One of Glasgow's most popular fried chicken chains, Buck's Bar, which has opened three restaurants in the city, recently teased on social media that they are planning on opening their fourth site in the capital.
Intrigued, Edinburgh Live decided to take the chance to try their food ahead of time and see what people in Edinburgh can expect from the fried chicken specialists when they arrive in the capital.
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Their takeaway menu at their Glasgow Southside site is extensive with no less than 13 burgers and plenty of mouthwatering sides, as well as plenty of dips (16 in total), desserts, and shakes for diners to enjoy, plenty of Gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian options on offer as well.
Scrolling through the menu, sides like the Nashville Hot Style Chicken, 3 pieces of our fried chicken dipped in a fiery red chilli oil then served on soft white bread with pickles (£11.50); Buckora, 6 chicken fillets in pakora coating with Indian style spicy dip (£6.50); and the Mac 'n' cheese all jumped out at us but in the interest of trying their signature chicken, which is marinated for 24 hours in buttermilk, we opted for the popcorn chicken (£5.50).
When it came to the main course, the burger – each of which come with a whole buttermilk fried chicken breast served on a brioche bun with your choice of chips – we were almost overwhelmed by all of the exciting choices.
From the delicious sounding Ninja Chicken Burger, (£14.50), with Tonkatsu glaze, togarashi spice, Japanese kewpie mayo, crispy onions and iceberg, to the enticing Salt and Chilli Burger (£14.50) with its Salt’n’chilli seasoning, Chinese style curry sauce, fresh chillies, spring onion and iceberg, the options all looked pretty good.
There was the Hot Cock, with Nashville hot sauce, the Spicy BBQ Mess, with Hot BBQ sauce, American cheese and jalapeños, and even the King Burger, a twist on Elvis' favourite snack, with sriracha & peanut satay sauce and chilli jam.
Finally, we settled on the Buck Mac Burger (£13.95), which is their version of the Big Mac, with 'Mac sauce', crisp iceberg lettuce and American cheese.
When it eventually arrived we couldn't believe the portion sizes for just one person, the burger was huge with half the breast spilling out of the side while the skinny fries on the side could easily have filled two or three large McDonald's fries cartons and rival Five Guys for their epic portions.
We instantly regretted the added popcorn chicken which, after tackling the burger and fries we were forced to admit defeat with, in fact, we were left with a decent size amount of fries too that we decided to keep for lunch the next day (thank god for air fryers).
The burger itself was a delight, and after we'd cut the huge extra bit off to eat separately, was manageable enough to eat, the sauce did indeed make for a pretty impressive dupe of the real thing and the buttermilk chicken was crispy on the outside, succulent on the inside and very very moreish.
The balance of spices and seasoning in the batter was spot on too.
Our only gripe might have been that some of the fries were soggy due to the vagaries of delivery and that perhaps the packaging could maybe have been a bit better at keeping them crispy as we've seen from other takeaway places, but this was a very minor fault and the chips themselves were still a cut above what you'd get from most places.
Overall, we were really impressed and we are already looking forward to visiting a physical restaurant and trying more from the menu in future – just be careful how much you order though, especially if there is more than one of you, as the burger and fries portions are insanely large, meaning it might be better to share and exploit that exciting sides menu instead.
Edinburgh's fried chicken fans should definitely be excited – Buck's Bar more than delivers on what they promise.
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