Koreana

Tucked away in a University City parking lot, sandwiched in between an Indian buffet and a strip club is Koreana, a tiny counter service Korean place catering mostly to Penn students. It's a barebones, family run operation serving a full menu of Korean standards including kimbap, mandoo, omurice, and lots of hot pots.


Quick service combined with affordable pricing and homey offerings makes Koreana a campus restaurant through and through. Be prepared for gaggles of Penn students involved in intense conversations about coding and grad school. But if you can get around the collegiate atmosphere there are some great Korean eats to be had.


A recent lunch of of soondubu, a spicy stew of soft tofu and pork, was a touch spicier than I've had before, with a heavy dusting of chili powder lining the lip of the stone bowl that it was served in. The soup had an almost wood-fired smokiness to the broth, making the spice even more pronounced and wonderfully warming. The chunks of tofu in the bowl were soft and custardy and slices of pork were fork tender. A quick poke around the bowl uncovered a poached egg just below the surface, ready to be broken up into the soup.


The mandoo weren't the best I've had, most likely frozen. The soy-sesame dipping sauce that accompanied made up for some of the blandness. But then again that might be my fault for ordering them steamed instead of fried.

I suppose my one qualm with Koreana is the lack of banchan, just a tiny cup of kimchi to accompany the meal. Other counter service Korean joints including the H-Mart in Elkins Park serve at least a three small dishes along with your main. But banchan aside, Koreana is a great option for quick fix Korean.

Koreana Restaurant
3801 Chestnut Street, Phila, PA 19104
(215) 222-2240

Ja Jang Myun

Beautiful

MinHee, super cute, only buys little kid food at the HMart

Most Genius invention, split bowl

Korean cheezy pasta type thing?

attacked

H-Mart tour, this time I was taken to the one in Upper Darby. The actual market was okay, I didn't enjoy it as much as the one in Cherry Hill but the food court was awesome. Here MinHee ordered the Ja Jang Myun split bowl for me, and so far the unanimous answer to the reason for the split bowl, no one could decide between the 2 dishes so the split bowl was invented. True story, asked 2 different Korean people, who didnt know each other, and this was their answer.

This dish is a Korean take on Chinese food, black bean sauce with an al dente ramen noodle, the other side is a spicy seafood soup with the al dente ramen noodle. This dish is hands down delicious. I could eat this everyday any hour of the day and be stoked. Minhee, explained to me that this was super cheap take out food in Korea. This didn't even make me feel gross.

That strange cheezy pasta dish photo up there was like a wierd guilty pleasure I needed to know about. It was duk bok gi, rice cake thingies, covered in this spicy kind of sweet tomato sauce thing, covered with cheese and served with a hard boiled egg. Amazing and delicious and totally guilty. Wasn't the most delicious, but I could see myself drunk really really wanting this.

Thanks Hmart and Minhee.

H-mart
7050 Terminal Square
Upper Darby, PA 19082
9am-9pm

Melona Bars

I think one of Korea's greatest exports is the Melona bar, or as Tim calls it the Melanoma bar. This tastes almost just like a very sweet Honey Dew Melon. It's hard to imagine I know, but believe it's delicious,and the box rules?!! This is sold in pretty much every 7-11 in Hawaii so it was a normal snack for me after school.

So whenever we come back from visiting my parents, I get a craving.

Lucky for me there is an H-Mart on the way to the Cherry Hill Mall, where you can pick up this and a rice cooker that looks like an alarm clock.

H-Mart

K-Town

I've found myself in K-Town a lot recently.  OB beer, kimchi, awesome food served 24 hours, there are so many reasons.   I usually go late at night after getting off of work but I've found a new reason to go, one of the best lunch specials ever at Kun Jip.  For around $15 you get dolsot bibimbap (sizzling rice in a hot stone bowl with marinated slices of beef, vegetables and a raw egg yolk) and a bowl of  doen jang chigae (a spicy tofu and seafood soup) plus an amazing array of banchan.  The banchan is so good, kimchi (cabbage and diakon), dried and shredded squid with chili paste, pea shoots, a fantastic sweet and spicy pumpkin dish and an incredible egg custard.  

Kun Jip

9 West 32nd St.

New York, NY 10001

Korean Air, I don't write with circles and squares

The flight attendents on Korean air are beautiful. They are all women, who wear starched hankerchiefs and are reed thin with perfect make up on. It's like being on a Korean music video. Korean Airlines won a Mercury award for best airline catering, which doesn't mean much to me in the real world but I have to say was the best airplane food I ever had.

The best and worst part was that they bake these fresh cookies, so everytime I fell asleep the smell of cookies would wake me up again.

Here are pictures of my Korean Air Bi Bim Bap lunch. I love the special tube of Korean Spicy Bean Paste.

Korean BBQ

Summer is here in full force and its a time when I sort of want to detox and eat the beautiful seasonal bounty that living in Pennsylvania offers me. Like fresh Jersey blueberries or strawberries and spinach from someones farm in Lancaster. But alas nothing takes hold of me in the summer stronger than grilled meats. That's right BBQ. So on a nice Sunday afternoon we set out for Korean BBQ. It's harder to find Korean BBQ out here in Philadelphia in comparison to where I used to live in Oakland. Oakland had the best Korean sushi and San Francisco had the best Korean BBQ. But there are places popping up here and there in Center City Philadelphia that aren't bad. In fact we went to Miran on Chestnut and it was pretty good.

When you walk in you see these tables with fancy silver grills and spaceship like lowering air vents with a touch of a button. Very fancy compared to the charcoal style chicken-wire-heavy-scary ass bring to your table grills I was used to in Oakland.






We started off with Kim Chee Pancakes. They were delicious and oily and had whole chives and huge bits of kim chee and onions in them. The sauce it came with was a little to salty for my taste though. We also got our delicious side treats. Another stark difference from eating in the Bay Area. Here we only got 4 side dishes whereas normally I am used to getting at least 8 sometimes 10 side dishes. My favorites are always the tiny kim chee'd anchovies. The side dishes here were pretty tame. Although I did enjoy the potato salad and the kim chee was delicious.





Here comes the delicious part, the Bulgogi (thinly sliced marinated beef)and the Kalbi (marinated rib-eye). Nothing is better than getting piles of raw meat and getting to grill them on the hot car rim that is your grill.


In the end I was deeply satisfied. Me and Hawk each had the "King's Piece" the huge bone with mostly fat and gristle on it. But due to the high fat content and the marinating, gets all carmelized, juicy, and delicious. Take my advice though, if you are going to eat this part, it takes a really long time to grill, so put it on a little earlier than right at the end.



Overall a delicious experience, and the staff is super friendly.

Miran
2034 Chestnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 569-1200