Came to know about Bird Avenue whilst scrolling through social media recently; though the logo looked quite familiar and there is really every reason to believe so. Located at the basement of Centrepoint right beside Godaime that specialises in Japanese Mazemen, Bird Avenue takes over the former premises of La Bird. Turns out, Bird Avenue is a concept by the Minor Food Group — the same group also runs F&B concepts such as the likes of Josh’s Grill, Da Xi 大喜, GyoGyo, Manma Mia! Trattoria E Caffe, Sanook Kitchen and more. In fact, La Bird was also a concept introduced by the Minor Food Group, and it seems that Bird Avenue is a re-branding of the said concept that happened somewhere in September 2023. One especially obvious clue would be the logos that Bird Avenue and La Bird used; the logo being essentially of the same design, though the background colour for La Bird’s logo is black while Bird Avenue’s logo features a gold background instead. There is also a shift in the focus of what the establishment serves up; La Bird used to be a concept that heavily features Spanish influences, offering dishes like Paella amidst the focal ingredient of chicken. In retrospect, Bird Avenue is more of a casual restaurant serving somewhat American fare, with its tagline being “Flame Grilled Chicken”. In the menu of Bird Avenue, it is being split into sections dedicated to Old-Fashioned Flame Grilled Chicken, Tacos Amigos, All-American Signature Hamburg on sizzling hotplate, Spaghetti, Bowls & Sidekicks, Kids Delight (i.e. the kid’s menu) and Dessert St.. Beverages served up at Bird Avenue includes a series of “handcrafted” beverages, Soda & More, Frappe, Float, Coffee and Tea.

Those whom have had followed us for a while would likely know that we aren’t much of a fan of some of Minor Food Group’s concepts — there are some that seem to be better conceptualised than others, though there has always been something to pick on during our visits to their various concepts over the years. What had really piqued our interest to give Bird Avenue a visit was its offerings of the Bird Avenue Fried Chicken with Homemade Coleslaw — this is despite it being an item that strays away from its main focus on Flame Grilled Chicken. It is interesting to note that the Bird Avenue Fried Chicken with Homemade Coleslaw is an item found in a separate menu and not listed in the main hard copy menu; perhaps a later addition to the menu here. Patrons can opt for the version of the Bird Avenue Fried Chicken with Homemade Coleslaw to come with French Fries, or Onion Rice — we went for the former. It also does come with an accompanying sauce apart from the aforementioned elements as well. Interestingly, the Bird Avenue Fried Chicken with Homemade Coleslaw comes with two pieces of chicken drumstick by default; we are uncertain if one could switch up the chicken part for their order here, though it is not being mentioned anywhere on the menu or by their staff.

Digging into the first piece of the fried chicken, we initially found ourselves rather impressed by what they have to offer; the fried chicken coming with a crisp batter that was not too thick and the chicken flesh being juicy and moist. The accompanying sauce was actually really satisfying; one that seems to hint of notes typically found in a BBQ sauce but not too sweet nor smoky, yet finishes with a slightly peppery note. That being said, it wasn’t that consistent with the second piece of fried chicken on the platter; the piece of fried chicken being a little bit greasy and having absorbed a bit of that oil within that made is slightly more jelat. The French Fries which we had was also not particularly impressive — these seemed to have been fried more than once considering how they were hot, but crunchy and dry; thank goodness for the accompanying sauce which helps to balance things out a little, though perhaps going with the Onion Rice might be a more sound decision (but hey, who knows? We hadn’t tried it though!). The coleslaw is served chilled — the right temperature that we prefer it to be typically, though crunch and somewhat refreshing, there seems to be a deliberate light tang that seems to have ended nowhere and left us yearning for more considering how it left the palate hanging.

During our visit, we also had given the Banana Nutella Pop a try; an item off the Dessert St. section of the menu that is described to consist of elements such as puff pastry and salted caramel ice-cream. This was an interesting conceptualisation of a dessert — the slices of bananas come wrapped with a puff pastry skin almost akin to what one would expect in a Beef Wellington per se; that is a hot and cold contrast factored into the dessert, and it does feature some very safe flavour combinations of salted caramel, Nutella and bananas, and sees a sprinkle of crushed almonds over the top. The only qualm was how the salted caramel ice-cream came with quite a fair amount of icy bits that just wasn’t ideal in terms of texture — a detail that should have been better taken care of. Bird Avenue attempts to present itself as an alternative to fast food joints serving up fried chicken in a more comfortable setting with service — the price tag of the Bird Avenue Fried Chicken with Homemade Coleslaw at $10.90++ ie rather enticing to say the least. That being said, we do find establishments like Chic-a-boo giving more bang for the buck — no doubt Chic-a-boo is a fast food concept, though we would argue that their fried chicken has been less greasy during our visits to their Sembawang Shopping Centre outlet previously; also worth noting is that Bird Avenue does charge GST and service charge as well. We wouldn’t really be craving for the fried chicken from Bird Avenue, though Bird Avenue does seem like one of Minor Food Group’s slightly more decent concepts with a few misses nonetheless; perhaps their other items being more worthy of the mention than what we had went for.