Nando's

Nando's is definitely in my list of top 10 restaurants anywhere.

My love of piri piri chicken actually began in Portugal long before I had even heard of Nando's. I'd gone to Albufeira during the summer before moving to London and was recommended to try the spicy roast chicken over there. Having tried it on my first day I was immediately addicted and had it almost every day - in each restaurant it tasted a little different yet all had the same addictive properties. I was so hooked that I actually made the effort to hunt down a grocers (often difficult to do in tourist areas) to buy some of the marinade to bring home! This is the opposite to how I usually eat on holidays - it's usually 'eat everything in sight and leave with only the good memories'.

A couple of weeks later the two bottles of marinade I'd bought were squeaky clean. Not a drop left! Not having any plans to return to Portugal any time soon, I resigned myself to the fact that it may be quite a while before I ever tasted the tangy, spicy chicken again.

A few months later having finally moved to London to start uni a group of us were hanging around in the halls of residence common room, all hungry. In typical student style we sent out one sucker to pick us all up some food. I tell you, the aroma that greeted us, the group of starved students, was so good it should be illegal! The chicken; quickly chopped up and divided out was devoured messily and speedily. Drenched in the peri peri sauce, it was much spicier than I was used to at the time but even though my face was melting there was no chance I was going to stop eating, not even for water or chips. I recognised it immediately and when I finished eating, thoughts went immediately to how my waistline and wallet was going to suffer on the discovery of peri peri chicken down the road from me!

Thankfully I somehow managed to be sensible and kept Nando's as a 'treat' restaurant. It may not seem so for people who are working but it was pretty expensive food for a student to have regularly. The loyalty cards with a free full chicken upon completion were (and are) hugely appreciated!

As I mentioned in a previous post I was being trained to eat spicy food for my first year in London, and the Nando's spice levels were deemed an appropriate gauge of how I was doing...any excuse! If anyone is interested, I currently am at 'hot' level.

These days even though I earn a proper wage, the 'treat' mentality has stuck and it has become a tradition in our workplace to go there for lunch every pay-day to celebrate. If payday is at the end of the week, we pretty much salivate and fantasise all week!

Don't go if you have an addictive nature...


Happy eating,

Kitsune