Chicken. Saucy, tender yet crispy where it matters, finger-lickingly good chicken.
Bird had been on my list of restaurants to try for AGES! And when I say ages, I mean since the restaurant in Holloway first opened. I don’t know how it took me so long to finally make it there. There’s even a branch closer to me now too, in Camden, so there should have been no excuses – how can you turn down a chicken restaurant?
We went along on a Monday at about 7.30pm before our film screening at the Odeon (love a bargain monday!), and it was relatively quiet. I didn’t realize it was full table service, so I was a little knocked off balance when we walked through the door, were welcomed and given the choice of where to sit.
Getting comfortable in our spacious booth we pondered the menu…there are seriously so many chicken options…
Bird don’t just wing it, they do chicken all ways…chicken legs and waffles, waffle burgers, fried chicken skillets (a mixture of thighs and legs), chicken tenders, normal chicken burgers and wings! What’s more, for the wings and fried chicken skillets you get to choose a glaze or house dipping sauce! I wanted to try them all.
I finally settled for the small fried chicken skillet basted in the Korean glaze, Alex went for the chicken and waffles and our housemate went for three lots of six wings; one portion with the Korean glaze, one portion with the Nashville Hot and one with the classic Buffalo glaze (you can’t have wings without a classic buffalo style) as well as a portion of fries for us all to share.
We also went for a drink each, the two lads a beer, whilst I was only going to have a diet coke, but they ordered me a white wine.
When the food arrived, our table was covered in chicken – now this is what a feast should look like!
In absolute heaven, I started making my way through my chicken. And WOW – it was SO good. The Korean glaze was sticky and sweet, and there was plenty of it, along with a decent sprinkling of sesame seeds. The fried chicken was delicious, tender with a really good coating, it was so flavoursome.
Alex wasn’t as pleased with his waffles as I was with my choice. The waffle was quite thick and I think it was a little dry for him, but perhaps he just wasn’t in the mood for it! (He doesn’t like bread unless it’s covered in some sort of spread, and has lots of maple syrup on bacon and pancakes!). I think he just had food envy as his chicken wasn’t smothered in sauce!
The wings were just as good. Really tender, yet slightly crispy from the coating, and smothered in glaze. The Nashville Hot were just that, pretty spicy, almost like peri peri. I felt like they didn’t taste of much else, but I don’t do peri peri as much as other spicy foods. The Buffalo were really good! I do love a buffalo wing (the sauce made up of Frank’s RedHot and butter), they have a good kick, a fab almost tangy taste, and combined with the creamy blue cheese sauce were spot on. The Korean got just as good a reception from the boys as I gave mine, I think coming out the table’s favourite, everyone deciding who could have the last, Alex trading another flavor for my last Korean wing.
The fries were pretty good, just standard fries really, but why would you want anything else when all the magic is in that chicken!
We didn’t quite manage it all, but gave it a good go, Alex still insistent he’d manage a hot dog at the cinema too (he didn’t, and they’re his fave!). We finished off our drinks and headed off, all super full ready for our film.
The bill came to about £65 for all three of us, all of those wings and three alcoholic drinks, which I think is pretty reasonable – about £22 each including service charge.
Next time, I need to learn to leave space for a dessert! They do ice cream doughnut sandwiches and deep fried waffles and ice cream, but I’m also dying to try the deep fried pickles (so American!), decisions,decisions.
Have you been to Bird yet? What’s your favorite dish?
Chloe xx
