Nandos

I loooove Nandos. I remember when it first opened in NZ, back when I was in Intermediate, and I went there with my little south african friend and her family who were absolutely raving about how great is was. And I must say, that first visit got me hooked.
Offering primarily chicken dishes (but with a large veggie menu too — yay!), the most unique factor of Nandos is its signature peri peri — a type of Portuguese chilli which they make into seasoning and sauce. Peri peri accompanies almost every item on the menu in one way or the other and it’s the best, I think (I can never decide if their peri peri chips or LJ’s lemon pepper chips are the best on the face of the Earth). I can only vouch for the veggie items which are awesome — they all have a yummy vegetarian patty with salad and peri peri sauce, but presented in different ways (burger, pita, wrap etc). Simply awesome.
The Botany branch is my most visited, simply because I go to Botany the most out of the three main malls in South and East Auckland. They have a nice covered outdoor area to eat in, as well as a large indoor area, which tends to get full quite quickly.

I was a fan of Nandos when I lived in the UK and I also like it here. Their chicken is always cooked to how I like it — lemon and herb that is, I am not a fan of super hot peri peri sauce. You can order some corn on the cobs on the side which they also chargrill and it’s lovely with some salt, pepper and butter. The chicken is good quality and is usually nice and moist — nothing as bad as dry chicken! They also serve some good veggie options such as the pittas and you can get a healthy chicken salad if you are counting the calories. The chicken comes in quarter, half and full size. You would want to be a guts if you got through a whole chicken and the quarter size along with some sides generally fills me up. I have been going to Nandos for years now and I don’t think it has ever let me down.