Leicester - Freemans Park - Marc Joss Review

My first trip to Leicester was set up perfectly for a pre-match Nandventure with Leicester City's King Power Stadium just a short walk away. There was a long queue outside when we arrived which ended up taking around 15 minutes to infiltrate and be seated at a lovely, colourful booth just by the entrance.

The queue to order went quickly and although I was not warned during my order, other members of my group were informed of a likely 40-minute wait for food. The restaurant was completely full, but surely 40 minutes is still excessive? We all trudged to the drinks station to claim our cutlery and sauces only to find a grand total of zero forks, two knives and no Extra Extra Hot peri-peri sauce in sight. There were about 5 bottles of sauce in total on display so it was either a case of a severe shortage of sauce or the restaurant was understaffed and bottles were generously scattered all over the place. Oh dear! Given the expected wait I didn't think it was a big problem as there was plenty of time to find my required peri-peri complements.

I managed to grab a frantic Nandoca's attention who was passing by and requested some of my beloved sauce. He seemed skeptical about my chances, but eventually returned with a bottle of extra extra hot sauce to my delight. The food arrived in dribs and drabs with a good 10 minute interval between the arrivals of the first and sixth meals. My mayonnaise didn't arrive with my food which caused further delay in the generation of my own perinnaise. To my bewilderment when the mayonnaise was kindly brought over, my efforts to pour extra extra hot sauce into it were brutally thwarted by the fact that the bottle was completely empty! The Nandoca did bring me the requested bottle, but it was lacking the requested sauce, disaster!

Given the time constraints (around half an hour until kick off) and my lengthy chicken destruction techniques, I deemed it pointless to ask a Nandoca for some actual extra extra hot sauce as the idea was to chow down on the food and head over to the ground as fast as possible. To make matters worse, my halloumi cheese was completely burnt. As for the chicken, it had clearly been sitting under the hot plate for a while as most of the sauce was dried up and it was not at all spicy. Peri chips could have done with some more peri salt too.

All in all, a disappointing visit mainly caused by the chaotic nature of matchday. The restaurant does have a nice feel to it but if this is the usual experience when Leicester are playing, choose your date of visit wisely!