Star of the show at this Korean noodle lounge is a gorgeous yin yang of spicy heat and umami

Saturday, 13 July 2024

Jjamjjar is one of Canterbury’s black and red stars.

The Curious Kererū, our restaurant critic, is spreading their wings across Christchurch to uncover the best dining experiences the city has to offer. This week the Kererū reviews Bunsik (aka Korean Noodle Lounge).

REVIEW: Is there any better antidote to winter than a steaming bowl of noodles? When I am in the teeth of a biting southerly, it makes me want hot noodles between my teeth.

Happily, Christchurch’s noodle game is strong. You can chow down on excellent pasta bowls all over Ōtautahi, the competition for the best Vietnamese soup in the city is pho real, and the variety of ramen joints is rocking.

Bunsik’s bulgogi kimbap are essentially large sushi rolls.

When I’m shivering, I crave spicy Asian noodles so I was excited when the Christchurch outpost of the Jinweide Beef Noodle restaurant chain opened earlier this year. Press reporter Wei Shao tempted readers to check out the noodle master hand-pulling noodles and that inspired me to visit some other options on the same stretch of Riccarton Rd just east of the mall. This is the spicy noodle epicentre of Christchurch, where competing cuisines battle it out in the noodle wars of Riccarton Rd.

Given that my quest for the best noodles in Christchurch is an endless, quixotic mission, it was joyful research and I decided to eat at Bunsik (aka Korean Noodle Lounge) in the Windmill Centre. Although Bunsik calls itself a Korean noodle lounge, noodle dishes take up just one page in the simple but stylish menu, with beautiful drawings of the dishes. It also includes pages of kimbap (essentially large sushi rolls), fried rice, deep fried dishes, and bunsik. The term bunsik, literally “food made from flour”, has evolved to mean snacks, or as Bunsik calls them, street food.

There was no disappointing flabbiness with the chewy spicy noodles.

We started with bulgogi kimbap that was like a futomaki sushi roll featuring sweet barbecue beef, and some deep fried pork dumplings. They were both good, if mild, but we were not here for the warm-up act – we were here to slurp noodles.

This is how I discovered a new favourite dish called jjamjjar, which is really two dishes, jjajangmyeon (black bean noodles) alongside jjamppong (spicy seafood noodles). Served in a distinctive double bowl, jjamjjar was a gorgeous yin yang of deep black and fiery red, of spicy heat and umami, and two different types of noodles. The seafood included a crab leg, prawns, mussels, onions, kimchi, and some wood ear mushrooms swimming in a bright orangey-red broth. The spicy heat from the gochugaru (red chilli flake powder) started slowly and crept up on me like a warm hug on a cold night.

The egg fried rice came with a side of black bean sauce.

To balance that, I dipped into the black bean noodle side of the dish. The glossy black sauce had deep, complex umami flavours with sweet and soy notes, studded with slow cooked onions and small chunks of pork belly. It was irresistible yet mysterious and so I asked our waiter Andrew, who turned out to be the owner, what was in the sauce. He told me jjajang (or chanjang) is a soy bean paste made from the byproduct of making soy sauce. The black soybean paste is combined with salt, wheat flour, and caramel and is traditionally spread outside to ferment. Bunsik’s chef deep-fries the paste, which concentrates the flavour so much that just one spoonful added to 10kg of slowly reduced onions was needed to make the sauce.

Around the table I could hear the contented sounds of slurping followed by “mmmmmm”. Then we were all exclaiming over the chewy texture of the noodles, the most important quality. There was no disappointing flabbiness here and the jjolmyeon (spicy chewy noodles) were especially chewy. Andrew said these noodles had added starch to bump up the chewiness and I could feel it in the resistance, as if they were misbehaving and had to be tamed into my mouth.

This cold dish was a refreshing and bright assemblage of toppings on a bed of chewy noodles, including shredded carrot, cabbage, bean sprouts and half an egg with gochujang sauce. It reminded me of a bibimbap with noodles instead of rice and was simple, spicy and moreish. It was also a large serving and the leftovers made an excellent lunch the next day.

One of our group of four was a fried rice devotee so we asked Andrew which he’d recommend: “Egg – simple is best.” Made with short-grain rice and served with a side of the magic black bean sauce, this was an excellent version. I’d come back to Bunsik for this alone, although to be honest I couldn’t walk through the doors without ordering jjamjjar. So it will have to be both – and I will be back. In addition to fantastic noodles, Bunsik had a warm, friendly vibe and was excellent value. Our group of four hungry adults walked out into the cold night satiated and blissful, with leftovers for lunches the next day and the bill was just $88.

We really are spoilt for choice in Christchurch. The city now has the highest number of hospitality outlets per capita in the country and all that competition means the choices are getting better, more interesting and more varied all the time. We have the country’s agricultural bread basket on our doorstep and an increasingly diverse population that produces both entrepreneurs and larger markets for a much wider range of foods. Given that, I think it is time that we added a bowl of jjamjjar to the list of Canterbury’s black and red stars.