After drifting nomadically around the city's flea markets, Artichoke's badass Isaan brother-from-another-mother, Bird Bird finally finds its own perch on Ann Siang Road and is slated to open by the second week of November.
At the Ong & Ong-designed space, chef-owner Bjorn Shen tells us that the visual narrative is driven by the question: 'Is it jialat [Singlish for terrible] enough?' To realise this cheeky vision, the team sourced for enamel and cut-glass plateware from Bangkok markets, washed the walls in the room in a mottled pink and stencilled in a triumphant chicken drumstick-wielding strongman on the wall.
A light installation of lantern chickens built around a ceiling fan will extend fairy lights around the tight dining room where punters will seat on faux-granite and wood laminate-topped stools, pulled up against flowery vinyl-covered tables. Outside, Bird Bird will roll out milk crate seats and tables for Friday and Saturday evening drinks by the roadside.
Cheery Thai a-go-go music will also accompany diners as they dig into the house's signature double-fried spicy chicken wings, super-sized som tum salads with chicken skin, and khao soi curry noodles. The counter-side fridges that were used to chill fresh oysters in the restaurant's former life as raw seafood bar, Le Petit Navire, will hold a stock of cold beers, pineapples, and fresh coconuts for you to wash down the boldly spiced and flavoured dishes with.
Bird Bird will operate on a no-reservations policy when it opens, with a small 'Cannot Wait List' menu of takeaway hot wings and a fried chicken wrap for street-side eating. The clincher of this whole exercise in Thai kitsch, for us, though, is its signboard. Heralding diners into its 'Palace of Thai Chicken', Bird Bird's shaping up into one of the most unstuffy, unassuming and un-up-its-own-ar*e establishments in the area.
Not very 'jialat' after all.