Nando’s – I’m flabbergasted to admit it is a decent lunch establishment

Sometimes you expect a dining venue to be staggeringly awful. Indeed, the promise of being justifiably offended by the filth someone has the brazen temerity to serve can be almost alluring. Consequently, the perfectly reasonable lunch I had at Nando’s ‘peri peri’ chicken outlet left me feeling both satisfied and irked – and therefore anyone reading this review for one of my usual torrents of vitriol will feel sadly flaccid.

[image image_id=”4966″ align=”left” size=”medium”]

OK, let us make it clear from the start that a visit to Nando’s will not be the most high cuisine dining experience you’ll encounter unless your crimes have merited an ASBO preventing you from ever leaving horrible, horrible Woolwich. Indeed, even a trip to [link2post id=”3905″]Viet Baguette[/link2post] in this outer reach of darkness would be a slightly more sophisticated option. Yet, lunch can be enjoyable even when it is simple, and this is where I feel Nando’s performed quite admirably.

[image image_id=”4968″ align=”right” size=”medium”]

Chicken is usually one of the most woefully depressing lumps of anodyne anonymity one might order in a restaurant, no matter what sauce a desperate chef slathers it in with the vain hope of instilling character. Given this, I was literally gob-smacked to taste real chicken character in my chicken-breast pita wrap. It was not over-whelmed by hot sauce, nor was it too dry and stringy. If I were being really picky I’d suggest my chips were a shade on the limp side, but in all honesty I rather enjoyed my tasty little sandwich with its bit on the side.

[image image_id=”4969″ align=”left” size=”medium”]

Editor Dani had a butterflied piece of chicken with peri peri sauce and was similarly taken with it also commenting that it had a good chicken character which one would search in vain for if the horrific eventuality should come to pass of enduring a meal at prole-slop, grease-purveyor KFC or one of its over-enthusiastically-monikered clones that disturb me with their prevalence in my beastly locality. It was his suggestion we did not go for the lunacy heat-level sauces, having been bitten by then in the past; we would happily recommend the medium heat option as a good balance between spice and sapidity.

I did like their policy of providing free refills of soft drinks, even though beer was my bevvie of choice (they list a couple of imported options which have more than an approximation of interest). That is pretty much it: it was a cheap, satisfying meal which would satiate the demands of one in search of a filling, if not overly demanding, lunch. And there is no shame in that.

Contact details: They are bleeding everywhere, man, find your local branch on their website.