Somebody once told me that Korean food is the only one if the Asian cuisines that doesn’t dumb down, or alter the menu for western sensibilities.
I haven’t made any effort to find out if it’s true, but I want to believe it, so I’m going to assume that it is.
Either way, the bibimbap (an oven hot stone bowl with veg, and meat on a bed of still crispifying rice) is one of the best dishes ever created in any cuisine and I would happily eat three a week until I die.
The one pictured below is from the newly opened Busan at the Highbury end of Holloway Road. I think it cost me about 8 quid, but they do have modestly priced lunch specials as well.
I felt like a traitor going in because of my long-standing allegiance to another Korean spot right by my house, but in the spirit of exploration and for the gastronomical welfare of Le Cool’s readership/You, I figured it was worth the guilt.
And anyway, guilt makes food taste better.
Busan: 39 Holloway Road, N7 8JP
I don’t know what the deal is with chicken these days. I mean you can pay upwards of a fiver for a sad, pallid bird with the flavour profile of damp blotting paper at any supermarket you could choose to go into.
Don’t tell me I can’t manage two burritos and a beer. That would be foolish and factually incorrect.
Owing to unforseen circumstances and my allergy to time management, this week’s lunch was actually dinner. I hope you can forgive me.
Black Swan, the English National Ballet on telly, the Royal Academy’s Degas dance exhibition… ballet is so hot right now. Maria Iu sweats and aches her way through four central London ballet classes in the name of research
