Restaurant review: Absurd Bird, Spitalfields, London

Well don't you know about the bird? Well everybody knows the bird is the word!

Unless you were a fan of a pop group called The Trashmen in 1963 if this phrase rings any bells it's more likely to be because of Family Guy (Seth Macfarlane is a genius,  fact). I had the song firmly in my head when I had lunch with a friend at Absurd Bird in Spitalfields recently. The food is inspired by the Deep South, London food vans and 'a huge dose of fun and irony'. As well as free-range chicken they boast secret-recipe sauces, irresistible sides and 'insanely good' desserts baked in-house.

There were so many things I wanted to try from the menu it was a tough decision, from the mac and cheese with smoked chicken and bacon to the grilled chicken itself; I went for the BBQ pulled smoked chicken sandwich which came with pulled chicken, BBQ sauce, crispy onions and a potato bun. To be honest the bun didn't taste much different from a normal bread roll by the time all the other flavours were competing for attention in my mouth! The onions were deep fried, a bit like sections of onion rings, which I didn't really like as I could taste the batter more than the onion, but otherwise the burger was really good - and really messy!

There's a lunchtime menu on weekdays featuring six dishes at £6 (plus an extra £2 for fries) which my friend chose from; his fried chicken burger was a lot cheaper than the £10.80 mine cost and he kept casting envious glances in my direction.

We were too stuffed to contemplate dessert and were just about coming to the end of our lunch break anyway. This is definitely one of the hidden gems of Spitalfields - not in the main covered market area but not far away, along a street filled with eclectic shops but with an unpreposessing entrance that I'd missed despite having walked past it several times. But it's well worth seeking out - as the bird is the word.