Korean food in Philly

We've been really getting into the Korean food lately. There's an asian grocery store called H-Mart near the 69th street station, and on the second floor, there's a Korean fast food court. It's great. There's Korean food, Japanese food (with a Korean accent), Chinese food (with a Korean accent), a Korean bakery, and even a place that sells fried chicken (with a Korean accent). We always go to the Korean fast food counter - it's soooo good. They have all sorts of barbecued meats, soups, fish, tofu, you name it. Some of it's not spicy at all, but some of it is pretty spicy (one or two peppers on the menu). I think my favorite is the marinated beef short ribs. TASTY. And it's so cool - all the dishes come with rice (or noodles depending on whether you get a rice dish or a soup dish), maybe soup, and about 3 or 4 other small side dishes. They always give you kimchee, and the other 2 or 3 might be things like pickled vegetables, broccoli, bean sprouts, tofu, whatever. Even better, they recently put up pictures with their entrees, so now I'm not stuck wondering if that's what I got last time, or if that's something I'd like to try. I had been thinking of starting to take pictures with my cell phone and labeling them with the menu order number. Not a bad idea huh?

So for Pete's birthday yesterday, we went to a new Korean place, in the same general vicinity. However, this was an actual sit-down place where you order and they take it to you at your table, and you get tea and water and everything. It's called Moo Jin Jang. I didn't even realize it had my name in it until I got the receipt. I think it was a good omen. It's not a fancy place - there's no alcohol, they serve the tea in big plastic pitchers (not even a teapot), and the menu is this laminated card on every table that lists about 20 choices. The one waitress was the only one that spoke English, and I think she translated for her mom and dad. But everything still looked good. I only recognized maybe half of the menu - all the other items listed things I had never heard of before. I was tempted to try one, but I stayed with tried and true. I ordered the barbecued pork (spicy) and Pete got the beef short ribs. DELICIOUS!! And unlike the little fast food counter, this meal came with about 8 different little side dishes - it was great. We got fish, broccoli, bean sprouts, kimchee, pickled vegetables, hot pickled vegetables, little meatballs (which I think were marinated hot dogs), pickled potatoes, I can't remember them all. It was a lot of food, and of course I took it home. I'm pretty sure we'll go back at some point.