Nando's
Nando's is all about chicken, lots of chicken, and all of it flame-grilled. There is a real danger that the word 'chicken' may lull you to sleep by sheer force of repetition by the time you finish reading the menu.
Nando's is comparatively expensive: not the sort of place that you want to be eating at regularly on your average lunch budget, but still, it is good for a change of pace.
Here are my finds:
Chicken Breast in Pita - good combo of spicy chicken with a salad, nicely packaged in a little pita bread pocket that handles very well on the move.
Grilled chicken Wrap - Chicken, salad and some sort of nice condiment, wrapped up and very portable for lunch on the run.
Grilled chicken livers - excellent, always excellent; particularly excellent with the hottest basting. (not pictured)
Corn (side-dish) - this stuff is probably genetically engineered to the hilt, but it is the sweetest, softest, juiciest corn on the cob available anywhere in Suva. Basted with a sauce of your choice (I like 'Lemon & Herb' or the 'Mild' Peri-peri) and then flame-grilled.
The other usual suspects like burgers, chips, and various degrees of whole-grilled chicken are available as well, all basted in the 'secret' sauce ... which I think consists mainly of bird's-eye chilli and a tangy vinegar base - good stuff!
Nando's has two locations in Suva, both with identical menus. Both have shockingly bad parking arrangements, so you're best sticking to the one closest to you and walking. The eat-in and takeaway crowds are both accommodated, but eating-in gives you a slightly wider range from the menu, and they're 'licensed'.
I hadn't really given much thought to takeaway wrappings/packaging until Nando's came along. Their packaging has actually been designed by people that eat take-out food: properly sized, grease-proof bags you can eat out of without descending to the level of a kindergarten picnic.
In Summary
- Nando's
- Regal Lane, or
- Laucala Bay Rd
- Opening Hours:
- Lunch & Dinner, 7 days a week
- Spend:
- $7 - $15 per person
- Verdict:
- Thumbs-up
27 comments:
I noticed that they do not clean the grill after grilling chicken to grill corn. Damn! I could live on corn.
The atmosphere is not that of a "fast food" place which is nice, and they were considerate enough to have a vegetarian menu. I called them up and a very friendly person answered the phone, I asked "Do you have vegetarian food?" he replied "Yes maam, we sure do!". I was amazed, he went on saying "We love vegetarians, our chickens are vegetarians!" LOL
Vege menu- the Vege Pita is more value for money.
-Vegetarian
One note regarding location. The Laucola Bay Nandos was robbed last week by a group of men who stormed in at dinner time, bashed a few diners on the head and stole their money as well as money from the shop.
They've since added a few more security guards but at this time, I think it's unsafe at nightime since it's so easy to access then get away.
Downtown is much more enclosed and safer until the army gets back onto the streets.
Lunchtime, however, is good at either spot.
Food is tasty enough, but it just doesn't do well enough on the old price-performance curve.
Good place to take the kids, much better than the usual alternative of fucking Maccas. You can fill the kids up with slightly healthier food and have a beer or three (which always makes children more bearable).
Otherwise, if your by yourself or with adult company, give the place a miss.
"our chickens are vegetarians" LOL! That person deserves a raise XD
Never really been a big Nandos fan coz their chips aren't that great, the periperi sauce has too much lemon and salt for my liking and lastly but definitely not the least, their prices! It's almost like...an up-market fast food joint, something I don't really believe in XD
Well its good to hear that people like this place, I did as well until I came across this horrifying experience. I went to lunch at their Laucala Bay outlet with a friend of mine and while we were placing our order, a waiter was seen going around with a black garbage bag showing something to diners.
When he reached our table, he started explaining how he just got fired on the spot by management just because he objected to and did not want to participate in cooking the chicken that he was holding in the garbage bag....which when he opened to show us, had this very disturbing stench coming out!!! my friend and i almost puked!
Everyone started leaving, some had eaten already while others refused to pay. We tried to get hold of the manager to ask what exactly happened and if it was true that they were trying to cook that rotten chicken, but he/she wouldnt come out.
They finally closed the restaurant for the day!
Talk about service!
Omg! Is that for real! EEK. I wonder how the guy actually managed to take the bag around :) I would have thot the security would have got to him first.
Anyways, that employee deserves a good job and a hug.
-Vegetarian
Food is great with any of the available sauces, love the peri-peri mayonnaise always buy a bottle whenever i am there..(which is once a month) great with any type of meat or goes well with salads.
I LOVE your site!!!
It's really great that such a site exists and I can finally get an idea of where to eat next (I'm just like Picky Eater and have trouble going into dingy restaurants where the order of the day involves hot-cat-soup or fried-dog-stirfry).
Could you guys do Old Cottage next??? I reckon it's a really nice place and go there often... but I'd love to know what your opinion is about this restaurant!!!
haahah nice going blog about nandos..i have had sum funny experiences with nandos. the major problem there is customer service..once we all went as a big family group for dinner at nandos. we ordered drinks and the waitress came and delivered the bottles of drinks on the table. than she left, we wre tinkin that she might be getting the glasses prety soon.we waited for lik 5mins and than we had to call the waitress as there was no service provided to us. We had to tell the waitress to get glasses and she barely had any knowledge that she had to provide glasses along with the drinks. the nxt moment she gets the glasses and to our surprise the glasses wre damn "warm"..i guess wat she did was get da glases directly from the dishwasher. who wud wana drink in a warm glass????/..another experience was when i went with my friends at nite to nandos alil afta 9am. we all sat down and were waitin for our orders , while we wre waitin we saw da MANAGER on duty going to the sound systema and turnin sum music on. the music was at a moderate volume for lik 3mins than the next moment the manager goes and increases the volume and it was so loud that it was so unpleasing to our ears. we signalled to the manager to lower the volume and he did it. after a few minutes the manager went and increased the volume again. damn that dude didnt undastand what the customers were wanting. we signalled again to lower it but infact the manager made it even louder.fianly wen we told him that we want music but cud u please decrease it.the manager said "certainly" and went and decreaed da volume fully and we barely cud hear anyting and from a distance he signalled "asking if the volume is okay now".. me and our friends laughed amongst ourslfs and than told the manager that yeh it is prety much ok now.lol .
Finally to end my post i would lik to say that yeh once at a dinner out at nandos , we had the food items delivered to our table which we had ordered. After the food arrived on our tables we had to wait for the plates to come, we all waiited for like 15mins still no plates arrived on the table. than finnaly when we had no patience we had to call the waitress and told her off abit for not geting the plates on time and the food was just geting cold without any1 getin an opportunity to eat it. Most of the times i experience geting cold food at nandos, it seems they give food which has been cooked earlier and just deliver it to the customers tables after a basic eta time of 15mins.Upon my knowledge i feel nandos food shud take atleast 30mins for a nice delicious meal Guess nandos in suva is prety much advanced and end up cooking menu items pretty much before estimated time. lol.Ive had i had nandos before in nz and id say the quality is hella good..i mean its hot ..like start from the oven....HAHAHAH..oi lei nandos fiji!!!!!
hi,
the size of the chicken gets smaller and its not even worthwhile anymore. even a family feast is not enough for two people.
as for the chips and other sides, well dont you think the amount has decreased.
if you cant provide a good service nor good quality and quatity food, dont bother opening another branch as fiji people are not dumb.
why dont you ask how MONTHS it took for the suva branch to get a liquor license.
so agree with evry comment
im glad a blog bout nandos is on the internet. well i wudnt speak much bout the restaurant in this but wud focus more on the owners who are runing this franchise.as all of u mite be knwing this is run by the most well known business family in fiji Damodars Brothers. once at a family get together at their plce...evry invited guest were just given a piece of a wing and just a rib..a piece of wing and rib is wat u wud feed to a 2yr old kid and dat much wud stil not be sufficient enuf for him/her. well afta evry1 had finishd up their two wonderful pieces of chicken , we werent even asked if we would like to have more. there was not even a single word of courtesy.well wel in all i just wana say that as you can see the overall nature of the family , how can one expct to run the franchise of nandos..it wont be long till i guess this busines wil flop..haha in time to cum, one mite hav to buy family meal just to fill in a stomach of one person. at present family meal aint even enuf for 2 pple , one can sumwat judge how it wil be inda future.All the best Damodar Family !!!!
i couldnt agree more with the latest comment about the damodar family...stingy ppl...n always been...real rich but still u'll see the owner askin money from other ppl...ahh wellllllz thats that
Nandos - the day it opened, I was curious to see just how good this place was. Maybe it was time for a change. THe taste was good, the service was ok (very much at the start) and the chicken was real nice...probably because it was on the house......A little while later, after a good impression of the place, I returned to find its prices so ridiculous - Gosh, I wouldn't pay that much for such meals....If the incidents were true about the rotten meat, then I guess, the place has just come off my list.Yeeeeewwwww.....!!!!
ystedy we(grup of friends)decided to hav our lunch in nandos(town) n since there were 2 veges with us they ordered 2 vege roll, i was very surprised to hear that there was only 1 vege roll in stock,i thought in my mind,dont these people hav proper stock control system.watta slack management.moreover a order was being clearly been placed n 1 of the staff missed out on 1 of the persns meal.morelike she didnt record it when the order was being narrated.futhermore,just 1 more complain heheh, a guy from our grup ordered a chicken burger ,n when he opens up the bun, the size of the chikcen is sooooooooo!! small, seems lik the bun was way bigger.
I love Nandos..... I know it took time for them to get there but they did... fiood is really nice, service is fa more better den Mac Donalds, KFC etc. Thats why they are very busy most of times.
They are unique restaurant..... we to become health conscious .... then we love Nandos.
Only thing poeple of fiji lacks knowledge about nandos.
good work guyssssss keep it up
Sometimes they are out of stock of corns, veggi items because they ont produce they get it from overseas, its imported.... we hardly can find any in Fiji corns and geggi patties.
Nandos is the best.... they believe in best and good food... and best service. Small things are bound to happen when you are busy but its ok ... it doesnt change the fact.....
currently I am working in KFC and I have worked Mac donalds, the way they keep products disgusting... chickens are frozen expired, the use old oils... yerrrk, I would like to join Nandos ... I have seen they are best... quality is their motto... please I would like to join Nandos
They keep running out of chickens by 7pm lol even tho the place is slack hehehe
i have experience it 3 times in 2009
The food is great!I would prefer a sauce that is hot but not that hot!
Like me, a lot of pipal do not or rather ca not eat spicy food.
Customer service is really vital as well. My friends went to the one at Laucala.Service was good but the waitress couldnt stop staring at us!why?becoz we werent dressed all formally. It was casual Saturday lunch!comeon!
I have been to Nandos at Suva Point many times now, including yesterday (30/6/09), but not sure if I will go again. The shop is looking rather scrappy now, and the yes, the chickens which are in the family Feast hardly feeds two persons. The chips were awfully soggy (obviously recycled, and perhaps the cooking oil not hot enough to make them crispy). The corn had run out (which I and others at home really like). The behaviour of the inside Security Guard was strange - the whole time I was waiting for my package, he just sat on the side bench totally engrossed in the magazines he was reading....no wonder this place got robbed some time ago!
Once upon a time the shop had nice magazines for waiting customers to read while waiting - all that I could so on the table yesterday some torn-off front pages of a well-worn Islands Business mag. and some other scrap paper; I spoke to the girl in the shop and suggested that they get rid of these torn papers, and get new ones.
The young lady in the shop was very nice and friendly, and 10 marks to her for being so polite, and friendly - but wow the Chief Management needs to take stock of the way this place is being conducted. I do hope that someone does read the comments that appear in this website.
John Bonato
LOL....I HAVENT EVEN tried nando's.....this blog is just too eff'n funny...seems to be more complaints then compliments....poor nando's...lmao
Customer service at nandos suva is absolutely pathetic. This has been the first and the last time i have been here. The staff need some classes in how to respond to the customers, disgusted by some of them.
dinner @ nandos LB
THE FOOD WAS NOT ENOUGH TO THE CUSTOMERS EXPERTATIONS COMPARED WHEN I USED TO LOVE NANDOS BEFORE I THINK BECAUSE OF THE CHANGING THE EXPERIENCE MANGERS AND TRAINING THE NEW PERSON TO LEARN ABOUT NANDOS HAHAHA THATZ FUNNY I WUD SAY..I REMEMDER THE TIME SAMEER WAS THE GM OF NANDOS THE FOOD AND THE STAFFS WERE REALLY FAST AND WE HAD THE FOOD DIRECT FROM THE GRILL TO PLATE OHH IT WAS! LOVLY YAAAAAR::::
y they have to take out the good staffs which were really pulling the customers,,,and bring the untrained staffs to spoil the nandos taste....
l love nandos bt now l dnt like the taste or dnt get the taste like b4 nor in lb or regal,
What are the opening times for Nandos in Suva city?
I jus took my family to nandos for lunch to laucala bay nandos ...first thg we waited for 45 mins for da meal.da waitres gav da food witout fork n knife.half way into our meal my dad found a uncooked piece of chickn wit blood inside...dat was da worst experience...pathetic nandos fiji
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