Black Bird
Add: 3/F, 1 South Wulumuqi Road, near Dongping Road / 乌鲁木齐南路1号3楼，近东平路
Tel: N/A
Hours: 11am-2am
Price: [plates] 36-190 RMB [coffee] 18-52 RMB [cocktails] 79-92 RMB
Visited: Jan 2016
I’ve been seeing too many beautiful photos of Black Bird on the internet to ignore it. Located on the corner of Wulumuqi Road and Dongping Road, this cafe / restaurant / bar has all the right elements – floor-to-ceiling windows that let in plenty of natural light, gorgeous interior design, comfortable seating, friendly and efficient service, and – very importantly – good food. Brought to you by the same owner of Bar No. 3, this place does lunch, brunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and cocktails…no excuse to not come here!
Heading the kitchen are two Italian chefs, I heard they came from The Press on Hankou Road (a stylish Italian restaurant that I heard great things about but haven’t been yet). The cuisine here is casual Italian – stuffed portobello mushrooms, baked grapes and brie cheese, potato gnocchi, and the likes. More details below.
Our colorful lunch spread.
First off, Bagna Cauda with winter vege (58 RMB). Bagna Cauda is a warm dip typical of Piedmont, Italy, made with garlic, anchovies, olive oil, butter, but there are many local variations. The version at Black Bird comes with a colorful plate of vegetables, I just wish they’d also serve some bread so I can scoop up every last bit of this delicious spread.
Stuffed Portobello mushrooms (58 RMB) with Italian sausage and bell pepper mousse, very tasty albeit a bit on the salty side.
Lemon BBQ chicken legs (86 RMB) with bay leave potatoes. Chicken good, potatoes excellent.
Porcini Bolognese pasta (98 RMB), handmade papperdelle with Australian knife minced beef Bolognese and porcini mushrooms. One thing to improve at Black Bird – we asked for small plates so we could share all the dishes, and were given tiny coffee cup plates which are really impractical…especially for pasta dishes.
For desserts, I most wanted to try the basil choux (58 RMB) which were unavailable, so we went with heavenly chocolate (68 RMB), chocolate mousse with marinated cherries, and rhum and coffee creme brulee (58 RMB). Not bad but not memorable.
Very charmed by this pretty place. I also took a look at their weekend brunch menu – caramelized banana pancakes, polenta baked with chorizo and eggs, omelet sandwich…I’m already planning my next visit.
