Peckish Feeling

Calista Cuaca from our L’Off Squad and her socialite mum Jamie Chua tuck into hearty Southern favourites at The Bird Southern Table & Bar.

- Grace Tay

SOME CALL IT COMFORT FOOD, I call it food to get out of bed for. Fried chicken, fried chicken and waffles, mac and cheese, bacon, chunky fries… The stuff of dreams to wrap up a late night or start the next morning on comes out of a Southern (as in American, now y’all gift that, right?) kitchen – and, happily, said kitchen has sprung up in Singapore at The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands. At the South Promenade. Nice touch.

The Bird Southern Table & Bar (tel: [phone]) serves up good ole Southern favourites with a dash of panache – a casual but fitting meal, we thought, for our lunch date with L’Off Squad gal Calista Cuaca (@xcalikins) and her famous mum, Jamie Chua (@ec24m, @iamjamiechua). Both feed their Instagram followers with finessed fashion posts, and frequent enough Instagram stories of amazing food to tell the world they’re foodies, ultra-svelte figures notwithstanding.

They join us at The Bird in the week of its July opening. It’s the first Asian outpost of Yardbird, the restaurant synonymous with Southern cuisine in Miami (but not associated with Hong Kong’s Yardbird gastropub). A second Yardbird, also a hit, opened in 2015 in Las Vegas’ Venetian Hotel, owned by the same corporation that owns MBS.

“I normally don’t have breakfast, just bird’s nest every morning, and a light lunch of those Korean crackers and tea. I eat really well for dinner,” says Jamie. As she sips her coffee while getting her makeup touched up, she shares that she usually starts her morning with a treatment at La Source, where she is ambassador (she swears by the lymphatic massage that the therapists add after every treatment, makes all the difference in toning). When ordering an iced tea, Calista pipes up, “Can you leave out the syrup?” She prefers fresh juices or plain water to sugary drinks, she says.