When it comes to good fried chicken in Glasgow, there is usually one place on people's lips (and no, it's not KFC) when you ask for a recommendation.
Thanks to its popularity, Buck's Bar has added a restaurant in the Trongate, as well as their most recent opening in the southside on Cathcart Road, to their original premises in the city centre, and fans have been raving about their buttermilk chicken.
With news they are expanding with a fourth site in Edinburgh, Glasgow Live thought we'd take a look at what all the fuss is about and order a buttermilk burger of our own to see why people are enjoying them so much.
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The first thing you notice is that the menu, for a fried chicken joint, is pretty extensive, with buttermilk chicken burgers, wings, sides, desserts, dips (16 in total) and shakes on offer, with plenty of Gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian options on offer as well.
Having a wee peruse through the offerings, the sides like the Korean Fried chicken wings (£5.50 for 5), three pieces of fried chicken, which is marinated for 24 hours in buttermilk and coated in their special recipe crust (£10.50), and the Buckora , 6 chicken fillets in pakora coating with Indian style spicy dip (£6.50), all stood out.
With no less than 13 chicken burgers on offer, each of which come with a whole buttermilk fried chicken breast served on a brioche bun with your choice of chips, there were a lot of brilliant options.
From the classic Mothership Burger with herb mayo and shredded iceberg (£13.95) and the Country Boy Burger with Buck’s 25 BBQ, creamy slaw and iceberg lettuce (£13.95) to the more experimental with the enticing Salt and Chilli Burger (£14.50) with its salt’n’chilli seasoning, Chinese style curry sauce, fresh chillies, spring onion and iceberg lettuce, they all looked mouthwatering.
There was also 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 an actual trip to one of their restaurants to try more from the menu in future.
Be warned though, be careful how much you order, 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 one and explore more of that exciting sides menu instead.
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