Watford - High Street - Blaynos Review

Had free tickets to the Watford-Boro match on Easter Monday so headed to this branch after. Incidentally, at the game itself, Barci made an appearance, raced (and lost) in a giant egg and spoon race against Harry the Hornet, and was giving out sweets and vouchers for free half chickens (or equivalent) to be used at the Watford Met branch... but only valid from the following day. Figuring that a fair few fans might head to that branch mistakenly thinking they could redeem the voucher, we went to the other branch in town (and I can't remember whether I've been to it before or not).

It's on a pedestrianized part of town with plenty of shops and restaurants in the area and the Harlequin/Intu shopping centre a few minutes away (and, indeed, about 10mins from Vicarage Road). Watford High Street and Junction stations are near enough and there's plenty of paid parking, especially in the multi-storeys. There were a handful of tables outside and a couple were being used on a pleasantly warm afternoon but we went inside. I actually made a point of remembering the Nandoca's name who greeted us when we entered and did a great job throughout but my memory fails me as I write this! He'd get a 5/5 but the rest of the staff get a 3 (at best). He quickly spring cleaned a table for us while we went straight to the tills to order.

Pretty busy given a bank holiday Monday but only one till was open initially, although this was thankfully soon rectified. Went for butterfly chicken and peri chips - criminally forgot to get halloumi! Pretty disgruntled to realise that prices have gone up - especially given inflation is zero (granted, that's not unique to this branch, I don't hold it against them in particular!). I give it 4/5 for decor, high ceilings for a more traditional branch and a decent range of seating, including thatched booths on a slightly raised level towards the back. Couple of gripes would be that the drinks station and sauces aren't in the same spot and, for quite a large branch, they could be bigger. It's also quite a dark branch.

Food came, and both me and my mate ordered the same thing - but curiously one of the burgers was minus a tomato slice... We also told the waitress serving us that I had the non-mayo one, but she proceeded to mix them up in any case. I smothered by burger in more sauce and it was just a solid effort, 3, 3.5ish. Chips were poorly and irregularly salted and brought the score down.

I've got about ten days to visit the Met branch to claim my free half chicken but it's still a £5 minimum spend so very 50/50 as to whether I'll bother going up to claim it.