Sulbing

Last weekend my boyfriend and I decided to have some yummy Korean dessert - Sulbing. Sulbing is a rather new dessert, I'd say. When I was studying in Seoul in summer of 2009, there was no Sulbing yet. There was, however, a popular Korean dessert called Patbingsu.

Patbingsu is a name for a very famous Korean dessert. 'pat' means red bean paste and 'bingsu' is shaved ice. So when you order a patbingsu you get a bowl of shaved ice with read beans, and sometime Korean rice cake (tteok) and other fruits are added too. It might sound strange, but red bean paste is really sweet and is therefor used in many desserts and pastries. It's very refreshing and perfect for hot and humid summers in Korea.

There are also many different variations where red bean paste is replaced by another ingredient. The most popular are probably green tea, coffee, yogurt, strawberries etc... Since there's no red bean paste (pat) in these desserts, they are just called 'bingsu'.

 

Sulbing is also a very similar thing, but a rather newer version of it. The first Sulbing store opened in Busan and sometime between 2013 and 2014 it became really popular. The branches started spreading across Korea and today there are pretty much everywhere.

The main difference between sulbing and other types of bingsu is that sulbing doesn't contain shaved ice, but tiny flakes of frozen milk, which gives it a much sweeter and creamer taste. Pieces of frozen milk really look like snowflakes, thus the name sulbing, which means snow ice. The dessert is usually translated as snowflake sherbet.

The first branch in Daegu opened about a year ago or so. I can't remember exactly, but one opened right near our university. I heard it was very popular so I went there with my friend and another friend of his. We ate 2 different sulbings together - a strawberry one and 'injeolmi', which is a type of Korean rice cake. Both were really yummy. However, injeolmi has a lot of... kind of rice cake powder I guess? It can be just a bit hard to eat if it's not mixed well and you have to drink a lot of water with it.

 

Sulbing and bingsu, as well as many other Korean dishes (not only desserts) are usually shared among two or more people. It's just a part of Korean culture that people share food, meaning that several people eat from the same bowl or plate. Some people are uncomfortable with that. I even know some Koreans that don't late to share food like this. But most Koreans do. I have no problems with it, luckily. Sulbing is quite big and probably too much for one person. Also, I think you'd look a bit sad eating a huge sulbing by yourself. (Even though, in my opinion, there should be absolutely nothing wrong with eating it by yoursefl!).

There are several subilng flavors to choose from. Here are some other sulbings that I have tried so far: cheesecake, blueberry cheesecake, mango cheesecake (yes, I love cheesecake), berry yogurt etc. You can get blueberry and mango sulbing without cheesecake too. And there are also caramel-coffee, sweet potato etc., but I don't drink coffee and I don't like sweet potato that much.

Blueberry, strawberry and mango sulbings are not available throughout the year. Mango is only availabe in sumer, bluberry in fall and strawberry in winter. Last time, my boyfriend and I wanted to try the new premium fresh cream strawberry sulbing and it was DELICIOUS! :)

Korea has a lot of desserts like this to offer and most of them taste really good! Especially in summer, when the weather is really hot and humid here. I definitely recommend you try some of it when you visit Korea :)