JinbuRe (진부Re): Very Good Pudding with a Little Wobble and Local Flavor

At JinbuRe (진부Re), the pudding gives a small wobble when I lift a spoonful. It’s soft and smooth, gently sweet, with a mellow, nutty richness. I liked it right away. The milk-pudding lid has a playful line on it: “니 푸딩이 뭔지 아나?” Roughly, “Do you know what pudding is?”

The café was opened by young people in Jinbu (진부) during the pudding craze. A 2023 local-brand event announcement names Kim Do-yeon (김도연) and Jeon Dong-chun (전동춘) as its representatives. Their work has involved finding new uses for produce from Pyeongchang (평창). By 2023, their handmade sandwich cookies were appearing at a Seoul (서울) popup for a Gangwon (강원) local food and beverage program.

That local focus makes for an interesting pudding menu. Alongside milk, there’s corn, black soybean, omija, gondre (곤드레), and buckwheat. Handmade caramels are sold separately, boxed as sweets rather than simply poured over the pudding. A familiar milk pudding sits beside flavors you might not expect to find in a dessert jar. I’d happily work my way through them, though availability can vary.

The range caught the attention of Monthly Jeonwon Life, which featured the café’s puddings, handmade caramels, and potato-and-corn sandwich cookies in its November 2025 issue. The cookies are called Gamok Sand (감옥샌드).

Their desserts have also traveled beyond the café. In June 2025, JinbuRe’s Gamok Sand and caramels appeared at a local-brand popup at Shinsegae Gangnam (신세계 강남점) in Seoul (서울). Later that year, its Pyeongchang pudding received an excellence award (최우수상) in the county’s youth local-recipe contest. There’s more going on here than I would have guessed from my little jar of pudding.

The shop I remember as a small white storefront is now on the ground floor of Seorim Hotel (서림호텔). I hope it does well here. Awards and department-store appearances are encouraging, but the reason I’d come back is simpler: that soft, just-sweet-enough pudding.

Find it: Seorim Hotel (서림호텔), 109 Cheongsong-ro (청송로), Jinbu-myeon (진부면), Pyeongchang-gun (평창군), Gangwon (강원). Naver Map · Kakao Map (listed as 진부리) · Google Maps search.