Elephant and Castle - Ryan Review

Brixton, Camberwell and now Elephant and Castle? I really do know how to live it up in style. Anyway, I really wanted to see this one, as I'd just read in the Standard that the night before a car had flipped into the subway of the roundabout - so it was like visiting a tourist spot.

This Nando's is right on the roundabout, which is a hop, skip and a jump away from the tube station. I went and had a walk through the shopping centre, but pretty soon walked back out... I did notice a bowling alley of sorts though.

Anyways, on into this Nando's and what a nice reception. A tall chap Peter was keeping some children entertained with his one man puppet show (with teddies) and then he saw me waiting at the door... He came over exclaimed "Welcome! Welcome my friend!" Gave a hearty handshake and then pulled me in for a hug. I was half expecting a kiss, which didn't happen - and luckily I didn't go in for one - and then I though I had better check my phone was still there... and it was. Turns out he was just being friendly! :-)

There is some seating outside, which is probably required a sit is a bit small inside. I was sat down the right hand-side (from the entrance) in one of the two-seater booths, which cuts you off a bit from the rest of the restaurant. Here the wall is covered in green/yellow/beige tiles and the lighting is mainly yellow/green/pink vases. The ceiling was clad with wood panelling throughout - and at the front in the windows, is the old style large Nando's chandelier. Toilets were downstairs and clean - but pretty standard decor throughout.

The food came in a very quick four minutes and this time I went for a half chicken and chips. Sadly, this was not a nice meal. The half chicken was very, very lean and very, very dry. It must have been in an oven for a long time. Even lashings of table sauce could not save the small amount of meat that was on it - it was a choke-inducing level of dryness. The chips were just as bad - uncooked, soggy with a hard inside. There were also no XXhot sauces, so I picked up the Xhot and had to swap it three times... The bottles must have been sat in the sun as the sauce had separated so probably the top quarter of the bottles was just a very runny and pale liquid. Unfortunately nobody came to check on me for during the meal either, so Peter's good work had been slightly undone.