Basket Review No. 66: Brew Bird

Let me just start by saying Brew Bird, to the core, is my kind of place.

The menu is simple and wonderful. One can get chicken tenders, four different types of crispy chicken sandwiches, a couple salads and several delicious sides such as waffle fries, jalapeno popper corn and pimento mac and cheese (I am drooling all over my keyboard).

For my order, I went with the three piece chicken strips with waffle fries and pimento mac. If my funds and health wouldn’t rapidly deteriorate, I would go back for this meal several times a week.

I don’t think I’ve experienced tenders like this. The breading was thin, but ate like a thicker-breaded strip. I don’t know how to explain it. It had more of a crunch, such as my last stop at Sons or Norway, rather than a crisp element that you’d find at 46 North or the GOAT, Raising Cane’s.

Nonetheless, the breading was good, the seasoning was on point and the quality of the chicken was high.

The waffle fries were respectable, as is expected with waffle fries. I absolutely had to get a side of pimento mac and cheese — I was born in central Minnesota and now live in Fargo, N.D., so that’s a foreign and intriguing thing for me. It was awesome. It gives buffalo chicken mac and cheese a run for its money as my favorite type of mac. It took a lot of willpower to not grab an extra order to go.

Brew Bird does something I hadn’t previously seen — they offer a sauce bar. Instead of being limited to order one sauce and then being charged for extras beyond that, Brew Bird offers a sauce bar where customers can just waltz on up and grab as much sauce as they want with their meal. And it’s not just ranch, BBQ and honey mustard, it’s all of those plus buffalo sauce, Gochujang sauce and something called “baby come back,” which almost tasted like a delectable buffalo/ranch hybrid.

I tried a bit of ranch, buffalo and baby come back. Each was delicious, but this is the midwest, where we care about our ranch, so I will expand on that. It was the perfect consistency in my eyes and had nice flavor. That is my expansion on the ranch. It was good.

Overall, I’ll give Brew Bird an 8.5. It was just a really nice meal. Everything is done right and done well. I want to come back and try everything on the menu, because it all sounds amazing. The ambiance is attractive, too, as the restaurant resides in a former tow truck shop.

Thanks for being here. Have a good week. 8.5.