Confusion is king at bland Nando?s

I FIND chain restaurants as easy to digest as the news that Jordan has decided she doesn’t want any more tabloid publicity.

Don’t worry, Katie Price hasn’t dropped that bombshell just yet… so the Red Tops don’t have to scratch their collective heads and wonder what to write about when the Ashley Cole and John Terry sagas start to bore the public.

I’m not normally a fan of chain restaurants because they’re more often than not just frozen food reheated and sometimes cost as much for a meal as lining the pockets of a local restaurant using local produce and suppliers.

But I’m an open-minded guy and I’m always ready to give new things a go. So when Nando’s opened its doors recently in Bedford Street, I decided to give it a whirl.

Before arriving I’d been told by a colleague to expect a ‘fancier KFC’, which is just what I got. The system of ordering at Nando’s could be called strange at best. It looks like a restaurant when you walk in ? the tables and particularly the booths are very nice with the latter offering a reasonable degree of privacy.

However, instead of someone taking your order at the table, you need to go to a counter, order and pay for your dinner. I even had to bring the menu that was on my table with me as there didn’t seem to be a menu at the counter. After much confusion, we were finally comfy with some of Nando?s sauces on the table ready for a feast. Since there were three of us, we ordered the ?Altogether Now? starter, which was billed as plenty for four to share.

It immediately showed up two of Nando?s weaknesses ? its starters and the system of ordering. Firstly there are only four starter choices ?houmous, red pepper dip, mixed olives and nuts. Our starter contained the first three with lots of pitta bread. It shows a severe lack of imagination when your only starter choices are olives, dips and pitta bread. Second, we received our main course before our starter and when we mentioned this our dinner was taken to sit for 10 minutes in the kitchen while we ate our way through the platter. The bread was, well… bread, the red pepper dip just okay and the houmous was as bland as a night in with a copy of Kevin Costner?s The Postman on DVD.

For our main we shared a full platter, which is a whole chicken cut in two covered in a sauce of your choice. With a two-year-old in tow, we opted for what amounted to a mild BBQ sauce. It came with mashed potato and chips. The chicken, which had a lot of meat, was a little bland and needed a lot of Nando?s  peri peri sauce to pep it up and the side dishes were as you’d expect for chips and mash.

The desserts were the only course that came with no complaint, the white chocolate and raspberry swirl cheesecake was very good and the youngster loved the frozen yogurt (she also made light work of the very nice Mango Quencher).

At £35.16 for the lot, it?s not cheap, and I don’t think I’ll be back.