Firebird — Restaurant in Melbourne

Impressive by the vibrant colour, garnish and decoration of every dishes so I decided to come in and dine at Firebird on Wed, 22/2/23. I chose set menu $79/pax to explore how the restaurant mix and match with all the food and ingredients.

First: Banh beo with pickled radish and smoked tomato are tasty, simple and delicate, yet the ingredients pair well with each other and range from soft, and bouncy to crunchy. The star of the show we loved is the scotch quail egg with rice flakes. The eggs are perfectly poached, the meat layer outside is not too thick or thin, and it is perfect with the crunchy rice flakes covered outside. The salted duck egg relish pairs beautifully providing sour, sweet and umami flavours.

Second: Crudite with Banh mi & black garlic. This is a very simple dish, refreshing but not really outstanding except for its colour. Beef capriccio, sour, umami and citrus are the main flavours component of this dish, would love to see more finger limes and every slice of beef and more puffed rice to balance out the softness, gooey of the beef.

Main: The main dishes except for the chicken are disappointing. Charred wombok, all I can taste and smell is the charcoal flavour, it is bland, lack of sourness, acidity and sweetness. If this is a refreshing, cleaning palate component for the fatty chicken, I would love to see a bolder flavour on sourness, and sharpness on the wombok. Tomato fried rice is dull, lacks flavour, and has no other texture at all except the rice itself. Chicken, soft and juicy which we loved. The consistency of the sauce is really good, there's definitely flavour in there which we used to pour on the rice. One thing that could bring the chicken to the next level is the time of grilling, I believe it is over charred which gives the skin a bitter taste after every bite.

Sweet: Waited 30 minutes for the plates to be cleared and the dessert to be served. We have to ask a waiter to double-check our dessert.

Services: We are served by a lady who we believe is a host/ supervisor. She did check on us twice asking about the food but showing no emotions or even a smile at all throughout the service. If this is hospitality, why there's not even a smile?

Thank you Firebird for providing us with a place to dine in and explore a wide range of ingredients that have been mixed and matched beautifully. Love the decoration, colour and vibe...

Review: Just like HH and TT, the ambience at Firebird is always spot on. It was the second day of operation so the restaurant was buzzing! I’m generally skeptical about asian fusion restaurants but I left Firebird excited to come back again.

🍚BROKEN RICE: The lemongrass chicken was bursting with flavour and remained consistently tender. can’t get enough of it, will order it again next time.

🍗DUCK: The French duck à l’orange is not significantly different from the ones you find at respectable Asian restaurants, but it’s honestly rare to taste such juicy fatty roast duck at an asian fusion place with good cocktails. My partner actually didn’t speak to me the moment the duck hit the table - it was THAT good.

🔥the charred cabbage with satay sauce took some getting used to, but tasted great with the quintessential satay sauce. Towards the end, we didn’t have enough sauce to pair with the cabbage though.

🍸COCKTAILS: The burnt paloma was a little too strong for me but my partner loved the grapefruit flavour and finished the drink. The coffee flavour for the viet coffee lowball was very strong, so if that’s what you are looking for, go for it. I was a bigger fan of the spiced pineapple rum, which paired pandan syrup with rum and pineapple juice. Refreshing and perfect addition to our meals.

There was some room for improvement, which was understandable given how new the place was. We would have loved to have more sauce with both the broken rice and charred cabbage. A bit more pineapple flavour in my spiced pineapple rum would have been lovely too. These minor gripes aside, I would love to come back and try their other grilled asian dishes (I recommend you come in a group to try everything on the menu).

Taste: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ambience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Presentation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Price:...

ORDERED: Firebird's All In menu ($72.00pp) FIRST 🥩​ Beef Carpaccio, fingerlime, sawtooth coriander ​🌭​ Flat Pressed Banh Mi, charred eggplant relish (v) 🦪​ Grilled Oysters, ginger, peanuts + spring onion oil

SECOND 🍕 Grilled rice paper, sweet chilli, mushroom pate, BBQ corn, peanuts, lime 🦑 Grilled squid, green mango, hot mint peanut

THIRD 🍗​ Charcoal Free-range chicken, burnt chilli nuoc mam 🌿 Wok tossed morning glory, lemongrass sate ​🍚​ Pandan steamed rice

SWEET 🍨​ Passionfruit mousse, dark chocolate + almond crumb, coconut sorbet

REVIEW: I don't have Vietnamese often, but Firebird makes the journey to Prahran worth it. The atmosphere is lively (so you might find yourself raising your voice to be heard), and dark enough to be almost intimate. Music's thumping, and the vibes pumping.

Our favourite dish of the night was the grilled squid. Absolutely surreal, it was perfectly cooked. It looks unassuming when dropped on your table, but was slightly sweet with the undertone of a charcoal flavour. It was addictive and easy to eat... wasn't chewy at all!!

I was not a fan of the flat pressed banh mi though. When 'banh mi' is on the menu, I expect a certain taste to it, whether it's from the cold meats or the iconic taste of pate and mayo. However, it reminded me of a baked sweet bread which is very far from its inspired savoury roots.

We were full from the set menu, and overall there were pretty good dishes. They use lots of râu thơm which is a collection of herbs that gives it that iconic fresh Vietnamese flavour. Really enjoyed Firebird's take on...