The simple noodle houses (one indeed in a former pizza place) are still there, thank goodness. And, yes, other traditional tabletop barbecue halls, the best arguably several blocks to the east or south.
So there is a bit of yin-yang, a duality that has served this Koreatown well; it is making new friends, keeping the old.
It has spread its wings west on Cheltenham to Elkins Park, home of the sprawling H-Mart; and spread them literally, in the case of Cafe Soho, the chicken-wing spot just east of Fifth.
It is not without pains. But it is growing while other Korean enclaves - in Upper Darby and on Castor Avenue - have found themselves increasingly boxed in.
A new vector is rising in Blue Bell, Montgomery County - recently boasting Gaya, a Korean-themed complex on Skippack Pike - fueled in part by the upward mobility of the children of Korean immigrants who served time 30 years ago in the fetid sewing factories of North Philadelphia.
But a fair number of the 15,000 Koreans living in the city and near suburbs, and some of the tens of thousands more in the region, still find their way to Fifth and Cheltenham, if only for a restorative bowl of gently seasoned seafood noodle soup or a foil-lined platter of wings, or to pick up a birthday cake on the commute back home to Bucks County.
Witness Kevin Kim, attired in a handsome sportcoat, the son of sweatshop workers, now attorney to half the city's Korean restaurants, greeting energetic Yu Jong, one of the new breed of owners.
They are on the sidewalk of a strip mall at 67th Avenue and Fifth that houses a health-food kimchi outlet; two Korean barbecues; the "Chinese cuisine bistro" called Dragon; and an inviting Korean-owned but French-accented bakery-coffee shop.
