The Bird — Restaurant in Norfolk

On Friday, May 16th, my friends and I went to The Bird on my recommendation because I had visited before and enjoyed the restaurant. I now regret recommending this place. The only upside to this visit were the drinks (delicious) and the bartender.

The most upsetting thing about my visit was the person running food and drinks. At one point, I saw this person scratching their teeth and playing in their mouth while waiting to deliver drinks, and they did not wash their hands. I contemplated saying something but as this appeared to be the only food runner and we hadn’t received our food, I was worried saying something would prompt them to give us worse service or mess with the food. I didn’t say anything at the time but this was very disgusting to witness.

The food was also very unpleasant. The $20 cheese board was beyond disappointing, and it was something I had ordered before and enjoyed. The rosemary on the goat cheese was inedible and the fact we didn’t even receive an entire strawberry is just a joke. The bacon jam had no bacon flavor and the bread was drenched in oil.

All of the food came out at different times, and each time the food runner put something down, they asked if we had received all of our food. Did they not see our food ticket? Seems like there was a lot of miscommunication between the runner and the kitchen.

We finally received everything except for the deviled eggs. I asked the food runner if they had already started prepping the eggs because I wanted to cancel them as I did not want them anymore. They said they had already started working on them, so it was fine. The “jalapeño popper” deviled eggs were normal, under seasoned deviled eggs with a jalapeño on top. Nothing about the flavor seemed “jalapeño popper.”

The bartender was kind when I mentioned the issues and took the cheese plate off of my ticket, which I really appreciated. As I mentioned at the beginning, the bartender and the drinks were the only positive experience at this restaurant. I would only ever go back for the drinks and completely skip the food next time. I hope they have a conversation with their staff about cleanliness and proper food handling and...

We wanted to try something new and this place had raving reviews so we had to try!!! We walked in and the atmosphere was beautiful, extremely limited seating and not kid friendly at all so we decided to do take out. ( not a deal breaker, we were okay with just taking it home we didn’t live far). The menu looked great and we both found things we wanted, my husband ordered the chicken and waffles, I ordered a scotch egg for our son( they were out, so we order him avocado toast), I ordered the Smoked Salmon Bennie and a Chai oat latte. I had requested for the egg to be scrambled instead of poached since I can’t have uncooked eggs and the nice lady taking our order went back and asked the kitchen. She returned and stated that the chef said “No, it won’t look right because the muffin will be smaller than the egg”, I stated I personally didn’t care about how it looked and I just wanted the egg fully cooked. The lady said they could put a scrambled egg and everything on a bagel so it fit, I didn’t want to sit and argue so I just said I’ll take the poached egg.

We received our order pretty quickly, I want to say maybe 15-20 min max ( they had orders ahead of us), went straight home (6 min away). The chai latte that the lady made was amazing (definitely recommend), unfortunately the food wasn’t. The waffle was flat and soggy, chicken was burnt and dry, the biscuit was coated with butter but was extremely dry, the avocado toast was inedible (the bread was like rubber and extremely hard to chew), the salmon bennie had almost no hollandaise on it, it was bland, and the poached egg was barely even poached. The diced potatoes (home fries) were well cooked, the Bennie had a good amount of smoked salmon on it but that was about the only positives. We ended up just throwing most of it away and wasting a $70 dollar bill/tip.

Ultimately this place unfortunately fell short of expectations. The atmosphere was cozy, the lady that took orders and made drinks was very friendly and polite but the food was...

I ordered: Chicken waffles with siracha honey Colonial Benedict Scotch eggs

Where to start? Wow! The chicken was evenly battered providing a thin crisp coating on the outside and delicious moist chicken on the inside. The waffle had a little crispy that I prefer and was pillowy on the inside. It wasn’t too sweet and paired great with the chicken and spicy siracha honey.

The colonial Benedict was delicious with the bacon jam and perfectly executed poached eggs. The hollandaise sauce was slightly tangy, (as expected) smooth and creamy. You could tell the chef took time in preparation because the consistency of the sauce was very light, NOT gloopy!

I have never had a scotch egg before so this was a fun experience for me. The batter was herbaceous which was a good compliment to the creamy yolk and dipping sauce on the side. It was a very well composed flavor profile in every bite.

So the food was flavorful with a reasonable price per dish. The wait staff was very friendly. The ambiance is homey with a modern industrial finish. There was a lot to enjoy in the scenery while waiting for food… which was delivered to the table in a reasonable amount of time. I would definitely return to eat dinner another time or hangout later in the day to have a drink.

Lastly, they had cucumber water which I was super excited about. Seems silly but it is an extra step for hospitality that I very much appreciated. Check out this cool spot when you...