Byrd

NOSA: In all my years of doing absolute nonsense in the kitchen, I haven’t quite figured out to pull off those chicken wings with the ridiculously hard bones. Is it from the chicken itself or the technique?

FOLLY: I may be wrong but I think they call those really hard and sometimes bony chickens, “local chicken” in Nigeria.

NOSA: I’ve jokingly called them “CrossFit Chickens” on here, but I swear I’m on to something. Have you ever bitten into a chicken wing and the bone damn near shattered your teeth? That’s a chicken fresh off a round of Fran, you can’t tell me a thing.

NOSA: Maybe it’s a fried chicken thing. Like, you toss the wings in the deep fryer and that’s what you get. It has to be. I can’t think of anything else because I’ve made pan fried wings and they don’t come out like that.

FOLLY: You actually can toss wings directly in the deep fryer and it wouldn’t come out hard as a brick. I’ve made John's Fried Chicken Wings with Spicy Honey Butter from Chrissy Teigen’s first book and it involved deep frying and those were some pretty tender chicken wings.

NOSA: Then, maybe you have a point and it’s the actual type of chicken. Maybe it’s one of those chickens from OBJ’s farms. Dude wanted to finesse a whole third term so he’s definitely dodgy enough to give us these strange chickens.

NOSA: CrossFit Chickens are what you get at Bryd.

FOLLY: I won’t go so far as to call them CrossFit Chickens, I reserve that for the super tough chickens that you get on top of Jollof rice in a take away pack from random events. Some of the wings in my portion were actually tender and some put up a fight while I tried to eat them. The flats were a lot more tender, and the drumettes were the tougher of the two.

NOSA: If I tossed one of those drumette bones at you, you might come out concussed.

FOLLY: Wow, Nosa.

NOSA: You can probably hammer a nail in your wall with it too.

FOLLY: An exaggeration.

NOSA: If you can get it with only flats, you should. Another thing to “get” at Bryd is your wings to go. Just ask the staff to pack your wings in that cute little bag and be on your merry way because the flies will run you off.

The chicken wings were pretty good but the chicken wasn’t. I don’t know how else to explain it. The flavours are vibrant and bountiful, but the actual chicken is not the one.

FOLLY: Likewise, I had the Hot Honey and the flavours in the sauce were very intense. It was more honey than hot i.e. it was more sweet than spicy. Some pieces had this “crumbly-ness” in the sauce. I wasn’t sure whether it was the crispiness from the chicken skin or that the honey had caramelised to form shards. It reminded me of the Honey Garlic Wings at The House sans the garlic. Overall, I liked it.

NOSA: I got the Spicy BBQ and I couldn’t stop thinking about much better the thing could be. I wish I could take that sauce and coat it on a plain wing from Wings n Sides or Wingsville.

That cornbread doesn’t really taste like cornbread, but it’s kinda delicious in a weird way.

FOLLY: It’s not savoury like traditional cornbread - much sweeter. It reminded me of carrot cake, in a way. Also, it was dark brown and not pale yellow so maybe they used brown butter or brown sugar.

The corn was very simple. As we approached, I saw the cook putting the plain corn on the grill. To finish it off, it’s brushed with not enough herbed oil. It’s not particularly different from the lady on the corner of the road except it’s way more sanitary but it’s sold at a premium (N600 per piece). The flavours were only on one side of the corn that lucky enough to get the swab of the brush.

Or maybe it’s just me but I’m very partial to corn that is slathered with copious amout of garlic butter - I don’t really like the plain stuff - boiled or roasted.

POSTSCRIPT

NOSA: Idk, you might have to force me at gunpoint because my teeth can’t take another round of this.

FOLLY: Byrd is cheaper than other places but it’s really tucked away and so it’s unlikely to be on my radar.

VERDICT

A Case of the CrossFit Chickens at Byrd

At Pearl, the Space Excites but the Food Doesn’t

A Maison Kayser for Lagos