Colchester - Damien Review

On a Tuesday night, The Nando’s Quest brought myself and three friends to Colchester for number 82. This was not my first visit to Colchester’s Nando’s, in fact, I’d say this is probably in my top three most visited (due to knowing locals). As it was rather late in the evening, we were able to park up for free on the nearby high street and simply walk over to the restaurant. We were greeted at the door and shown a table towards the middle-back of the restaurant (the tables beyond this were closed off and currently being cleaned and tidied, likely for a swift close).

I hadn’t been to Colchester Nando’s in almost two years, and nothing had really changed in my absence. The place is still a bit dingy, the upstairs loos are still a bit run-down, the service is still a bit slow and there are still lots of sauce bottles without lids. We each separately ordered our food. There were a few mess-ups at the tills. Namely a member of staff walking away before we received a drink that we’d purchased, nuts being forgotten and a mess up that meant a free quarter chicken being paid for. Each of these issues was addressed when highlighted by ourselves, but they do add up. Considering that the restaurant was almost empty with most other diners finishing up their own meals, we had a confusingly long wait for our food to start coming out. When it did all arrive though (with an extra portion of halloumi. Shush! Don’t tell anyone!), the quality more than made up for the wait. My extra hot chicken was as good as could be expected, and the halloumi was well grilled, but it was the veggie pittas that this place excelled at. My extra hot veggie was one of the hottest things I’d ever had at a Nando’s. Very satisfying! A friend with a medium veggie pitta also commented on it being particularly spicy.

After we’d all finished up, we were doing a bit of wrap-up filming (as we do), when a member of staff quite angrily came over and asked us what we were doing. I explained as she scowled at me like a headmistress. “WAIT THERE” she said, and stormed off to get her manager to see if we were allowed to be filming. Wait we did, and the manger eventually arrived and was lovely about it (though did not know of any Nando’s policy on filming). We gave her some useful feedback and popped over back to the car for our drive back to London. While Colchester Nando’s isn’t exactly cutting edge, it’s still one of the best places that I’ve eaten out in this old town, and with the KFC currently closed, where else do you plan to get your chicken fix?