K-Food: Korean Home Cooking and Street Food - Da-Hae West, Gareth West (2016)

Busan BBQ

Since starting Busan BBQ in August 2012, it’s been a bit of an adventure. We probably would have planned things a little differently if we had had more time, but we really wanted to get up and running for that summer.

Though it all started with a Bulgogi Burger, we felt like we needed to add a few other items to our menu before we started trading. We originally spent quite a lot of time working on the Bulgogi Burger recipe, but the ideas for the Pork Belly Bun and Korean Fried Chicken came pretty easily. Gareth was insistent that we include Korean Fried Chicken on the menu as it’s one of his favourite things to eat, and we decided that three options would be good to start with in order to offer variety without stretching ourselves too thinly. Though we’ve tweaked our recipes a little since we started, these three are still the regulars on our menu.

We traded at our first market in North Finchley at (the now closed) North London Artisan Market. It was an early start as our trailer was kept a two-hour drive from our house (which was also a three-hour drive to North Finchley) and we had to be at the market for 8.30am. It was a grey, rainy day and we were both tired from the long drive and early start. We’d thought we had enough time to get ourselves sorted when we arrived, but on that first day we still had all our kitchen equipment in its original boxes so we didn’t know where anything was and we also hadn’t prepared any marinades, sauces or burgers, with the intention of doing it all when we arrived. Looking back, I’m not quite sure why we thought that was even possible. Our power kept flickering on and off and we were so behind and running around like headless chickens. Fortunately, we were lucky enough to trade at that first market with Nisha and Nishma from Grill My Cheese and Emily from Rupert Street who gave us so much help and advice on the day and we’ve stayed good friends with them since. From that first experience, we certainly learnt that being prepped for a market is really important.

We’d hoped to join the guys at Street Feast ever since we started trading. Street Feast are the biggest night (though they now include lunch) markets in London, with a strong emphasis on the best traders, food and vibes. We were lucky because Adam from Street Feast visited us one day and tried our Bulgogi Burger. We were so nervous but a couple of days later he invited us to trade at the opening weekend of Street Feast that summer. To this day, that first day at Street Feast was probably the biggest highlight of our time trading. It was busy on completely another level, despite the fact that the weather was awful. People still queued and were amazingly patient, all having a great time huddled under umbrellas.

We’ve traded at Street Feast ever since. Street Feast makes sure all their traders are always thinking about developing their food and making progress. They’ve definitely pushed us to be at our best and to challenge ourselves and we’re thankful for that.

Apart from markets, we’ve also held a number of pop ups in restaurants and bars such as a month at Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen for a Korean themed bar. Pop ups give us the opportunity to be more creative with our dishes and experiment, as we’re usually in a full size kitchen.

There’s nothing like working in street food though - you have the chance to really interact with the customer. You get to watch as they take away their burger or fried chicken and take that first bite; when they close their eyes and start nodding, you know you’ve done something right. And the best part is when we see people recommending us to their friends. The fact that someone’s enjoyed our food so much, they want their friends to love it as much as they do feels amazing. Seeing someone point at our trailer and hear them saying, ‘You have to try the burger from those guys, it’s so good,’ makes the long hours and hard work definitely feel like it’s completely worth it.