonzola pizza, which is a good match with a shaved ice dessert. 

You can also do a little souvenir shopping here, with all kinds of handicrafts made from locally found items like seashells. Since this is an area quite some distance from Jeju City, it’s best to rest up (and fill up) before making the journey back. Raspberry shaved ice and a tasty pizza will do the trick!

Snow Bean certainly lives up to its name as a spot where you can cool off every day of the year. They have, for example, decorated the place with Christmas ornaments for that wintery feel. But what is much more surprising, though, is how they’ve combined fermented bean paste (cheonggukjang) with their dessert menu items. Shaved ice, cookies, waffles, ice cream all get this treatment. And by all reports, they’re something different and definitely memorable.

Apart from enjoying the menu, you can explore the grounds around Snow Bean, and see the many ceramic pots in which their fermented bean paste is made. They also sell soy sauce, soy bean paste for soups, green tea shaved ice, coffee shaved ice and whole range of other items. It’s definitely a cool place to spend a hot summer afternoon.

Watermelon is the summer fruit. So how about spending a cool night trying watermelon shaved ice at Affinity cafe in downtown Jeju. It’s made of finely chopped ice and melon balls drizzled with melon syrup. This is accompanied by a cute watermelon ice cream bar and sunflower seeds that are meant to resemble watermelon seeds. Sweet, crunchy and refreshing!

This café caters to guests of all ages. You can bring the whole family to sit together in afternoon, for example, while later into the night, friends and lovers sit and luxuriate in each other’s company. If you feel a bit hungry, you can also order the popular honey bread to have with your roasted coffee or choice of seasonal fruit juice. Drop by anytime between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.