PPP: Bird's Nest Restaurant

H., chose the newly opened Bird's Nest Yakitori bar in West End to celebrate Miss Chatterbox's birthday. A., the Chocolate Monster, Z., B., myself and my Boyfriend also went along.

I'm really running out of available letters to use to anonymously describe my friends aren't I? My general code was always to give my nursing workmates a single letter, or a short nickname if they shared initials with someone else. My high school friends/sister's friends had their own nicknames and that's about it. Most of my university friends, who are also nurses derp, have moved far, far away in their searches for jobs so I haven't had to code them up for that reason.

Its pretty easy to keep track of everyone though, since I tend to go out with the same people. Jubi met H., a while back and she said she was excited to meet her cause she kept seeing her name in my blog haha. 

While there are about five A.,s in total at work, I only really go out with A., and occasionally Miss Chatterbox, who also starts with an A, there's also Little A, who I frequently carpool with, and another two A.,s unaccounted for, both of whom have young babies. Those hints are more for my friends at work who try and figure out who is who haha.

Anyway, my Boyfriend and I arrived at Bird's Nest very fashionably late, like an hour late! I was absolutely mortified! I'm normally the kind of person who shows up half an hour early and waits for other people to get there! I kept texting both H., and A., telling them I was on my way but no one responded. They all seemed very surprised when we eventually showed up. They were well into their meal when we arrived.

We ended up ordering the same food as everyone else out of sheer laziness. We both ordered the seven skewer set, which nearly everyone else had ordered. Here is a link to their menu.

Placements

There are large slabs of slate to rest the skewers on. On the table are several boxes to place used skewers, a pink Himalayan rock salt and pepper pots as well as more napkins.

Big slabs of slate

Everyone ordered chicken karaage as an additional side. We were eagerly awaiting our food and all my friends noticed my envious puppy dog eyes, they kept pushing the chicken karaage onto us. Beautifully juicy, golden brown crunchy and just salty enough, the free range chicken thighs they used were amazing. The blob of wasabi mayonnaise was delicious, creamy with just a hint of wasabi spice, I kept using it to spice up other things.

H., ordered these yaki onigiri, grilled rice balls brushed with their tare sauce. H., Miss Chatterbox and B., shared these rice balls, from the looks on their faces they didn't like it. I remember hearing an audible crunch when they bit into them and I also recall that they didn't enjoy the crunchy outside and mostly discarded it. I have a sneaking suspicion this wasn't to their taste.

I ordered an additional side of Leba pate, a house made chicken liver pate with little crunchy baguette slices. The pate was so delicious, I can't even begin to describe. If you like pate, this dish will have your taste buds dancing in ecstasy. The rich, creamy unctuousness of liver, it was light and fluffy and it just spread like softened butter onto those hard crunchy toasts. The utter smoothness of that pate was amazing, especially being used to Vietnamese style pate. The pepper was a sharp and spicy contrast to the pate. I offered pate to everyone but they refused, stating either that they didn't want to try liver, had been pressured to eat it too much as children or disliked it. Oh well, more pate for me then.

H., also ordered a shiitake skewer, a locally grown shiitake mushroom grilled with ponzu vinegar. I literally took a photo and then the skewer was eaten. I have no idea what they even though of this dish.

H., got atsuage, deep fried tofu, ponzu, shallots and a generous scattering of bonito flakes. Everyone seemed a bit surprised when I mentioned that bonito was dried, finely shaved tuna. The other odd part is that this dish is covered underneath their vegetable part in the menu. It lead to an interesting discussion on vegetarianism in different cultures. When VGirl, my sister, turned vegetarian, my mum had no idea what to cook. Vietnamese cuisine has a lot of vegetarian food, but she was very skeptical when my sister refused to eat things with animal extracts, refused seafood and certain soy sauces. Over time, she just learned to cook the things my sister allowed.

Pile of fluffy stuff

The next skewer we received was a chicken thigh with little shallots grilled together with a salt base. Tasty, a touch charry and surprisingly sweet once grilled, the shallots were an interesting choice. I kept mistaking it for leeks however. In the corner is a Japanese curry set that A., and the Chocolate Monster both ordered, they had tucked into most of it by the time we arrived, so it wasn't worth taking photos of it.

Charry shallots and chicken thigh

We then received cherry tomatoes wrapped in pork belly with cracked pepper. Be extremely eating these, as they will shoot scalding lava juice at you aka hot tomato seeds. More than a few people got mouth burns when these arrived at the table. The pork is tasty and was really the only non chicken thing from the 7 skewer set.

Beware!

This was free range tenderloin chicken pieces with wasabi mayonnaise. It was good chicken if a bit plain, the chicken was juicy and well cooked.

Tasty mayo though

Chicken meatballs! These had a good flavour from their tare sauce, soft, squishy meatballs with a slightly charry outside.

Not bad

These are chicken butts aka bishop's nose aka chicken tails, don't be fooled by the cute name! They are good for people who enjoy chicken fat and skin, cooked to a melting consistency. They are quite oily as expected of an area with such a high concentration of fat.

Not a fan

Bird's Nest Restaurant
Atmosphere: 8, lovely little restaurant with lots of little pockets to sit in. We sat the main large grouping beside their door. There were intimate little booths at the back as well as a constantly full main bar, the main bar area was seated right in front of the chefs who all seemed happy to chat while cooking.
Service: 9, the floor manager was polite, friendly, super efficient and was over in a flash as soon as you raised an eyebrow. The other staff members she worked with weren't as good, but still very polite. We had our backs to the wall and found that our water wasn't topped up as frequently as some of our easier to get to friends. When we received our bill as well, there was a mix up with the drinks we ordered and they were able to fix it quite quickly.
Food: 6.5, the food is very good quality, it is very well cooked, lovingly prepared and presented. I found the flavours to be a little plain and the price to be a little steep. Each of the skewers are around 5-8 dollars each and considering how many it would take to fill me up, its just not worth the price. It seems like quite a popular place to go for a get together, but for a real meal, I'd head elsewhere.