GS25 Number One Chicken Lunch Box Review [Korean Food]

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GS25, one of Korea’s major convenience store chains, has brought back an old favorite: theNumber One Chicken Lunch Box, a renewed version of the box that ranked first in cumulative sales from 2016 to 2018. I wasn’t blogging back then, so I barely remember whether this menu even existed. Ha. According to GS25, it’s back because so many customers asked for it. It feels a bit like the Back To the Touch event from the Korean burger chain Mom’s Touch. Whatever it was like before, this version offers decent value and fills you up nicely. Let’s take a look.

Table of Contents

📋 At a Glance

Product: Number One Chicken Lunch Box
Store: GS25
Price: 4,900 won (the original was about 3,800 won nearly a decade ago)
Calories: 770 kcal
Weight: 417 g
Sodium: 75% of the daily recommended intake
Main components: kkanpung-style glazed chicken, karaage with its own sauce, grilled Vienna sausage, corn salad, stir-fried kimchi (5 sides) + rice topped with black sesame
Background: a renewed relaunch of GS25’s top-selling lunch box from 2016 to 2018 (Brazilian chicken leg meat)
Cooking: 2 minutes in a 1,000 W microwave, lid on is fine
Verdict: ★3.5 — not spectacular, but a solid, good-value chicken box that fills you up.

Number One Chicken Lunch Box: Price and Highlights

Come to think of it, GS25 has released more than a few boxes titled “chicken lunch box,” so I’m not entirely sure which one this is. It seems to be a relaunch of the “Sweet and Spicy Chicken Lunch Box” from back then. GS25 also appears to have created a whole “Number One” lineup, perhaps to bring back other past favorites. We’ll see if more menus follow. This box costs 4,900 won. Nearly ten years ago it was about 3,800 won, so prices have clearly climbed since then.

Rising convenience store lunch box sales

The box weighs 417 g in total, with 770 kcal and sodium at 75% of the daily recommended intake. It cooks for 2 minutes in a 1,000 W microwave, and you can leave the lid on. The chicken itself is Brazilian chicken leg.

What’s in the Box

Let’s take a quick look at the lineup. Since it’s a relaunch, it’s also worth checking what changed from the past (the price went up, after all). There are five sides in total, and two of them are chicken mains.

Two Mains: Kkanpung-Style Chicken and Karaage

The first main is glazed chicken. It doesn’t seem to be the usual Korean yangnyeom sauce, though. Judging by the onions and bell peppers stir-fried together, it looks more like kkanpung chicken, a sweet, tangy, spicy Korean-Chinese style. Kkanpung chicken had a moment at Korean chains about four or five years ago, so having this in 2016 was a little ahead of its time.

The second is karaage, plain-looking but true to the basics. Judging by the original menu description, it seems they included real karaage rather than simple dakgangjeong-style boneless chicken. A light drizzle of karaage sauce adds a finishing touch.

Easygoing Sides and What Changed

The remaining sides are grilled Vienna sausage cut in half, corn salad, and stir-fried kimchi. That’s three in all, chosen to be safe crowd-pleasers.

The rice gets a light sprinkle of black sesame. Compared with the old version, the sides look a little different, so it was clearly renewed, but the overall lineup is exactly the same. Honestly, given today’s lunch box prices, a 1,100-won increase almost feels small (?!). Boxes that cost around 4,500 won just two or three years ago now go for 4,900 or 5,000 won, which probably makes it feel that way.

Taste Test: How Do the Two Chickens Compare?

Let’s dig in. With a chicken box, the impression depends heavily on the two chicken mains. I started with the glazed chicken, and it’s definitely kkanpung chicken.

The boneless chicken uses Brazilian chicken leg, so I didn’t expect much. Once coated in the glaze, though, it was easy to eat. The kkanpung sauce itself is sweet and tangy, which I quietly liked. However, there’s quite a lot of sauce, so the chicken lost much of its crunch. That’s hard to avoid with a convenience store box, so keep it in mind.

The Karaage Wins on Crunch

The crispness actually came through better in the karaage. It seems to use nearly the same chicken as the kkanpung chicken. It isn’t the strongly seasoned, peppery style you’d find at a Japanese restaurant, but it was perfectly fine eaten like dakgangjeong.

A recommended convenience store lunch box

The other sides were unremarkable. The sausage and stir-fried kimchi rarely divide opinion, and you end up eating them if they’re there. The kimchi is enough for a little palate cleanser between bites.

In the original version, the corn salad had a white mayo dressing; now it has a slightly yellowish sauce. It still tastes like mayo, though, so the difference is probably small. Between the kkanpung chicken and the karaage, you get about eight pieces, plus a fair amount of rice, so it made a filling meal.

Final Verdict: A No-Frills, Good-Value Chicken Box

As a relaunched bestseller, it raised my expectations. After eating it, though, it felt less like something amazing and more like a good-value chicken box. Thinking about it, convenience store boxes probably became popular because of value and solid basics. Ha. In that sense, I thought it was a decent menu. If you want a simple chicken lunch, it’s not a bad choice. For visitors to Korea, it’s also an easy way to try kkanpung-style chicken straight from the convenience store.

Launch of the Number One Chicken Lunch Box

For the launch of this Number One lineup, which revives GS25’s top-selling lunch box from 2016 to 2018, see the (Korean source) ZDNet Korea report on GS25’s Number One series.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How much is the GS25 Number One Chicken Lunch Box?

It costs 4,900 won, about 1,100 won more than the original’s roughly 3,800 won nearly a decade ago. You get 417 g and 770 kcal, with sodium at 75% of the daily recommended intake.

Q. What is kkanpung chicken?

It’s a Korean-Chinese style of fried chicken in a sweet, tangy, lightly spicy sauce, here stir-fried with onion and bell pepper. The flavor was pleasant, though the generous sauce softened the crunch.

Q. Is the box filling?

Yes. The kkanpung chicken and karaage add up to about eight pieces, and there’s plenty of rice, so it makes a hearty meal.

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