Yardbird — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

Yardbird used to be my favorite. I still go back pretty often but I will stop doing that now. Every single time I’ve been back in 2021 (since today is 2022), service has gotten worse and worse. Food is still just as yummy, but somehow someone always forgets to bring all the food, or the bill magically includes some items we didn’t order. Just make sure you double check the bill.

We were there last night. The below menu costed HKD 770 per head. Mind you this was sharing for the table, so it’s not even like one person gets a full skewer or full plate of each order. That’s ok. Yardbird is known for being pricy.

But why I’m giving so few stars is because they didn’t even serve all the food last night.

I get it there were a lot of guests, but how likely is that all 6 people on the table did NOT recall getting served 3 out of 7 yakitori. Instead of just serving us the last 3 skewers, this Indian lady (didn’t get her name) came out to insist she was the one who put the last 3 skewers on one plate for a table or 6 on the table for us. And that the last 3 skewers wasn’t one each per person. All 6 of us were supposed to share just those 3 skewers (whereas the first 4 was one skewer per person). Ridiculous for this price no?? And she also insisted because we didn’t touch the last 3 skewers at all, she took it away and then served the ice cream. Even if this were true, why would you do that without asking us?

I was at my seat pretty much the whole night once the food started coming. So I know that’s a total lie. The last 3 skewers never came because I took a photo of everything that arrived at our table, and also because we were party of 10, partitioned into 4 and 6, so when the first 4 skewers all came in 2 plates of 5 and 5, we constantly had to reach over to the table next to us to get the extra skewer on their table. This process didn’t happen for the last 3 skewers, because the food never came.

Yardbird…I’m super disappointed in you.

Regular Menu: Edamame Daikon+Cucumber Pickles Yardbird Caesar Salad Liver Mousse Sweet Corn Tempura Korean Fried Cauliflower Fried Chicken Chicken & Egg Rice Daily Ice Cream

Yakitori: Wing Filet Thigh Meatball Heart - not served Gizzard - not served Knee...

Finally visited this so much talked about place. Atmosphere: Several people found it strange that they have only one queue for both walk-ins and reservations. I'd expect to have two since there were two welcome hosts as well...but anyway. The place as others mentioned is very loud, it's indeed pretty difficult to ear your dinner partner. Feel sorry for anyone who chooses to go here on a first date. It also reminds the kind of place people end up after an afternoon of pub hopping.

Food: Some items better than others and I accept that it will be subjective. Some items are overpriced like charging the same flat price for offal as fillet or rib or if you consider a single scotch egg costs more than a cocktail... We had quite a few dishes (chicken breast, inner thigh, rib, meatball, corn tempura, signature ceasar salad, katsu sando) and have to say the yakitori wasn't anything better than many other yakitori I've had in HK, Japan or other Asian countries. In my opinion, the winner of this menu was the sweet corn ball tempura. Crispy on the outside and the contrast of external saltiness with the sweetness of the corn was simply perfect, plus no cob hassle... it really makes for a delicious snack and felt adequately priced. The other two good dishes were the katsu sando and meatball (not really a ball though more like a mince meat snack as you'll find in Vietnam or Thailand). And the scotch egg was also good though I would have loved if the katsu sauce was served on the side ratger than squeezed on top à la takoyaki. Total bill 600+ per person without alcoholic drinks.

Service: Our area staff was very attentive and friendly. I wish I got her name to give her a shout out as she really was good. The only critique I'd have is the strange one-queue system at the door for all. Queue can get quite long at opening and several people with reservation seemed confused that it was all one queue and not a separate one for walk-ins and one for reservations.

In summary, not sure I'd come again for dine-in as we prefer less chaotic environments. However, if I'm in the area and they offer take outs I'd definitely stop to grab a couple of sweet corn tempura pieces and a katsu...

TL:DR Good food but very let down by the poor service we received. Under better circumstances this would have probably been a 4 or 5 star review

Sharing this after some time. We visited in June and after hearing many good things about Yardbird, I was excited to visit. Unfortunately couldn't make a reservation so was a walk in.

Understandably, we were told there would be a wait which we were fine with. We were told we could take a standing table to have drinks whilst we waited (was told itd be about a 30 minutes wait). This is unfortunately where the service took a nosedive for us.

We were trying to get someone to take our drinks order and were told by several different staff that they'd be around soon. It took 15 minutes for our drinks order to be taken and for food menus to be given to us.

Drinks were fine but marred by the seemingly inattentive service.

At 30 minutes, I asked if we could have a rough ETA for our table and were told itd be about another 10-15 minutes. That was fine and at the 40min mark I asked a guy, who in quite a condescending tone said, 'we'll tell you when it's ready'. At this point I could see 3 empty tables, although I assumed that they had been reserved.

Finally, 1hr 10m in, we were shown to a table but it was very frustrating as the table we were brought to had been free for 30 minutes. As I could see many other guests getting good service, it felt like we had been ignored or forgotten about. If this was a weekend or Friday night I would have expected this to some extent but this was a Tuesday and it wasn't rammed.

As for the food, it was decent and under better circumstances I probably would have enjoyed it more. The selection of yakitoro was impressive and we did enjoy trying new cuts of meat we hadn't tried.

I'd like to give Yardbird another go sometime, but the experience I had leaves me reluctant to. Partially my fault for not being able to make reservation but I do hope not all walk ins have the same...