Food in Mouth

Woorijip noodle bar and Clark Kent

Watching the NBA playoffs this year has taught me one thing - a team can be extremely competitive in one game, and completely off in the next game. In game 2 of the Celtics vs. Bulls series, the Chicago Bulls lost by just three points. But in game 3, they were down by 34 points in the fourth quarter! Consistency is a quality that's rare in every walk of life. Food sometimes behave that way too. Some days you're Superman, and some days you're Clark Kent. And then some days you're Lois Lane. I heard about this noodle bar in the back of a Korean deli in k-town. Woorijip is the spot and Blondie and Brownie first reported about it. It's taken me four months to actually go try this thing...

Woorijip serves decent but not exceptional Korean take-out food for Midtown Lunchers craving solid food and respectable prices. They have all kinds of stuff in that deli and it would require three or four posts just to cover it all. But usually I don't find the experience as enjoyable as something like Zaiya, the Japanese Bakery.

When I first checked out the noodle bar in the back of Woorijip, I took some time to see what was served. There's 6+ options that you can choose from at the noodle bar. What stood out was choice number one, which basically was a pack of $1 instant noodles, with an egg in there. $5. I eat enough instant noodles with egg at home to know that's not a good move. So I opted for option number five, beef with clear noodles.

The beef in this dish is sliced ultra thin and it comes with a little bit of clear noodles. Onions, green onions, carrots, and a sweet beefy broth accompany the delicious bits of beef. They also add a little container worth of kimchi and daikon pickles.

For $6 dollars, this meal can't be beat. I've had it a couple of times though, and I noticed a few things... one is that the woman who makes the food at the noodle bar is all by herself, and she's super busy... which means she doesn't measure the amount of food. Some people's order of #5 is huge and sometimes it's not. As a fatty, this bothers me when the skinny person next to me gets more food. Also, even though the clear noodles are mentioned in the name of the dish, they really aren't featured at all. There's way more onions than clear noodles.

Since the lady who makes the stuff is doing all this by herself, I relax my desire for portion consistency and more clear noodles in each order. Sometimes this meal is more enjoyable than others though. Still, I'm a big fan of this and will get it more in the future because it's cheap and delicious.

Woorijip
12 W 32nd St.
New York, NY 10001
212-244-1115
Map

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Posted by Danny on April 24 2009 at 12:16 pm