Known by many as Siroo — and only Siroo — this Annandale shop takes its name from the earthenware pot used to steam rice flour into a loose dough, which in turn is machined and manipulated into a wide variety of Korean rice cakes called tteok. It should come as no surprise, then, that Siroo is known for its dizzying array of tteok, including baram tteok, these hollow half-moons of dough filled with sweetened red bean paste, a thick and waxy treat that suggests chewiness is a pleasure all its own.
But Siroo is not just a Korean bakery. It also has an alter ego borrowed from the home country: Owners Sung Lee and Serena Kim are franchisees of Juk Story, a multinational chain that specializes in the Korean porridge known as juk. Lee and Kim are, at present, the only franchisees in the United States.
