Hands down the best Korean restaurant I've ever eaten at anywhere in the world. The food is the best, the service is typically Korean, and the "extras" really make the experience. The side dishes are numerous and good, and they will oftentimes give you a rice porridge at the end of your meal and it's really something worth having (usually during lunchtime).

There's a lunch menu that's good, but a bit more expensive than other places ($8-$12 per meal), and the dinner menu is comparably priced to other Korean restaurants. This isn't the best place to go for a beef BBQ, but if you like pork, then the Sam-gyap-sal pork BBQ is the way to go. Other dishes that you won't find too many other places (or you can find them, but they're not as good) are bu-dae-chi-gae (army stew) and duk-bae-gi-bulgogi (bulgogi stew with rice cake). There is a plethora of seafood dishes for those who like that sort of thing.

The decor is simple and pretty much what you see in restaurants in Korea. The clientele is largely Korean, but you'll see all kinds of people who stop in for this most excellent food.

This is a great place to stop any time you're hungry. If you go for lunch, be warned that KunJip fills up FAST right around 1pm. Get there a few minutes early for the best service. At dinnertime, you'll often see a line out the door. It will move fast and, if you're really in the mood for the best food, it's worth the wait. In fact, the only reason I ever go to other restaurants in Koreatown is because the line was too long at KunJip.

KunJip is a decent destination to go for a lunch with coworkers or friends, or dinner with the same. It's not a great "first date" place because it's loud and there's not much privacy. I've shared a table with people I don't know at least a dozen times.

If you have Korean friends, this is the place to go with them. Many local pillars of the Korean community stop by here, and there have been many times I've been here with a Korean friend and seen their jaw drop as a local or visiting Korean celebrity stopped by for lunch.

In short, if you're looking for the place that Korean people go for arguably the best Korean food in New York City, KunJip should be your first choice. Interestingly, KunJip means "big house" in Korean, and this is one of the smaller restaurants on the block. The "big" is more about their reputation than their square footage, I guess. This place is like a secret landmark of Koreatown, one that you'd only really know about if you're "in the know".