BREAD STREET SESSIONS AT BSK

I've spent more than my fair share of time in Gordon Ramsey restaurants this week. Wednesday night was an amazing 6-course meal at the very formal Petrus restaurant in Knightsbridge that I was treated to by a friend who I do a lot of cooking for. It was such a lovely evening, and we were absolutely full of incredible food by the time we left. I may blog about it if I can work some magic on the very dark photos I took! But last night was an altogether different kind of affair - I went along to the launch of the #breadstreetsessions at Ramsey's much more modern restaurant, Bread Street Kitchen near Bank, in the City. Throughout October Bread Street Kitchen are hosting a weekly pop up on Saturdays from 4pm with the Street Feast favourite, Bussan BBQ, who are serving up their incredible Korean cocktails and BBQ food. They invited us along last night to sample these delights.

We started off, as all good nights do, with some cocktails. They've got 4 specially created cocktails that they'll be serving on Saturdays, 3 of which are made from Soju, which is a Korean rice wine, not dissimilar to Sake, but a lot less strong, with an average alcohol content of around 25% rather than the 40% that Sake is. First up was the Soju Royale - a sweet and sparkly mix of Soju, Asian pear juice, sugar and champagne. It was really good, and I thought would've been my favourite, until I tried the next one - Kimbap Martini. Now the list of ingredients almost put me off this one before I'd tried it as it was Bombay Sapphire Gin, avocado, lime, sugar syrup and aloe vera juice. I really don't like aloe vera juice, but gave it a go, and my gosh - it was like eating a fizzy lemon sweet, super refreshing and mouthwateringly delicious! Definitely the drink of the night for me.

And then we moved on to the food. I've been to Street Feast a few times but had always missed the Bussan BBQ van so I didn't know what they had in store for us. Turns out it's some the juiciest, tastiest food I've had in a while. Trays and trays of food came round and I managed sample one of nearly everything! There were 3 types of slider to start - sweet and spicy pork belly topped with yoghurt and mooli slaw; slow cooked spicy chicken topped with a tangy apple and cabbage slaw; and 28 day aged beef patty, dunked in bulgogi (a Korean marinade) sauce, topped with mustard pickled onions and ssamjang (a Korean version of miso that is fermented naturally) mayo. It's hard to pick which was my favourite as they were all just brilliant and each had their own unique flavour with the pork being quite sweet, and the chicken with a lovely tang, but you won't have to pick either as they're doing all 3 for £15 at the Bread Street Sessions.

Next was the K-fries, which although a little tricky to eat just with fingers, disappeared from their bowl in seconds. I could eat those punchy cheese, meat, kimchi and chilli topped chips everyday, though shouldn't and sadly I won't!

 

The last dish I tried was my favourite of the night. Gochujang Ribs. Look at them!

 

Sticky, spicy ribs thick with Gochujang sauce, which is a Korean paste made of fermented red chilli, rice, soy beans and salt. They were just the right amount of fiery and the meat underneath was tender and soft.

I really recommend that you get down to Bread Street Kitchen on a Saturday soon so you can try all this food. It's a brilliant selection, and the bar is a really buzzing, fun place to go, especially with those cocktails on offer. I'm so happy I got to try the amazing Bussan BBQ food, and will definitely be going back for more before they move on!