Mat Jip

There is nothing extraordinary about Mat Jip. The food isn’t bad but it’s not great either: it’s pretty standard, run-​of-​the-​mill Korean food. The prices are also pretty standard for Baltimore-​area Korean restaurants. A big plus is that it is open until very late (4:00 am on most nights).
The interior of the restaurant is very, very, very (can’t emphasize this enough) plain; not in a quirky, charming, hole-​in-​the-​wall way, but rather in too-​cheap-​to-​decorate kind of way. I think they could’ve done something, anything to make the place feel a little bit more inviting.
My wife and I ordered the gul-​bo-​sam (steamed pork belly with fresh oysters) and the gamja-​tang (spicy potato and pork stew). The gul-​bo-​sam was ok. The pork was a bit dry and tough and flavorless which probably meant that the meat was boiled rather than steamed. When done properly (ie. steamed), bo-​sam is sweet, tender, and super moist. The oysters and shredded radish kimchi were pretty good though. We could’ve have used a more generous serving of sesame leaves.
The gamja-​tang was pretty good; Big chunks of slow cooked pork, falling of the bone in a red-​hot spicy broth. This is Korean comfort food at it’s finest. The potatoes, which are usually kept whole, were cut into smaller pieces in this variation. As a result, I think they soaked up more of the broth as they cooked. The sesame leaves and black sesame seeds added a good contrast in taste and texture. The problem is, you can order this same stew in most Korean restaurants and get a pretty comparable dish.
The restaurant’s main problem (other than the lack of interior decorating) is that it is so plain and average when compared to the other Korean restaurants in Baltimore. I don’t feel compelled to give it more than an average rating because I feel that it is a very average restaurant.