On The Bab: London, UK
Last weekend, Matt and I were on the hunt for a tasty lunch and, with none of our usual haunts striking our fancy, we decided to go a little further afield for a weekend treat. After debating several central London options, we decided to go with On The Bab.
Specialising in Korean street food, such as fried chicken and rice buns, On The Bab opened in 2013 with a restaurant in Old Street. However, luckily for us, they quickly expanded beyond Shoreditch and now have locations in Marylebone, Covent Garden and St. Pauls. So far we've only been to their Covent Garden location, which has had a queue both times we visited. Although it can be a bit discouraging to see a line when you're super hungry, we found that it moved fairly quickly and soon we were in the dining room and ready to order! For this visit, we sat at the bar and, although I was a little nervous that we might not be as comfortable as we would be at a table, we found it was actually perfect as we had plenty of space for all of our dishes... #greedy.
Having surveyed the menu during our wait (we are nothing if not efficient!), we had already settled on four dishes: chicken mandu (dumplings), kimchi bokkum bap (fried rice), bulgogi beef buns, and a medium portion of the Korean fried chicken.
First to arrive were the chicken dumplings, which fortunately sailed out of the kitchen just as I was gazing mournfully at the food laden table next to ours. Although these were fairly standard as far as dumplings go, they still hit the spot and helped to tide us over until the true gems arrived.
Bulgogi. Beef. Bun. I mean, what's not to like about such a delicious sounding dish? These buns have become more and more popular here in London over the last few years and I, for one, am completely in favor of this trend. The bulgogi beef was full of flavor and left us wishing there were more than two buns per order.
Next up was the kimchi bokeum bab - a flavorsome Korean version of fried rice paired with a cabbage salad and fried egg. This was my favorite dish of the day because it packed the biggest flavor punch. SO, so good. If you like kimchi, this is definitely a dish to try. Next time we go we might need to order one of these each since sharing became increasingly more difficult as we got down to the final bits!
Our final dish was a medium portion of the fried chicken in two sauces: soy ginger and sweet spicy. We had ordered these on our last visit and I have to say... they were not as good this time around. While the sauces were still delicious, the chicken itself was not as hot as I'd have liked. Plus, the bokeum bab was a particularly hard act to follow.
Overall, we had a great time and will definitely be returning to On The Bab as often as possible. Next time though, we might skip the chicken and dumplings in favor of extra portions of the rice buns and bokeum bab!
Restaurant Details:
Address: 36 Wellington St, London, WC2E 7BD
Closest Tube Stations: Covent Garden, Leicester Square, or Temple.
