Yardbird

This past weekend I went to a summer associate dinner with the work folks to eat some tasty yakitori and small plate goodness at Yardbird, the incredibly successful restaurant that opened in Hong Kong back in 2012 and has since been fighting daily the hordes of people who show up shiny and full of hope each night to sample its wares.


What a little cash cow.

Or, considering that most of the food on the menu is chicken (hence Yardbird), I guess we should say, what a little cash chicken.

 The restaurant is located on the quiet and hip Bridges Street, just down the street from Soho and PMQ.

 We ordered a succession of small plates, each as tasty as the next.

 These popcorn tempura balls are really amazing.  Crispy, juicy, tender kernels of corn (grilled and flash fried to bursting) in an airy, super hot tempura batter.  It was so hot temperature-wise I had to splay it open to eat it.

 The brussels sprouts were quite delicious, though a little bit over-garlicked.  The balsamic reduction was strong.  Basically, this dish was flavorful and made me thirsty.  But it also made me want to eat more.

 Brussels sprouts have definitely skyrocketed to the top of my list of vegetables over the past decade.  At this point, I ordered myself an incredibly zesty and gingery Wilkinson's ginger ale.  It was very refreshing.

These are grilled skewers of fish (eel?) topped with fine shreds of shiso and topped with sesame seeds.  I was super confused by this dish because one of my companions said it was chicken thigh, but look at the skin on that - how could it possibly be chicken?  The texture and taste immediately reminded me of eel or fish.  So it might be chicken thigh but I am sticking to my theory that this was a seafood.

I thoroughly enjoyed this chicken skewer (and I made sure to splash it with a heady sprinkle of lemon), known as the oyster.  Kind of confusingly named, if you ask me.

Guess what these were?  You would think your typical sesame chicken or General Tso's chicken chunks, right?  Nope!  These are delicious breaded sweet and slightly spicy cauliflower.  This is a quite lovely and very interesting presentation.  Cauliflower gets such a bad rap because it is so bland.  But it's the perfect medium for this kind of crispy, flavorful coating.  The spice was subtle and burned like a slow heat on the back of the tongue.

 I got lazy near the end of the meal (and was also tired of being chastised for all my pictures) so I stopped snapping.

In addition to my catalogue of food above, we also ordered amazing chicken meatballs that you dipped in a soy sauce and raw egg yolk sauce, as well as some very heavily seaweed sprinkled rice noodles that were very nicely chewy and slightly crispy.

Nearing the end - we were getting full.

It had been a while since I had gone to Yardbird but I'm happy to report that it is still doing as well as ever, and the quality of the food really has not changed much since opening over two years ago.  It is on the pricier side, but I would still consider it pretty good value.