Absurd Bird

Glasgow

JOHNNY Cash is rattling out Hey Porter, Hey Porter on the sound system, staff are standing talking at the bar, I’m sitting thinking tickety, tock, tickety tock.

In the beginning, when I started doing these reviews, I’d say service was slow in about one out of three restaurants.

Nowadays, it happens so rarely that I realise tonight I didn’t take a note of the time when I wandered in off Glasgow's Nelson Mandela Place. Damn.

The first thing I see when I enter is a lurid pink bar, kind of like a cowboy wendy house. It blocks the entrance and is inhabited by two languid young studenty dudes who interrupt their chat and kind of blink blankety-blank at me before one says: Food? Yeah, man. Food.

There's a more traditional welcome on the other side of the bar from a bright and breezy waitress. I’m a vegetarian, she’ll later confide, when I ask what the wings are like. I’ll wish I had been a vegetarian, too, I think, when I taste them.

What can I say? London chicken chain moves to Glasgow. In cute peace offering to the restless natives takes the local fizzy orange concoction and coats chicken wings in it. It would have been rude not to try. It’s pretty much as expected however. Sickly, sweetly, medicinally unpleasant.

A similar sensation of disappointment awaits when I try the steel pan of cornbread that arrived a moment or two ago. Sweet, savoury but also unfortunately totally leaden in texture, like a loaf that hasn’t risen.

I can’t help wondering if that initial tardiness in getting the food to the table may have been caused by Glasgow chefs in the kitchen below staring at this very strange dish and saying: nah, it’s not going to rise any more.

The side order onion rings at least are made with 100% real onion but are coated with a hard batter that’s not only a tad too oily but seems to have some trouble staying attached to the onions themselves. Back to the drawing board on these too, I’d say.

This is not boding well for the actual chicken itself which is right now relaxing at the table waiting patiently to be tried. It’s freshly, sizzling hot from the frier – yes, a good thing – so let’s give it a minute or two longer.

Now sit-down fried chicken probably is the UK’s last great casual food frontier. The people who dream up these chain restaurant assaults on the public pick the music, plan the decor, write the cheesy blurbs, and then – according to me – get round to thinking about the food itself.

Fried chicken is a great untapped wasteland dripping with potential riches located somewhere between the tackily downmarket but surprisingly durable KFC-land and the strangely hip and still happening Nando’s.

Many have tried to bring fried chicken to the masses, because it's very good when it’s done right. Maybe roughly the same number have failed, foundering on claggy coatings, non-crunchy crunches, and usually completely and bizarrely overlooking the number one secret ingredient that even The Colonel discovered way back in the 60s: salt.

Absurd Bird at least is not daft enough to put all their eggs in the traditional fried chicken basket. There are waffles, burgers, wraps and salads on the menu – all made with chicken. There’s even something called a Total Melt which judging by the drawing on the menu is a mini-burger, a buffalo chicken wing, some tomato and celery – all speared by cocktail sticks and atop a jar containing cheese fondue. Crikey.

That Absurd Bucket then? Four large pieces in a cardboard bucket coming in at £11.95. Reasonable value considering fried pickles are £4.75 in here. It’s actually quite good. The coating is crisp, the meat moist. The chicken is brined for 12 hours, says the menu, promising that at least it will be seasoned, but I’ve got to say there’s no signature spicing or great flavour even here. And therefore nothing to draw me back.

Absurd Bird

3 Nelson Mandela Square

Glasgow

0141 378 5001

Menu: Bright and breezy London fried chicken chain moves to Glasgow with waffles, burgers, wings (including Irn-Bru) and even sharing buckets. 3/5

Service: Not too hot out front at the bar area, but the waitresses through back were cheery, chatty and pretty helpful. 4/5

Price: Four piece chicken bucket at £11.25, sides of fried pickles slide in under £5, burgers just under £9 and those chicken and waffle dishes at around £12. OK 3/5

Atmosphere: Slightly schizophrenic layout with the entrance dominated by the bar, pretty standard, reasonably comfortable casual chain decor in back. 3/5

Food: A few pretty poor dishes including the cornbread on the side, the chicken was perfectly cooked and inoffensive. 5/10

18/30