Oxford - Westgate - Ryan Review

Stopped into this new Nando's on my way back to Brum. It's located in the brand new Westgate shopping centre, which is certainly geared towards the higher end brands. There's a Curzon cinema due to open in November within the centre too. Oxford city centre is very small, so you have less than 10 minutes walk to the train station and to everything else, such as the Odeon etc. There is parking at the Westgate and it is worth checking the website first to see if parking is available. At the Westgate it is priced £3/1hr, £4/2hrs, £5/3hrs, £7/4hrs, £9/5hrs, £11/6hrs, £18/12hrs and £25/24hrs Mon-Sun (Evening tariff (5pm - 6am) £3.50). Oxford traffic can get quite busy, so the Park and Ride is always promoted. You can park here for £2 for the day and £2.80 return on the bus - or just have the 30 minute or so walk into the centre.

Arrived here at around 4pm and it was full with a 10 minute wait for a table. It started to clear very quickly and within 15 minutes the restauarnt was maybe just over half full. It's big and spacious, new restaurant with lots of large booths for groups. As you enter, there are three large green-backed round booths running towards the back each with a large green domed lampshade above them. At the back are four large square booths. There's two rows of table/chair seatting separated by metal sticks with yellow dome lampshades hanging off each of them. There's not much artwork on the walls but rather large triangular tiles in black/grey/red and green/yellow. Toilets are tiled in black and red and were very clean. All in all a good new Nando's.

There was a little queue to order the food - and the first meal in our party of two came in 33 minutes, with the second coming closer to 40 minutes after ordering. The serving hatch was rammed with plates and you could see plates piled on top of each other. It seemed all the meals were waiting for chips... I went for a half chicken, chips and rice and the chips were piping hot and crispy... but the chicken was rather dry and the rice had gone a little dry and cold - just because it had probably been sat on the side for a while. The portion size of all three was pretty standard - shame the chicken had been sat out for a while.

There was an abundance of staff and all doing as expected.