What To Eat At Actor Adam Chen’s New Yakitori Bar Birders

The mod yakitori menu was conceptualised by consultant Japanese chef Makoto Deguchi, who worked for The Wagon, the now-defunct French-Japanese restaurant that vacated the space where Birders sits. Here, the skewers of grilled chicken parts and other ingredients are flavoured with interesting sauces and toppings. For instance, crisp morsels of chicken skin are seasoned with lime and salt, while pieces of chicken thigh are flavoured with negi (leek) puree and sesame.

There’s also a compact list of small plates including these very tasty fried chicken wings slicked with a piquant glaze spiked with black vinegar.

The restaurant uses Sakura chicken from Malaysia and cooks it over a mix of binchotan (Japanese white charcoal) and wood chips. These succulent balls of minced chicken are flecked with chopped cartilage so there's plenty of crunch with every bite. What really elevates this dish is the onsen egg dipping sauce that’s hit with a teriyaki-like glaze — thick, lightly sweet and tasty. We’d have that egg with kaya toast any day.

Succulent and tasty all on their own, chicken tails, aka butts, need little help in the seasoning department. All a chef needs to do is cook it right. The tails on our skewer are all pleasantly blistered, juicy within, and redolent of the garlic shoyu they were seasoned with. Delicious.

On our first visit, the chicken livers were lusciously creamy and seasoned right to the edge with miso so they were just short of too salty. Their crown of chopped spring onions cut through the deep flavours, balancing it all out nicely. On our second visit, however, the livers are oddly bland.

This dish lives up to its name. The fresh ears of corn are grilled and then generously glazed with a creamy mayo-like sauce rich with mentaiko (spicy cod roe). This velvety sauce is then flame-torched and given a generous coat of slivered seaweed. Sweet, salty, creamy, crunchy — what’s not to love?

There’s a pretty good list of sakes here, too, which can be seen on a 3D menu that lines one wall of the restaurant. All are imported from Japan — some of which are available in handy 180ml sake cup portions.

Try this dry and light sake housed in a cute panda cup. 180ml sake cups help take the guesswork out of choosing what rice wine to drink. Ask the staff for recommendations and they’ll bring test shots for you to try.

On good days, the kitchen at Birders delivers boldly seasoned, reasonably priced yakitori that spurs that extra order of beer or sake. In our experience, however, the kitchen also has bad days, when you might get yakitori that’s bland or cold inside. Which leads you to order another beer or sake, but for the wrong reasons.

55 Tras St. S078994. Tel: 8748-4585. Open daily except Sun. Mon-Thur 6pm-midnight; Fri-Sat 6pm-2am. Last orders at 10.30pm. www.facebook.com/birderssg/