A Day Out in Ellicott City and Columbia, Maryland (December 2025)

We went to Ellicott City and Columbia for makgeolli, eating, and karaoke.

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If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. Today’s post though is one my friend and I planned in advance, as we wanted to check out a specific brewery in Columbia I had found.

So we made an entire Saturday out of it and hashed out a schedule of fun things to do. Something unexpected did happen, as my friend’s friend had an emergency and needed some cheering up, so we drove all the way back to our side of town to pick her up then came back to this area so we could do karaoke and feed her. Otherwise it might not have been the greatest day for her, as she would just cry in her bed.

I’m going to keep this intro short, as I know there’s a lot of ground to cover.

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JS Brewery is Maryland’s first makgeolli brewery, and it’s a must-go if you love Korean alcohol!

This was the main reason my friend and I wanted to go out to this side of town: JS Brewery! I had heard about it immediately when they opened up, as I’m very tapped into the makgeolli scene. I’ve tried some of the local places in New York, as I went to a makgeolli event hosted by the Korea Society in 2025, but I was very happy to hear JS had opened up in Columbia, even if it was a trek to get there.

Anyways, my friend and I drove to Columbia and made some wrong turns trying to find the brewery, but we made it! When we came in they were having an event with another group for BTS’s Jin’s birthday, which we were not there for, but one of the owners kindly waved us over and asked us what we knew about makgeolli.

I know way too much, having spent too much time in Korea on this and here in the States, but he gave my friend a thorough history of makgeolli. He also gave us four samples of their four brews. My favorites were the black rice makgeolli and the takju, which is one I’ve tried before here in the States and Korea. The other owner also gave us a makgeolli yuzu slush sample, which I liked, but didn’t love.

My friend and I purchased the two bottles of the ones we liked, then cracked them open. They offer cups and snacks if you want to drink in the store, and we munched on those. Then my friend got the call from the other friend about what had happened that day, and we packed up our things to go rescue her.

I really loved JS though, and would recommend checking it out if you have the chance and are in the area. I liked their vision of being a cultural space and bar in the future, and if I’m nearby I definitely will be back!

Chin Xi’an Style Restaurant and Honey Pig Karaoke are some of our Ellicott City staples.

Once we rescued our other friend and made it back to Ellicott City, we were hungry and ready to munch. We decided in advance on going to Chin Xi’an Style Restaurant because my friend had been there with me before and absolutely adored their 3-in-1 hand pulled noodles. I like Chin a lot too because of their noodles, but when we arrived there was a bit of a wait because it was a Saturday night and the tables were full.

We didn’t wait long though, as they accommodated us by pushing tables together and grabbing some chairs once it got to be over ten minutes. The food service here is also really quick, so we got our noodles in less than fifteen minutes. My two friends split the 3-in-1 noodles, while I ordered the liang pi and the Xi’an style dumplings.

I had never had liang pi before, but found it pleasantly good. I didn’t have expectations on what it would taste like, but even without any meat I couldn’t finish the bowl and ate it for lunch another day at work. The dumplings were good, but I couldn’t tell what kind of taste was striking me as something I didn’t like. My friend thought the dumplings were good too.

After that we wandered over to Honey Pig’s karaoke, or noraebang, to bust out an hour’s worth of songs as a form of therapy. We usually do a mix of Korean and American songs, and this time we did just that. I always find it a great time to sing early 2010s Korean pop songs, as no one else but my friend is ever willing to do them with me.

Once our hour was up, we piled into the car for our next destination: Mickey’s Soju House!

Mickey’s Soju House is our favorite drinking spot, and it’s great with a run to H Mart.

My friend and I have deemed Mickey’s Soju House in Ellicott City our go-to spot when we want to drink on this side of town. We never really drink on the east side, which honestly means that Mickey’s is where we go to drink in general.

This time we went all out though to cheer our friend up. We got her some funnel cake fries with a side of vanilla ice cream, waffle fries, and an order of sodeok sodeok so my friend could try it for the first time. The sodeok was a little heavy on the gochujang sauce, but I like it despite that.

In terms of drinks, we got a Hokkaiko melon beer, which was the most interesting beer I’ve had in a while, and a mango soju. My friend then asked for a Sprite and we mixed all three of those drinks together. If we hadn’t had makgeolli, soju at the karaoke, and then this, we would’ve tried another one of these concoctions with the grape fruit beer, but we were also trying to get to H Mart before it closed at 10 PM.

We rushed out of Mickey’s and made it to H Mart with 40 minutes before closing. My friend grabbed ramen and ice cream, as well as a jug of mango juice, we paid for it, then we hightailed it out of there before it closed. And that’s how we ended our night!

It was such a good day, even though my wallet was hurting after all of those festivities. I don’t regret it though, as I had a great time!

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