I've always thought it was just a little too expensive for what you get on the plate/tray but I suppose it could be worse - we live in a world where there is Subway.
― WHEN CROWS GO BAD (suzy), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 18:02 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah i agree. would rather hear suggestions for amazing chicken places that are better than nandos than this boring snobbery plz
― hoes on my dick cos my groceries bagged (tpp), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 18:05 (thirteen years ago) link
I've been repping hugely for Safadi in Holborn, which looks like branch one of a future chain, and they do great Lebanese shawarma wraps or felafel, plus quite amazing skinny chips for £5.
― WHEN CROWS GO BAD (suzy), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 18:15 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm not a massive Nando's fan tbh and I'm not anti-fast food at all. The food seems pretty one note and snoresome.
― If it's not hurting, you're not lurking (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 19:40 (thirteen years ago) link
^this. i'll eat any old shit but have visited a nandos twice and come away saying 'never again' both times. i know its a middle class cliche, but as far as 'family friendly' chain restaurants go, give me pizza express any old time (tho man are they fucking expensive these days)
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 19:43 (thirteen years ago) link
pizza express make some nice pizzas yeah, and Ask seems to have gone to shit, at least round here
― If it's not hurting, you're not lurking (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 19:45 (thirteen years ago) link
tbrr i haven't been to a nandos since
it's the principle of the thing tho
+ ppl i knew repped for it
― doop snobby snobb (history mayne), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 19:50 (thirteen years ago) link
since 2002
wtf It is WAY too expensive for what you get! 3 feeble chicken wings for £3, 1/2 chicken for over £6, £5 for the most basic burger they do, £3 for a tiny, tiny stubbie of crap beer. For bog standard fast food it's an absolute fucking rip off. Such and awful feeding-trough get-em-in-get-em-out set-up they've got going on. Horrendous atmosphere in there always. What a shit house.
― Born too beguiled (DavidM), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 20:00 (thirteen years ago) link
wd take KFC over these any day altho both of them are shit at doing chips and KFC need to start selling buckets of just skin
― If it's not hurting, you're not lurking (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 9 June 2010 20:02 (thirteen years ago) link
"KFC need to start selling buckets of just skin"
yes - if i could get nandos chicken (which now is virtually tasteless) with kfc skin on top it would be great
i might start making this myself actually
RIP nandos of the late 90s
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, 8 August 2011 12:02 (twelve years ago) link
starting to hate nandos for how they keep manufacturing desire in me for their chicken
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, 8 August 2011 12:03 (twelve years ago) link
Would smash.
― Matt DC, Monday, 8 August 2011 12:05 (twelve years ago) link
lot of fake nandos around east london now
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, 8 August 2011 12:08 (twelve years ago) link
wow, nando's has been going since late 90s. think glasgow got it about 2 or 3 years ago. been once. the hot sauce was dece, sweet potato mash in a restaurant that is effectively equivalent to frankie and benny's or whatever was also appreciated.
― you've got male (jim in glasgow), Monday, 8 August 2011 12:11 (twelve years ago) link
used to be standard that the chips would have nandos chilli powder on them but not any longer - theyre slipping
rice is still decent however
waiting for nandos to take a few cues from pret and start doing retro chicken
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, 8 August 2011 12:12 (twelve years ago) link
"retro chicken"
lol
― you've got male (jim in glasgow), Monday, 8 August 2011 12:13 (twelve years ago) link
what's that? an egg?
― caek, Monday, 8 August 2011 12:14 (twelve years ago) link
the idea that anyone would willingly eat at a nando's after they had left Luton is incomprehensible
― thomp, Monday, 8 August 2011 12:26 (twelve years ago) link
Now, its chicken is the urban youth food of choice and, as if to prove it, I have two quite intense phone conversations about Nando's
Ha ha that Guardian piece. I'm not sure anyone should be having "intense phone conversations" related to chicken restaurants unless this is a code for something.
― fields of salmon, Tuesday, 9 August 2011 04:23 (twelve years ago) link
Nando's would get fucking slaughtered in Montreal though. It's a shame because I admire the ability and efficiency of Portuguese restaurants that are run as businesses over those Portuguese restaurants that are run as Portuguese restaurants. Just once I would like to eat Portuguese-style chicken without unnecessary wait times, obligatory devotional rituals to Benfica FC, domestic violence, or rudimentary home-based wine production.
― fields of salmon, Tuesday, 9 August 2011 04:36 (twelve years ago) link
i just reopened this thinking it was 'nachos: c or d', is there a nachos thread somewhere i can read instead
― thomp, Tuesday, 9 August 2011 08:44 (twelve years ago) link
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, August 8, 2011 8:03 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark
there is literally a whole 'seinfeld' episode w/ this as its plot
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 9 August 2011 08:52 (twelve years ago) link
I have both rational & irrational reasons for hating on Nandos, of which, more later, but I do derive some comfort from the fact that when it came on the scene here in the UK it was the topic of a heated argument between me and a Spanish colleague, which was one of those brilliant arguments when you're in fact BOTH right but neither backs down. Eventually we threw in the towel and consulted Google for resolution. I *knew* Nandos was S. African, while, at the same time, she *knew* it was Portuguse. Turns out that the people who founded the chain were indeed South African and it was founded in SA but one founder was of Mozambique Portuguse origin and the chicken is cooked in a Portuguese style. Thus was five or so years before I went to Portugal and learnt about the batshit-insane legend of the Rooster of Barcelos which gives the chain its logo.
― Grandpont Genie, Thursday, 4 August 2022 09:58 (one year ago) link
Thanks for making me crave a Nando’s :D
― Chewshabadoo, Thursday, 4 August 2022 12:14 (one year ago) link
Anyway, the rational reason I don't like Nandos is that I don't think it's very good. Both the decor and what they serve...a really unimaginative menu of (iirc) three levels of hotness of chicken and salads and that's about it, together with the suspicion that the hotness is simply there to conceal the poor quality of the chicken beneath.
That said, my views may be out of date...I only went once, to the first one in Oxford that opened, in a converted pub in Cowley Road around the time the argument I mentioned above occurred (indeed, the convo may have been prompted by that). It was a work lunchtime do, and we only chose Nandos coz the chicken's halal and one of my colleagues was Muslim.
As for the irrational reasons for me hating it...its ubiquity (rather like Subway, do they really need that many in a single town?), the fact they often take over old pubs, and the fact that when a scurrilous hospital employee "borrowed" my mum's card from the ward safe and went on a spending spree with it, before putting it back there, that was where they spent half of the money!
― Grandpont Genie, Thursday, 4 August 2022 15:19 (one year ago) link
I think the peri peri sauce is just not that special, in fact none of their sauces are anything below C-tier
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 4 August 2022 16:55 (one year ago) link
anything *above* C-tier!
I definitely don’t think it’s god-tier food and I wish there was something half as good as my rose-tinted memories of peri-peri chicken I can recall from one childhood holiday in Portugal… but as a twice yearly hangover helper it hits the spot for me - but then again I’ll enjoy almost any barbecued chicken and it is remarkably consistent.
The sauces are very blunt and broad, but that isn’t going to stop my chucking loads of it on my plate :D
― Chewshabadoo, Friday, 5 August 2022 10:02 (one year ago) link