Brent Cross - Ryan Review

On my back to Brum meant a little drive round the North Circular so it would have been rude not to pop into Brent Cross! This Nando's is on the second floor (or floor 3) and is nearest the blue section. So if you want to park as close as possible go for Blue 3 :-) Otherwise, it's only a couple minutes walk from wherever you park - and there are thousands and thousands of free parking spaces to choose from!

It's also about half a mile from Brent Cross tube stop and about one mile from both Hendon Central tube stop and Hendon Railway station.

I had a couple of funny experiences in here... First of all there was this tiny Indian lady who was probably in her late-60s and as she walked in one of the servers saw her and asked "Normal table and do you want a menu?" At which point she went straight to the till and ordered... Now she has issues... :-) Secondly I found myself inadvertently singing along to the Nando's soundtrack... maybe I am the one with issues after all... Anyhoo...

I'm never the biggest fan of Nando's inside food courts or whatever, but again a decent job has been done with this one to try and make it as Nando's as possible. There aren't quite full length glass windows around the front of the restaurant (as there's a big gap around the top) so a lot of the hustle and bustle from the shopping centre creeps in - but the windows do at least have some plenty of red chillies etched onto them. Some nice touches in here though are a nice big wooden Barci in the window inviting people in and then a very large wooden carved tree which pretty much makes up the whole of the ceiling on the ground floor. Little bit of a mixture between booths, benches/tables/chairs seating too - but not much other decor makes this a respectable 3-average overall.

I was only the second person into this Nando's (it was 11:03), so, as has been the case many times before, you normally get a good-fry being the first few orders of the day - and this didn't quite deliver to those expectation... At this point I've got to say the staff were very pleasant, but they took it up a notch when they realised they'd probably forgotten to put the chips on and so came over and asked the three different tables waiting if they wanted their burgers/wraps there and then or to wait. I actually said I'd wait but the chap must have misheard me and brought the burger over and the chips followed a few minutes later (still only a 14-minute wait overall so really no need to apologise!). Glad this happened as I was then brought a large chips to make up for the wait and they were scorching hot and very crispy! Free upgrades always go down well :-) The chicken fillet burger was piping hot too but was a tad on the small side - smaller than the few I'd had recently, so I think overall this balances out to an average meal...