As the clock ticks closer to midnight, the stomach starts to make growling sounds. But the refrigerator is near empty, and cans in the pantry all require actual cooking.

Other than the reluctant option of just going to sleep, the next best and perhaps the most obvious solution is in the kitchen drawer.

Stacks of colourful leaflets meet the eye. And now starts the fulfilling moment of deciding on the menu. From fried chicken to Chinese, the winner tonight is McDonald's. It is a guilty pleasure but perhaps less so than having a whole fried chicken or pizza.

After a quick phone call and some 30 minutes, the doorbell rings and within minutes the oh-so-delicious Big Mac and famous French fries are gobbled up.

Like many other metropolitan cities around the world, it may be hard to find something that cannot be delivered to your door here in Seoul.

While they range from ordinary parcels to laundry, it is the food delivery, originally confined to Korean-Chinese restaurants just a couple of decades ago, which has evolved immensely.

Not to mention diverse menus, further spoiling the stay-at-home customers is that many of these services are offered 24-7. Indeed, with just one phone call, anything seems possible.

"An advanced delivery culture could derive from a combination of factors such as a rising number of one-person household and better economic capabilities. Fundamentally, it is because there is the demand for it," said consumer economics professor Shin Do-cheol of Seoul's Sookmyung University.

Park Jeong-hyun, a 36-year-old husband and a designer, is what you may call an avid food delivery consumer, who orders in at least three times a week.

"Because both my wife and I work, it is usually quite burdensome to buy all the ingredients and cook. So we often opt to order in, sometimes just basic baekban (rice, jjigae and side dishes) or pizza, depending on our mood," Park said. He orders from a superfluous amount of coupons and leaflets that are usually left at his doorstep each day.

Things that can be delivered are boundless. Beyond the traditional delivery menus of Chinese, pizza and fried chicken, these days such menus as rolls, pasta, chili soup, and even ddeokbokgi (rice cake pan-fried in red chili sauce) can be delivered to your door. Due to a rise in recognition of healthy products, many smaller shops also offer special items that are made from organic food products or those that are not fried, such as oven-baked chicken.

Not only that, small ally shops and chain supermarkets also deliver groceries purchased on the spot or through the internet.

"Because it is just simply hard to buy and carry all those groceries, I always use the home delivery service that is usually free of charge as long as it is over a certain sum of money. Of course I wouldn't use the service if it was additionally charged," Yoo Hee-june, a 55-year-old housewife said.

So is this only a budding culture in Korea? Surely not, but there are some of the stronger points here, according to Kim Na-young, a 32-year-old game developer who recently moved to San Francisco.

"Well, for one, if you order in anything here (in the United States), you need to tip, whereas in Korea we don't have to. It's almost a given that they must bring it to our home in Korea," Kim said.

She also added that the range of menu and speed of the delivery seem to be wider and faster in Seoul.

Kim Dong-geun, who has been the head of a food delivery chain School Food, Blooming Roll's delivery team for the past three years, agrees.

"I think it is due to Korea's ppali-ppali characteristics that motor the fast advancement of the delivery culture here. I mean we often get phone calls just five minutes after the customer orders in, demanding to know what is taking us so long," Kim said, smiling.

More stores are also even welcoming orders for just one person, following the rise in the number of one-person households over the years. (According to the National Statistical Office, the number of one-person household surged to approximately 3.42 million this year, compared to 1.64 million in 1995.)

It indeed seems to be a natural phenomenon these days to spur up business by delivering, whether it is a small store or a giant chain.

Yangpa Super (market), a tiny grocery store located in Dongbuichon-dong, has been delivering groceries for at least 15 years.

"We usually do business with frequent customers who all live in the same neighborhood. We don't charge for delivery, even if it is just a couple of bottles of water," said Song Yeong-rae of the shop.

Yangpa (onion in English) delivers at least 13 times a day and the items are usually fruits, vegetables and drinks. Some even order late at night a bottle of wine and cheese, apparently for a midnight snack, and they are more than happy to deliver.

McDonald's, also began the home delivery service here in 2007, along with an introduction of a drive-through service to fight sluggish sales.

"Although it is impossible to reveal the exact figures, McDonald's Korea's sales has been picking up these past years such as by 16 percent in 2007, and over 20 percent in 2008," said Yeom Hye-ji, communication manager of McDonald's Korea.

Delivery by the hamburger giant is also offered in other countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia.

Then there are also the Korean brands that made their name through quick and convenient delivery.

The most representative of them is Gimgane (meaning Kim's place), which was launched in 1994. The now nationwide chain first began with a take out service but as demand for home delivery grew, it began to deliver in 1999. Gimgane is most famous for bunshik, or street food, from its assortments of gimbab (rice with vegetables and meat roled in dried seaweed) and also carries ramyeon, udong noodles and even Spanish-style fried rice.

Based on a survey on 400 Gimgane franchise stores nationwide in March this year, 47 per cent of sales come from home delivery, followed by 42 per cent who eat at the store and 11 per cent who order take out at the restaurant.

"Our strong point is that fresh vegetables and various ingredients are delivered to each franchise store every morning, not to mention standardizing the recipe to maintain the quality of food," said Lee Joon-hee, manager of Gimgane's marketing team.

"The most important point in delivered food is that it must taste the same as it was when freshly cooked when it reaches the customer's home," he said.

For that Gimgane uses specially designed packages to separate soups with noodles and to maintain the heat for as long as possible. Based on their success here, Gimgane has also begun operating shops in China as well as an office in Australia.

The more luxurious version of Korea's street food is School Food, Blooming Roll. School Food, named with the inspiration to bring back the taste of street food enjoyed around local school zones, first opened as a delivery shop in Nonhyeon-dong, southern Seoul, in 2002. The store was an immediate hit as the neighbourhood was filled with those living alone as well as among employees at beauty shops and other entertainment services.

By taking a trendy turn of the humble menus such as bite-sized rolls, ddeokbokgi, gimbab, jjolmyeon (noodles in spicy and sour sauce) and others, the store fast spread into other parts of Seoul and even opened sit-in restaurants in such areas as Cheongdam-dong.

It is also planning businesses in Japan and the United States.

What School Food concentrates most on is the quality of the food, according to Lee Jung-eun, general manager of School Food's administration team.

"We really put a lot of focus on sanitation as it is becoming more problematic for mushrooming food delivery businesses as people cannot see the cooking process," Lee said.

School Food operates from a semi-open kitchen and begins cooking only when the order is registered, despite the longer period it takes for the food to reach the customers' home.

School Food continues to offer a 24-hour delivery service, depending on region.

In order to systemize the control of sanitation in delivery stores, each district is also preparing various measures.

In March this year, the Food and Drug Administration found 1,002 food delivery stores to be unhygienic.

Seoul has begun from this year urging all restaurants to specify the place of origin of ingredients. Calls are now rising that it should also apply to food being delivered to customers' houses.

"Unless we actually go to the restaurant to check the origin of the ingredients, there is no way for us to figure out where the food we are eating came from. The system should be extended to delivery food as well to allow customers a rightful choice of what to eat," professor Choi Seong-wook of Nonghyup Gurye Education center said in a recent column in a newspaper.

More information on Gimgane can be found at www.gimgane.co.kr and on School Food at www.schoolfood.co.kr

To find out if McDonald's can be delivered in your neighborhood, call 1600-5252.