DINING OUT AT NANDO’S
Peri-peri chicken well worth the wait
It’s early evening on a cool, rainy March Monday and business isn’t exactly white hot along the endless succession of strip malls decorating our branded gateway to points south. Well, that is, except for one corner glass pod, where supplicants are queued up outside, huddled together for the promise of warmth, someplace dry and ... flame-grilled peri-peri chicken.
Yes, Nando’s, the storied South African purveyors of 24-hour-marinated Portuguese-Mozambique pollos and sauces made of bird’s-eye chili have finally made it to Edmonton. That’s following its first foray to Canada way back in 1994 — 29 years and over 1,000 restaurants in 30 nations since the first Johannesburg store opened in 1987.
Let’s just get it over quickly and proclaim the wait has been worth it. Bom provieta, indeed!
It’s a beautifully designed, bright, happy space with, believe it not, a sort of believable African contemporary ambience. That is — woven jute lampshades in gourd shapes, coloured yarn dangling from window frames, bright green and muted yellow hues, graffiti panels, a riot of blue insulators suspended over the ordering area and a wall of serious, engaging South African paintings.
In fact, Nando’s claims to own one of the largest collections of South African canvasses in the world.
And then there is the staff — like the customers on our night, a veritable United Nations/Benetton ad of diversity. On the client side, as gleaned in the lineup, many diners from far afield were Nando’s lovers in their previous lands and seemed delighted to reacquaint themselves. It’s hard to square all this with a global chain not without its controversies, but there you have it. It felt strangely, preposterously good and noble to be part of it, somehow. I’d say they should bottle this, but indeed they do — check out the hot sauce/condiments section of your grocery store.
The food was satisfying and wellprepared (and reasonably priced) even on an insanely packed night.
We began with an order of periperi nuts ($4.50), a tasty, roasted if not overly incendiary mix of macadamias, cashews and almonds, a nice complement to a respectable bottle of Paarl Roodeberg red at the great price of $28.
The $43.75 Familia share platter — medium peri-peri spicy — is quite a bargain for three or four diners and absolutely juicy and delicious. It includes a full sectioned chicken and two skewers and they were wonderful. You also have a choice of breads and two large sides. We picked peri-peri vegetables and peri-peri potato wedges, along with garlic bread and Portuguese buns.
All were first rate with the exception of the wedges, which were merely better than the average dross. The grilled veggies came off crisp and flavourful and the bakery items shone as well. Try both. The buns reminded me of the old, lamented Lusitania Bakery in Little Italy. And the former signalled that grilled garlic bread done properly can actually be scrumptious.
Nando’s has a surprisingly large menu, including a vegetarian section, and I wanted to see how they would do in the salad department, almost always a disappointment in chicken places, from Peruvian to barbecue to southern fried to rotisserie. In fact, the quinoa salad with roasted sweet potato and avocado ($11.25) was smashing — light on the perfectly cooked quinoa on a bed of spinach, chick peas, grape tomatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, cucumber, avocado and dotted with feta and a seed mix.
We were stuffed like holiday pullets, but in the name of inclusive consumer journalism, we finished with Nando’s kisses ($4), a scoop of chocolate ice cream coated in a chocolate crust, and a classic Portuguese custard tart ($2.50), each just fine if not remarkable.
That said, Nando’s is a remarkable operation by many a metric that makes you (briefly) re-consider normally sensible bleak thoughts on international chains. Wait, I’ve forgotten to mention the so-called Afro-Luso music, which was festive, excellent and appropriate. And it is decidedly family friendly with an impressive kids menu that will please all concerned — a rarity.
Rubs? (Chicken joke.) Yes, a few. You wait in line to get in, you wait at the order counter, you wait to refill pop, water, etc., from a big machine. You may or may not have all of Nando’s much-celebrated bottled sauces at your table and you may have to wait to find some elsewhere. Or not find it. The table service was very good, but what to tip when you’ve done half the work? Also, the food essentially came out all at once, which wasn’t surprising given the crowd on hand, but then again, not as it should be.
The hope is that new locations will spring up around town as they have throughout Australia, for example, which supports nearly 300 locations. Nando’s is a company that does most things very well indeed and at a price point that nervous Albertans of the day should embrace.
As we finally walked into the place, a double-rainbow appeared in the east. Could this be a sign?