Hot Bird, Damansara Uptown

[Muslim-friendly] We’ve been hearing a lot about this Hot Bird in Damansara Uptown.

To be exact, we’ve been hearing a lot about Restoran Hot Bird, which touts to be the first Nashville-style hot chicken restaurant in Malaysia. In fact, we have friends who raved about this place.

Hot Bird in Damansara Uptown

Opened in April 2022, Hot Bird specialises in Nashville-style hot chicken.

For the uninitiated, hot chicken is a type of fried chicken dish that originated in Nashville, Tennessee – where chicken pieces (usually drumsticks, thighs, and wings) are brined in seasoning, breaded, and finally deep-fried. The chicken pieces are usually marinated in buttermilk, with cayenne pepper as one of the key spices.

Hot Bird serves Nashville-style hot chicken

Here at Hot Bird, the chicken pieces are brined for five hours to allow the flavours to really infuse the meat. Similar to Nando’s, Hot Bird offers five levels of heat level for its fried chicken – No Heat, Mild, Hot, Super Hot, Burn Baby Burn, and Reaper.

Apart from fried chicken, Hot Bird also serves chicken tenders, burgers, milkshakes, and sides such as coleslaw, curly fries, Cajun fries, and Mac & Cheese.

The early (Hot) bird gets the chicken

From what we’ve seen on social media, Hot Bird is very popular and often sells out during any lunch/dinner service. Hot Bird is only open for lunch from 12 pm-2.30 pm daily, while dinner service is from 6 pm-9.30 pm daily.

We arrived just before dinner service at 5.50 pm on a weekday and there were already a few people queuing at the front of the shop.

However, the service was prompt. As the doors opened, we made our orders at the counter and our chicken meal was ready in 5 minutes for collection.

Chicken, curly fries, coleslaw, and more

Since it was our first time, we decided to get the Five-Piece combo set (RM50.90) – which comprises five pieces of chicken, coleslaw, Cajun fries, and two drinks.

We opted to upgrade our drink to a Peanut Butter Milkshake (+RM8) and swapped our Cajun fries for Curly fries (+RM7).

Hot Bird also serves a variety of sauces to go with the chicken – such as Garlic Mayo, Smokey BBQ, Cool Ranch, and Southern Gravy – for RM3 a serving.

It’s getting hot in here

Interestingly, Hot Bird only serves thigh and drumsticks here. This is not surprising as the two are probably the most tender and juiciest cuts of the chicken.

For the fried chicken, we opted for Mild (which according to the server, has a heat level similar to KFC’s Hot and Spicy) and Hot (similar to Mcdonald’s Ayam Goreng McD).

Juicy, crispy, and spicy

So was it good? We’re not sure how authentic these are compared to Nashville hot chicken, but we enjoyed it!

The fried chicken was served warm, with a lovely crispy batter and meat that is tender and juicy! For the mild, we can confirm that it has a similar spice level to KFC’s offering but with crunchier skin and a more layered seasoning.

We could taste the cayenne pepper, and we thought the meat was sufficiently brined as it was nicely seasoned to the bone.

As for the Hot chicken, it definitely packed more heat with a more pronounced cayenne peppery hit, but not enough to overshadow the other spices in the batter.

Ming (who can’t take spicy) did find it a bit too hot, but Max thought it was tolerable.

How about the sides?

Ming enjoyed the coleslaw here as it has a nice tanginess in the dressing. We both found the curly fries to be decent, and the Garlic Mayo dip was just average.

While not as thick or rich as the ones at Five Guys, Max thought the Peanut Butter Milkshake here was decent as well. It had a sufficient peanut butter taste with bits of nuts to help temper the spiciness of the hot chicken.

Summary

Overall, we enjoyed the Hot Chicken offerings here as the chicken was nicely seasoned with a lovely crispy batter.

Compared to the chicken at KFC and Mcdonald’s, we found the fried chicken here to be superior as they were moist, juicy, and served warm. While KFC is a childhood favourite of ours – the quality can be inconsistent in terms of size and dryness. We don’t like Ayam Goreng McD at all as they are mostly just too dry with too much batter that are undercooked.

Hot Bird is definitely a place worth checking out if you love fried chicken (who doesn’t?) that’s juicy and moist, and enjoy a good level of heat.

We thought the Mild and Hot flavours were tasty enough but those who love a punishment can try the Reaper for a truly crazy spicy level. We’re not that crazy though, haha! RECOMMENDED.

Hot Bird
Address: 83 Ground Floor, Jalan SS 21/1a, Damansara Utama, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Hours: 12pm-2.30pm, 6pm-9.30pm Daily
Phone: 011-2363 6995
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hot_bird_malaysia/