I spent two wonderful days eating around Ellicott City, Maryland.

As someone who was born and raised in Baltimore County, Maryland, I remember fondly of my childhood whenever we would go to Ellicott City. I am Iranian American, and back in the day my father would hike all the way to Howard County, and Ellicott City, so we could go shopping at the local H Mart, as it was the only place you could buy some ingredients that were necessary for Iranian cuisine.

When I grew older, I ended up living in Korea on a full government scholarship, so Ellicott City shifted meaning for me. This blog post is a culmination of spending two days in the area, although we did not physically stay there overnight. It’s not too far of a drive, but I love this area.

We try to come every so often in order to go shopping in H Mart, as where we live there aren’t a ton of options when it comes to Asian food and the ingredients needed to make certain dishes. I always need some soondubu tofu, that’s for sure!

It is now also one of Maryland’s only Koreatowns, and there are an incredible abundance of options if you love either Desi, Chinese, or Korean food. We often come here in order to eat and shop, and that’s exactly what we did over the course of these two days.

Let’s get into the details of our days in Ellicott City! We didn’t go to the Historic District this time, although I would recommend stopping there.

The perfect places to get jjajangmyeon and bingsoo.

One day, a friend and I decided we really needed a pick-me-up and to get some Korean food. I texted her and asked her if she had ever tried jjajangmyeon, which is a Chinese and Korean fusion dish that I crave every single time I watch a Korean drama. I’ve learned to make it at home, but I told her to try a restaurant version first.

This is how we ended up at Han Joong Kwan, which is right off the National Pike and a Tiger Sugar. Parking was a bit tight when we arrived around 1 PM, but when we entered, as it was a weekday, we were one of the only patrons in the restaurant. I ordered a half tangsuyuk and jjajangmyeon combo, while my friend ordered the half jjampong and jjajangmyeon combo.

In addition to this, we ordered the fried mandu, which were absolutely delicious. I thought Hang Ari right around the corner had delicious dumplings, but this place takes the crown for me when it comes to Korean dumplings. These were some of the best dumplings I’ve ever had.

The kind waitresses kept refilling our drinks and banchan, which were pickled radish and onions with jjajang sauce, and that jjajangmyeon hit all of the right nostalgia notes for me. Next time, I’ll get just a bowl of the noodles. Also, fun fact, if you order just a bowl of jjajangmyeon it’s $10.

We headed to Siroo Juk cafe after Han Joong Kwan, which is a little down the road. There, we were on the hunt for some bingsoo, and we landed on a chocolate bingsoo. It, too, was pretty good and the perfect treat after such a heavy meal. I want to go back to Siroo Juk just for their meals, too, as it smelled delicious in there.

And a stop at H Mart and Lotte for some groceries!

We try to do this every single time we go into the area, as there are like four H Marts and Lotte stores right near each other. While the American style groceries are more at these kinds of stores, you have to realize you need to be getting the Asian groceries.

My go to ingredients every single time I go to H Mart are the frozen dumplings (I get vegetable mandu stuffed with japchae), fresh udon noodles from the outside perimeter of the store, premade spice packets for pho or hotpot, the BCD soondubu kits, and rice cakes I can freeze later.

Korean BBQ and noraebang/karaoke is a perfect combo.

This was on the second round of coming to the area, but my friend really wanted to go to a noraebang, which is Korean karaoke. I had told her about one that was right next to the Honey Pig, and we enlisted some of her coworkers to go with us. The place we went to was Honey Plus Karaoke, which charges $45 for an hour.

It’s not actually an hour, as we ended up getting free service for an extra 30-ish minutes. So it was more like an hour and a half of belting out a mix of songs. If you don’t know hangul and want to sing one of the Korean songs, it might be more difficult for you. I speak intermediate Korean and know how to read/write, so I was in charge of finding the Korean songs and singing them properly (the lyrics were also in hangul).

After singing for that long, and eating their mozzarella sticks and calamari, we headed over to Honey Pig. The two girls we were with had never had Korean food before, so my friend and I ordered pork belly, bulgogi, japchae, and galbi for the table. They ended up giving the gyeran jjim, or steam egg, as free service.

I hadn’t been to Honey Pig in years, but, if we’re being honest, I remember it was better in the past. It was still good, and they helped out with the cooking, but I remember they used to give more banchan and lettuce for free with the dishes. It was kind of disappointing not to see that for free—I like a good ssam wrap at Korean BBQ.

So is shopping for K-pop albums and getting boba.

There’s a store called Thingamajigs right next to Honey Pig, so we went in and two of us spent like thirty minutes debating over what K-pop albums to buy. This is a really good store if you like stationary, items from Asia, or Korean pop albums. They’re a little expensive, though.

One of my favorite boba shops on this side of town is Ben Gong’s Tea, so of course we had to stop in, as it’s right there. I got the taro slush this time, and it was so good and perfectly sweet for this kind of day. Last time I got the mango sago drink there and I absolutely loved it.

Next time, I want to go to the hand pulled noodle shop that just opened up next to it. It’s been years since I first went to Xi’an Famous Foods in New York, and I’ve been thinking about these kinds of noodles since.

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