There’s no shortage of takeaways available to those too lazy to cook, but the best ones bring you food you couldn’t make at home and are a treat, rather than a refuel.
Most days I walk past Bunsik, Brixton, en route to the tube station. It’s quite a new addition to the street, it’s only been there since May, but its bright colours make it hard to ignore. Each time I think I should try it sometime, but I either want to get into the office or get home.
So news that they now deliver in South London was good to hear.
It comes via Deliveroo and covers Brixton, Stockwell, Clapham, Herne Hill, Loughborough Junction, Tulse Hill, Camberwell, Oval and Streatham Hill. Mysterious names and mystic incantations to North Londoners, I suspect.
So we ordered up a selection and sat back to wait.
Bunsik is apparently the UK’s No.1 Korean street food brand behind the viral Korean corndog craze. I’ve never actually had a corndog, so we ordered two of those – a chicken corndog, and a potato and mozzarella one
Thinking we’d need a bit more we threw in a tteokbokki (try saying that quickly), spicy chicken kimbap and of course we had to have some KFC (Korean Fried Chicken). The rice bowls sounded tempting, but we decided best not to overdo it.
Everything arrived promptly, well packaged and hot. The corndogs advised on their box that we should give them a short blast in the microwave to melt the mozzarella, which seemed fair enough.
First the tongue twisting tteokbokki where the main ingredient is Korean rice cakes (garaetteok). I’ve bought these before from Korean shops and they’re basically cylinders of non-glutinous rice flour that don’t taste of much themselves, but which soak up flavours very well. Springy to the bite, they make a great solid addition to any Korean dish.
This was quite a fiery dish, thanks to liberal use of gochujang, the ubiquitous red chili paste of Korea, but the menu does offer Rose Tteokbokki, a milder version.
I loved it, the heat, the flavorsome sauce and the lightly chewy rice cakes were all perfect.
To cool down we had the chicken kimbap. Kimbap is a rice roll wrapped in dried seaweed and packed with seasoned rice, yellow pickled radish and chicken. The resemblance to Japanese makisushi rolls is obvious, both are seaweed-wrapped rice rolls with fillings, but sushi rice is flavoured with vinegar and not sesame oil and kimbap fillings are always cooked.
They lack the delicacy of makisushi, but then they are street food. We quite liked these but they did not stand out.
The KFC went down a treat, though, You lose a little of the crispness with delivery, but not enough to be a problem. We had the Dakgangjeong Chicken which is chicken thigh pieces double-fried fried, glazed with soy sauce, garlic, ginger, vinegar, and gochujang and topped with crushed peanuts and sesame seeds. Absolutely delicious.
We dipped these in Buldak Mayo Sauce. Buldak noodles were once temporarily taken off sale in Denmark because kids were daring each other to eat mad quantities and getting sick off of the very high chili content. The Mayo version is nowhere near as crazy hot, but it’s pretty hot all the same. Other dips are available – Garlic Mayo, Sweet & Spicy, and Honey Garlic
And so to the corndogs. Korean corndogs are hot dogs, fried in a batter on a stick and dipped in ketchup, mustard or mayo. Bunsik have about nine options and we had the basic chicken dog in batter,
The saveloy has the taste and texture of a standard hot dog and the batter was pretty crisp. The other ‘dog’ was mozzarella and cheese in Potato Bites Batter which needed the microwave to make gooey again. All a bit heavy for me, but I would imagine it’s ideal after a night on the pop.
Speaking of which, we also had some non-alcoholic ‘Bong Bong’ Grape Flavoured Non-Fizzy Drink with Grape Pieces, which was actually rather nice, although as it warmed up it became a little bit too sweet for me.
There’s no shortage of takeaways available to those too lazy to cook, but the best ones bring you food you couldn’t make at home and are a treat, rather than a refuel.
Bunsik ‘delivers’.
To mark the delivery launch, customers can receive 20% off orders over £20 for a limited time when ordering through Deliveroo.
Bunsik Brixton delivery at a glance:
- Available through Deliveroo
- Delivery areas include Brixton, Stockwell, Clapham, Herne Hill, Loughborough Junction, Tulse Hill, Camberwell, Oval and Streatham Hill
- Hero dishes include Korean corndogs, Korean fried chicken, tteokbokki, kimbap and cupbap
- 20% off orders over £20 for a limited time
- Restaurant location: 490 Brixton Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8EQ
BUNSIK Brixton
490 Brixton Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8EQ
Follow Bunsik: Instagram @bunsik_uk | TikTok @bunsik_uk | www.bunsik.co.uk