Chicken and Charcoal: Yakitori, Yardbird, Hong Kong

smacked full of flavour, vibrant pics and easy to follow recipes

Beautiful and inspirational

Once you have read through all the nonsense about the staff and resturant, how to butcher a chicken, how to stick a skewer through a piece of chicken, how to stick it on the bbq (no special technique) and the drinks section you are left with only a handful of recipes. I wanted a cookbook not a self glorifying biography... I particuarly liked the 2 pages dedicated to a picture of a chair!? Complete rubbish dont waste your money!Out of 240 pages only 63 have food recipes and half of those are just pictures of the dish!

Amazing book. As per Phaidon standards, the photos are stunning. There is a nice little background story about the chef and how Yardbird came to be.The practical part of the book starts with a chicken butchering step by step, which of course is very useful, as that is what you will be threading onto sticks and be obsessively watching as it cooks on your newly purchased charcoal grill.The sections that really stood out to me though would have to be the small and large plates, which had many plates that had nothing to do with chicken. The salads seem light and flavorful and the food playful and pleasurable to eat. I actually made one of the salads and it exceeded my expectations. If all of the food in this book is as good as that salad it is going to be a yakitori filled summer this year!!

If you have an interest in yakitori I highly recommend this book. If you are looking for a ton of recipes you may find this book lacking. but between the VERY in depth breakdown of how to... break down a chicken and each skewer getting a full page on how to form and grill each skewer this is the most comprehensive guide on yakitori I have found so far.