Mini steamed pork buns

Woorijip, which means “our house” in Korean, is a buffet/prepared foods joint in Manhattan’s Korea Town.  The buffet has both hot and cold dishes, with some Korean-Chinese options, including Korean-style Chinese Sweet and Sour Pork, which I love.  There are also a series of heated cabinets that have full meals packaged up in to-go containers, and shelves of to-go packages of Jeon, Kimbap, and Banchan.   There are a hand-full of tables and a counter to eat at.  I really like the food here, the Kimchi Jeon and the white fish Jeon are always great, and it is a great place to grab food to-go before catching trains at the nearby Amtrak station.

Pork bun filling

Last time I stopped in at Woorijip I noticed that they had started selling mini steamed pork buns.  These golf ball sized buns are filled with ground pork, glass noodles, scallions and carrots, and heavier on the noodle and vegetables components than the pork.  I thought the buns were really tasty, with the fluffy bun bread and carrots providing a sweet flavor that complemented the savory pork.  The buns are sold at room temperature and I didn’t heat them up (no micro-wave on Amtrak), but I think if they were heated up the pork flavor would have been more dominant.  It will now be a hard choice to make between Woorijip and Mama for Korean style buns.

The buns come three to an order, with a thimble sized contained of sauce.  The best way to add the sauce is to bite a small piece of the bun and then poor some of the sauce into the bun. There is no way that you can dip the bun into the sauce contained.