Korean In Upper Darby

The Korean food at Upper Darby’s Pojangmacha just got some love from Philadelphia magazine:


After testing my shot protocol a few too many times, the men announced that we needed some food with our drinks. Like its Korean compeers, Pojangmacha sells cheap booze and street food, the point being not to eat dinner but to put something in your stomach to brace for the drunkenness. I was completely at the whim of my new friends, who could have ordered “fish bone water,” “some kind of curly thing from a shell,” and “barbecued cow tongue, like steak,” my best understanding of some of the items on the menu, written only in Korean. These foods may be common on the other side of the world, but they’re about as rare in Philadelphia as an experience like Pojangmacha. We settled, instead, on budae jigae, or “troop stew,” a spicy, brothy noodle dish studded with hot dogs and Spam. I’m not a hot dog fan, and I’d only tasted Spam once before in my life, but I finished my bowl and went back for seconds. The men kept asking if I liked it, smiling when I told them yes. I was convinced I was ready to brave the carts of Dongdaemun Market, 7,000 miles away.

Seoul, Upper Darby [Philadelphia]

[Image via Gianluca Foli / Philadelphia magazine]

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Korean In Upper Darby