The Birds Leytonstone Review
My Review of The Birds Leytonstone – A pub in East London with a large vegan menu, cool vibes, and lots of events from quiz nights to film nights to party nights.
Where: 692 HIGH ROAD, LEYTONSTONE, LONDON, E11 3AA
Website: http://www.thebirds.pub/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thebirdsleytonstone
Menu: http://www.thebirds.pub/main-menu/
CHECKED OFF MY LIST: 5th September, 2018
ATMOSPHERE:
The whole atmosphere at The Birds Leytonstone is welcoming, spacious, and has a cool vibe from the onset. The strongly themed interior is decorated with fairy lights; there’s a bird cage right by the entrance, and you can even hear bird calls when you visit the toilet. The staff is also incredibly friendly and attentive. We were there on a Wednesday evening when they have their weekly quiz nights, and the whole atmosphere was very fun.
WHEN TO GO:
The Birds has loads going on, so it really depends on what you’re looking for. Being there on a quiz night, the pub was busy but not overly packed, and the quiz sounded very interesting (though I’m a bit hopeless at general knowledge trivia). If you check out their website, you’ll find there’s also much more going on – yoga on Monday evenings, music events with DJs, various film nights, and their weekend brunch spread looks absolutely epic as well.
MY SHORTLIST:
Over half of the menu is vegan, so there are lots of delicious options to choose from.
Savoury:
- Beefless Burger – a soy mince patty with tomato, pickle, onions, and cheese sauce.
This was delicious! The burger patty was hefty, crispy on the outside, and held together well. The sauce also added a perfect cheesy creaminess.
- Dirty Fries – Fakeon, chilli, spring onions, pickle chilli, and mayo.
These were absolutely packed with flavour. I almost found the dish a bit too spicy at times, but we powered our way through and demolished the whole tray. The fakeon bits were definitely my favourite part – they were chewy and had a fantastic tangy sweet flavour.
- Truffle Mac ‘n’ Cheese – with fakeon and chives.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of the mac ‘n’ cheese personally. But it had a nice creamy texture and pairing it with the dirty fries (which might sound strange, but bear with me) actually worked amazingly well. I found the mac ‘n’ cheese helped temper some of the spice from the dirty fries, while the dirty fries added extra flavour to the mac ‘n’ cheese – so they perfectly complemented each other.
Pudding:
- Homemade Snickers Bar
I’m not even a massive chocolate fan, but this was so good! I haven’t had a snickers bar in years, but from what I remember this tasted very much like the real thing. The caramel sauce was perfectly sweet and balanced very nicely with the chocolate coating. Absolutely delectable!
- Homemade Crunchy Bar
I believe these bars are meant to be vegan versions of Crunchie bars, which are chocolate bars with a honeycomb toffee sugar centre. I’ve actually never tried a Crunchie bar, so I couldn’t tell you how they compare. But The Birds’ Crunchy Bar sure was tasty! It was a tad sweet for me, but the ‘honeycomb’ centre had a beautiful crunch and made for quite an indulgent treat to end an epic meal.
Have you been to the Birds Leytonstone? What were some of your favourite dishes to try?