Birds of a Feather 鹊羽 — Restaurant in Hibiscus and Bays

The decoration is quite fashionable, giving people a sense of comfort and warmth, and the lighting and soft furnishings are very attentive.

Service, very friendly to guests. When the staff saw me ordering black truffle shrimp, they reminded me that children might not like black truffles, and suggested that I order two-color shrimp balls. It turns out that my son likes to eat prawn balls.

The garlic bone is great and I rave about it. My son said he couldn’t finish it and packed it in the air fryer for a late night snack.

The conch in the juice. The juice was a little spicy, with a Sichuan taste and chewy texture.

The two-color shrimps are tender, large and delicious.

I don’t know what kind of rice is used for the black truffle cod fried rice. The rice grains are distinct, soft and glutinous, and have a good taste.

Fried rice and fried vegetables are home-cooked dishes, which shows the basic skills of the chef. The chef’s thought can also be seen in the plate presentation.

The use of rice and the selection of ingredients show the owner's cost investment in details. The owner has put great care into the hard and soft furnishings, chefs and ingredients, which is rare in New Zealand. Because on the one hand, the store is not in the CBD, and on the other hand, New Zealand is not a place where you invest in everything, so the price can go up. Therefore, there are very few restaurants willing to invest in experience, and Chinese restaurants are even rarer.

This is also the rare Chinese restaurant I have encountered in New Zealand with relatively large seating space. Of course, these impressions may be somewhat subjective. I rarely go to Chinese restaurants in New Zealand.

Anyway, I have one more option to come...

If you are looking for a pretty decent Chinese restaurant that have very good vibes and ambiance then this is the place for you. We found this place online and saw that they are known for peking duck so we decided to come here for some celebration gathering.

We ordered quite a range of dishes for sharing. Their peking duck was excellent, skin was crispy, meat was tasty and had no too gamy smell like in some other places I've been to. Their blue cod in a pot was also excellent. Most of their dishes although not outstanding, it was pretty good. I really didn't like their bbq pork though, there was no caramelisation on the outer coating at all, pieces were cut too thick and not fatty at all. I can definitely make it way better than this place and would not order this again. Another thing to note that dishes come out quite slow even though not too many people and the dishes also not served hot enough I felt.

Ambiance here was definitely very very nice, makes you feel like you are in a fancy restaurant. The toilets here were not that well looked after, most of them were out of service and the ones that are in serve have blocked sinks.

Price were not as expensive as I thought. It was about mid-high price given that the place looks quite fancy inside and outside.

Would I come back? Maybe if I were around...

My review is limited to trying out two dim sum dishes, swan durian and shrimp rice roll. Was mid hike and couldn't eat much.

The novelty and beautiful presentation of the swan durian was amazing, especially since the swan neck itself is an edible biscuit like thing (tasteless biscuit.. Maybe add some sugar?). (4/5) Note for improvement: Durian taste could be much stronger. Durian pastry tarts I've ordered elsewhere usually have much stronger durian flavour. Warning for people who haven't tried durian before. You either love it or hate it. It's supposed to have a super strong smell and taste. So durian lovers will be disappointed with the current flavour.

The rice roll was delicious, texture of the rice roll and shrimp were some of the best I've had in NZ (5/5). Note for improvement: maybe eg add another offering of fried dough with shrimp, peanut / hoisin sauce combo which some places offer. That would take it to the next level.

Presentation of teacup/ plate/ ambiance nice and modern. Highly recommend, will definitely return and try out some...