Doncaster - Ryan Review

Got to this Nando's at about 9:45pm on Good Friday after seeing a very poor Doncaster Rovers performance - and felt that fans must always go for food afterwards to cheer themselves up... but saying that, this Nando's had just a few tables in use... so obviously they don't!

This Nando's is just a 10 minute walk or so around the lake from the Keepmoat Stadium in the Herten Triangle area of Doncaster Leisure Park. Hundreds of free parking spaces are available and the leisure park also houses a funfair (not sure if this is seasonal), a Vue cinema and a Tenpin bowling alley. It's about 2 miles outside of the town centre, which is where Doncaster rail station is.

Being so quiet, the food came in a speedy 8 minutes and as well as the normal half chicken, chips and rice - it was my first try at some of the new menu items, so sampled the Churrasco Thigh Burger and Sweet Potato wedges. Firstly, the half chicken was cooked superbly - piping hot, charred nicely and smothered with sauce... only there wasn't much of it as it was a fairly lean portion. The chips and rice were also cooked wonderfully... but again suffered from average portion sizes. Next the new stuff... the five potato wedges varied greatly in size (one was over twice as big as another) and just weren't cooked enough and very soggy. The thigh burger chicken bits were cooked nicely, but the whole thing isn't designed for a burger and completely fell apart when trying to eat it as a burger. Maybe four toothpicks in it next time will hold it all together. So, a bit of a mixed bag and I think overall a 3, maybe a 3.5...

Being a brand new Nando's, I was expecting big things for the decor and layout - and although I wasn't bowled over, there are some good bits about this Nando's. There's a good mixture of seating (including tables outside) and lighting. Certainly the large three-tier red/yellow lantern in the front corner and the big batch of 50 or so metallic cones linked together are the best bits of the lighting. Several very large bright canvas paintings on the left and right walls, with patterned tiled walls where paintings are not present. Upstairs are the toilets and the stairwell has a nice photo of all the staff together. Toilets were very clean with black/white patterns on the walls and some red/white circular mirror frames. Overall a solid 4.

Staff were friendly enough and doing as expected.