Enfield - Retail Park - Ryan Review

Arrived at this Nando's at about 4pm so there were lots of groups of screaming kids - but most of them left after 10 minutes... Nando's is in a building on the retail park with a Subway and Carphone Warehouse. There are hundreds of free spaces with up to 3 hours parking on the retail park - so probably one to get to by car - but it is also a a five minute walk from Soutbury train station. A Cineworld is on the other side of the A10 in Southbury Leisure Park.

You enter this Nando's in the front left corner with the tills just infront of you - and the restaurant then opens up to the right. Above the entrance area are a few brightly coloured lattice style shades too.

Pretty much the whole ceiling above all of the seating is a large wooden slat structure. There are some fake flower boxes with ivy and other plants within this wooden structure and also at the top of the windows. There is also some fake moss (or something) hanging down from some of the terracotta light shades near the front - but the rest of the lighting is pretty much hidden spotlights up above the wooden slat ceiling piece.

There's a big metal structure with wooden discs or something like that on top of a small wall which acts as a sort of separator between the front half and the back. In both sections the seating is mainly a set of banquettes running around the walls with tables/chairs off this, making the seating as a whole alittle bit tight. Some of them are brightly coloured others are just brown leather. A nice touch are the tables which have red patterns stenciled on them (to match those wooden disc things on the separator wall).

Most of the walls are a pinky/orange along with some rendered flower/spirograph patterns. A few canvas prints are here and there but otherwise lots of bare walls showing the pink, which is a bit of shame. The toilets (at the back) were best part - a bright yellow sink and mirrors surrounds with bright greeny and black/white patterned tiles and spotless. Overall it probably just about touches a 4.

The food came in 7 minutes and was very disappointing. I'd been given two two-thirds of a chicken breast for the burger, so I was very excited by the prospect of a sort of free upgrade... but both pieces were very thin and very, very dry - very chewy and even lots of table sauce couldn't add any moisture to them. I can see why one of them was given away for free! They were pretty much inedible - which is why I actually had some leftover chicken on my plate. I was in shock!! The slice of tomato was also very small and was smaller than one of the two-third size pieces of chicken. The chip potion was an average size but didn't taste properly cooked as many of them were soggy in the middle.

Staff were generally okay and would have been a 3 - except someone with a trainee top on took my cock away and later my plate without actually saying a word to check if things were okay. They also tok my glass away without asking - so had to get up and stop them... and even then, they didn't actually say anything. Maybe there was a language barrier...

Overall, a bit of a let-down this one as I had very high hopes.