Chicken In A Biscuit

THE BIRD SOUTHERN TABLE & BAR boasts great side dishes but unremarkable fried chicken.

- Florence Fong

We’re excited. Today, we’re about to eat authentic Southern American fried chicken for brunch. Prior to this, we’ve only had versions of it at the handful of American eateries here, like One Night Only. Or, depressingly, at fast food joints like KFC and Popeyes. The couple of chicken joints we’ve tried in New York don’t really count either. We anticipate the gloriously golden, mottled birds on Food Network shows, served up by a drawling fry cook somewhere in Nashville, and wolfed down noisily by Guy Fieri.

What is Southern fried chicken, anyway? It's the iconic dish from the American South, consisting of parts of the bird marinated in salt, pepper, sometimes spices like paprika, soaked in an egg or buttermilk mix (or not), then dredged in seasoned flour and fried till crisp. Various recipes abound. Whether it was created by African slaves (who popularised it) or their European masters in the old South remains unclear. What’s clear though, is its popularity. And now, Singapore has its very first restaurant — that’s not a fast food joint — dedicated to the dish.

The Bird at Marina Bay Sands is opened by Atlantan lad John Kunkel (see next page). He grew up eating his grandmother’s awesome fried chicken, so he took her recipe and set up his first Southern-style restaurant in Miami, where it proved a hit, and spawned a mini empire.