Birmingham - New Street - Ryan Review

This Nando's is located right on the edge of Victoria Square where the Halifax used to be. This means it's only a couple minutes walk from New Street Station. Being a city centre, parking can be expensive. The further out you can park, the cheaper it is - and those that are well-signposted are the most expensive. For example, parking at The Mailbox is £2.50/1hr, £5/2hrs, £6.50/3hrs and up from there. Edgbaston Street is £1.50/1hr, £4/2hrs, £6/3hrs and up. New Street is £2.50/hr. If you are familiar to Birmingham and don't mind a 5-10 minute walk into the centre, then park over by Moor Street Station, where places like Coventry Street, New Canal Street and Bordesley Street offer 70p/hr up to maximum of £2.20 all day parking.

Being on the corner, it's pretty non-descript as you walk up New Street, but coming from Victoria Square, it's more striking. This Nando's is over two floors. There are mainly table/chair sets downstairs with a couple of booths underneath the stairs up to the second floor. Downstairs there's not too much by way of decoration - a nice wooden frame setup behind the sauce station Upstairs there are many, many more small paintings covering the walls. Toilets are upstairs and tiled in black and white patterns with a couple of funky lightshades by the mirror. Nothing spectacular in this Nando's.

Arrived here around 7pm on a Wednesday evening and it was pretty quiet. No wait to order and the food came in less than five minutes. Sadly, that wasn't a good thing. I had a half chicken with chips and rice. The chicken was rather lean with very little meat on it and it was also very dry - definitely been in the oven for too long. The chips were a very generous portion - large compared to many recent ones - but, although they were quite hot, every single chip was soggy. The rice was very dry and completely clumped together.

Staff were pleasant and doing as expected.