nandos - c or d

Would smash.

lot of fake nandos around east london now

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.

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

"retro chicken"

lol

what's that? an egg?

the idea that anyone would willingly eat at a nando's after they had left Luton is incomprehensible

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.

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.

i just reopened this thinking it was 'nachos: c or d', is there a nachos thread somewhere i can read instead

starting to hate nandos for how they keep manufacturing desire in me for their chicken

― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, August 8, 2011 8:03 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

there is literally a whole 'seinfeld' episode w/ this as its plot

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.

Thanks for making me crave a Nando’s :D

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!

I think the peri peri sauce is just not that special, in fact none of their sauces are anything below C-tier

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