Fit Birds and Hot Chicks (Nandos)

Name: plipplop

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Product:	Nandos
Date:	20/08/06 (2851 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value, good atmosphere, good food

Disadvantages: Gets very busy, side orders not always very fresh

Finding somewhere really good to eat out can be a real nightmare. Eating out is generally over-priced and lacks that sparkle that makes you walk away from a restaurant with a really contented look on your face. The other important factor, of course, is the occasion. If you are out with lots of friends from work, you will want somewhere very different compared to a romantic meal with the wife.

I eat out fairly regularly. I frequently eat out with colleagues when we are away on business for meetings or at team events, but I also eat out with one or two friends because we find it more sociable than cooking the food ourselves. Generally, when I'm eating out under these circumstances I want somewhere that is reasonably priced, lively and has a good atmosphere and I have concluded that Nando's restaurants normally fit these criteria admirably.

For those of you unfamiliar with the brand, Nando’s is a chain of Portuguese chicken restaurants. Famed for their spicy “Peri Peri” sauces, Nando’s serve a range of flame grilled chicken dishes including salads, filled Pitta breads and platters to share with friends. Their popularity is clearly unquestionable as Nando's restaurants are springing up everywhere. A cursory glance at their web site indicates that they are all over the UK with just under 100 outlets in total. I've visited ten or so different ones, some of which were in retail parks and the others were in city centres but the principles remain exactly the same in all the diners. The company's intention is clearly about enjoying food and breaking with convention. There are indications of this in everything that they do. Their menus encourage you to share food, use your fingers, get messy and just enjoy the whole experience. Your food is brought to your table on platters and with some menu options you all share from the same plates. The restaurants are decorated in vibrant, wacky colours and there is an emphasis on "helping yourself" to sauces, drink refills, and ice cream. It's not surprising, therefore, that Nando's is extremely popular with diners of all ages, because eating there is an extremely sociable thing.

One of the things that I like about Nando's is the interior design. The decorators have worked hard to create an authentic Portuguese feel to the restaurants. The restaurant at Ellesmere Port, for example, is designed rather like a Portuguese tavern with rustic furniture, upholstery and decorations. At Bristol, Cribb’s Causeway, it’s rather more open plan and modern but in The Printworks at Manchester, that tavern feel is very much more evident again. The Nando’s “rooster” is a multi-coloured, jolly looking fellow that you’ll find plastered all over everything. The world music sounds generally rather like something from a Speedy Gonzales cartoon. Initially it doesn’t really intrude and is at such a volume that it complements the mood rather than interfering with it, however, I sometimes find that it starts to grate on my nerves after a while.

As you enter the restaurant, you are normally greeted and shown to a table. As far as my experience goes, all the restaurants are entirely non-smoking (good news!) but there are a wide range of tables according to the size of your party. Bristol Park Street seems to cater for large parties, with long lines of tables, whereas Bristol Cribb’s Causeway has booths and square tables more in keeping with families and small parties. I particularly like the new restaurant in Gateshead Metro Centre where the booths and tables are particularly wide and spacious. In line with the very sociable intentions of the company, you will also find often that the tables are quite close together - Nando's is not necessarily a place to come for intimacy and romance! The wooden tables and chairs aren't fantastically comfortable, but the whole rustic feel is good fun and appropriate to the eating experience.

Ordering your food at Nando's is slightly unusual if you are used to somebody coming over to your table to take your order. Whilst you are shown to your table and given a menu, you then have to go up to the servery to order both your food and drinks. This isn't something that you'd all do, of course. Each party would normally send one person up with a long list and a patient smile! According to the level of business in the restaurant, there is quite often a bit of queue at the servery, and I do think it would be better if they at least brought drinks round and THEN asked you to go up and get your food. At least then, you'd all have drinks whilst you wait.

As you would imagine, Nando's mainly sell chicken dishes so the restaurant wouldn’t be your first choice if you are a vegetarian (although there are non-meat dishes available). In the few years that I’ve been dining here, the menu has changed very little and standards of food remain consistently high. The quality of the food is generally very good. Main dishes are cooked to order so they’re always hot and fresh, tasty and interesting when compared to other chain restaurants. Side orders, such a fries or spicy rice are prepared in larger batches, so sometimes your rice can be a bit dry and your chips can be a bit cold. The most popular items on the menu seem to be the combinations, which comprise one main dish with one or two side orders (or "sidelines" as they are generally known.) The chicken is served in a number of ways - burgers, breast, flame grilled quarters or half chickens, and wings are all various examples. When you select your main order, you also need to choose which spice you would like the bird spiced with. There are samples of the various marinades at the servery, with a mild lemon and herb dressing right up to a very hot variety. The sidelines are fairly limited - chips, rice, coleslaw and corn on the cob are the only four that I can recall. There are also platter options, which include a whole chicken, fries and side orders for groups to share. These are definitely the best value for big groups, although slow eaters may not appreciate the speed with which everything is consumed around them. The salads are also delicious. My personal favourite is the chicken couscous salad, which works really well with the lemon and herb marinade.

The food is very tasty because of the spices used throughout. Nando's is renowned for its Peri-Peri sauce, which you can have on your fries or your chickens in various strengths, and also for its special mayonnaise, which goes wonderfully with the fries. The quarter, half or whole chickens require quite a lot of work to get the meat off. If you're the sort of person who doesn't like having to mess about with their food, then you should pick one of the burgers or breast fillets, because the chickens leave a lot of bones and mess behind. It also has to be said that when the chicken first arrives, it looks enormous, but at least half of it tends to be wastage. If you use your fingers, as recommended by Nando's, you will get into a terrible mess, but it is quite good fun and the kids seem to love it. My only reservation about the food is that chicken generally tends not to have a good image in the consumer press and there are no guarantees as to the quality or source of the chicken. The birds, for example, are not identified as being free range and there is no indication as to which country supplies the poultry. Personally, I have a real problem with chickens or eggs that don't come from free range sources, and I always have this niggling doubt in my mind whilst I'm tucking in.

The dessert menu is fairly limited, with sorbets, ice cream, cheesecake and a few other normal dishes. The desserts are unusually cheap though. None of them cost more than £2.25 and several of them have unlimited top-ups. There is also a "Nandino's" menu just for the kids, with three different options, all priced under £4.00. The main courses are good value - a half chicken with two sidelines costs around £7.00, which compares favourably with other chain restaurants. Drinks are very reasonable too, with a small selection of beers and wines. A meal for two, with drinks normally costs around £20 and you can apply the £10 per head rule for most group bookings.

The Nando's experience does stretch beyond the restaurants too. They have a great web site at www.nandos.co.uk with recipes, store locators and things for the kids. There is a fairly lengthy history of the Peri-Peri spice complete with serving suggestions and you can even order products online if you enjoyed them enough in the restaurants.

Nando's restaurants are certainly not going to win awards for food excellence or outstanding service. That aside, they are good fun and eating here is nearly always a pleasant sociable experience so that’s enough to make me keep coming back for more! I think I’d like to see a few more frequent changes / additions to the menu, but otherwise, I’d like things to stay pretty much as they are.

Recommended

Summary: Above average chain restaurant for chicken lovers