Telok Ayer area has become one of Singapore's latest trendy F&B spot with the coolest restaurant and trendiest bars. Plus, it's around where I work, so it only makes sense for me to be gallivanting around the area to scout for the next best spot to head after a long day at work.

Just a few rows behind my office is Amoy Street, where Birds of a Feather is located. This chic restaurant caught my attention from afar and I just had to try it.

Stepping inside, I was quite amazed by the restaurant's beautiful decorations spotting a theme that shouts "flying sky high" with cloud-shaped lamps and indoor plants with nests to give the illusion that you're dining on top of a tree. With the warm lighting and soft music playing, this place would be a great place for your next date night.

For starters, we had the Fortune Skewer in Sichuan Pepper Broth ($19). With this dish, all the seafood and vegetables (no meat) on the skewers are "submerged" in the soup. That way every skewer you take is a surprise. The concept for this dish is inspired by the Chinese tradition of Kau Cim or Fortune Sticks.

The soup had a strong sichuan and peppercorn flavour, perfect for those rainy evenings Singapore has been frequenting. The soup was quite spicy and my lips were throbbing after a few sips, but I kept going back for more. Fair warning though, watch out for the peppercorn seeds! I was unfortunate (how ironic!) to have bitten into a peppercorn. My mouth was literally on fire and even when I moved on to the next dish, the after taste of the peppercorn still lingered.

The other starter we tried was something I thought sounded rather quirky -- Find the Chicken in the Chillies ($16). If you have an iron stomach that can withstand the spice from the amount of chillies in this dish, by all means, dig in. Or else, if you don't have that high of a tolerance for spicy food like me, you'd have to literally find the chicken among the chillies. It's safe to say that the chicken bits were fried to a nice crisp and wasn't as spicy as I would've imagined it to be.

Down to the mains, we tried the Salmon 2 Ways ($23) first. Half of this dish was cold -- the Salmon tartare portion of this dish was amazing. I typically do not like sashimi (I know, what blasphemy!), but I found myself digging in for more. And as for other warm half, the cured confit salmon, I found that it wasn't as nice as the tartare but it was something different compared to how salmon is normally served. The purple potato fries were delightful too, fried to a crisp and seasoned with five spice powder (kinda tastes like the Shihlin Sweet Potato Fries).

I swear, by the moon and stars in the sky, I just had one of the best duck dishes ever right here! The 'Xiang Su' Duck ($30) is also sort of a two part dish, with a duck leg confit on top of roasted potato puree and seared braised duck breast. The duck leg confit was so soft, I could break it apart with my fork, it was just so tender and full of flavour. The duck breast was braised for three days, sealing all the flavour in and then seared right before serving to add a crisp to it. Amazingly tender and just so full of flavour. For most of you, duck dishes may be quite a turn off because of its heavy nature (jelak feels), but the team over at Birds of a Feather did think about this when they were crafting this dish. That's why a warm cup of jasmine tea is served on the side to help bring the heaviness down, hence allowing you to eat more!

Our last main for the night was the Spicy Oriental Bolognaise ($20). In my opinion, this dish wasn't spicy enough, but it had an interesting flavour to it. It definitely does not taste like your typical Italian bolognaise. Instead of a tomato base pasta sauce, the bolognaise at Birds of a Feather is home made with minced pork, soy sauce, sesame oil and of course some Chinese spices. All these were served with premium angel hair pasta or capellini. If I wanted a quick and simple meal, this hearty pasta would definitely be my go-to option.

Yeay! And on to dessert. We had the Monotone ($15), which is a mix of black sesame sponge and white sesame parfait with light coconut mousse on the side. I'm personally quite skeptical when it comes to sesame in my dessert but this was lovely! A little heavy after all the food I ate before this, but I loved how the sponge and parfait went so well with the coconut mousse.

At such a beautiful and cozy place to chill and have a chat. We decided to order some drinks too. We tried the Lychee Martini (right: $14), a mocktail, which is a blend of pineapple, lychee and grapefruit. It has a sourish tinge to it, but was a nice and refreshing drink after our heavy meal.

We decided to try a sweet cocktail too and ordered the Sweet Spot (left: $23). To our disappointment, this drink was not sweet at all. But what I can definitely say is that this is value for your money because the amount of gin added into this drink is more than what you'd get elsewhere. Mixed with elderflower and soda, I thought that this was an interesting and nice way to drink gin.

Since we were still on the lookout for something sweet because we didn't manage to get that with the Sweet Spot, the operations manager of Birds of a Feather, Vincent, was kind enough to create a customised drink just for us! Since it was something created on the spot, we helped to come up with a name for it -- Chocolate Sunset. As its name suggests, it has a nice chocolate hint to it and was exactly what we needed to end our night.

Vincent was kind enough to lend us some of his time for a chat and told us a little about Birds of a Feather. This restaurant is currently the one and only in Singapore and brought here by a couple from China who runs owns 36 other restaurants there! They wanted to bring part of their home with them when they decided to move to Singapore.

Birds of a Feather

115 Amoy Street

#01-01, 069935

Tel: +65 6221 7449

Opening hours:

10am to 11pm daily

#orientalfood #asianfood #amoystreet #telokayer #asianfusion #szechuan