In keeping with all Nando’s restaurants, the dominating colours were green and red and the décor very much all things chicken!
We helped ourselves to a table but realised very quickly that all meals had to be ordered from the take-away counter as there were no menus available.
So, up we went and had a look at the overhead display menu — all chicken!
As Nando’s is known for its Portuguese style chicken which is generally hot and spicy to even hotter, this was not a surprise.
Luckily there was a scale of “hotness” of the dishes from lemon and herb to hot peri peri.
My dining companions opted for the mild and hot peri peri chicken burgers.
Strangely, even when the waitress smiled at this order, they did not change from their chosen path but did ask if an ambulance was on stand-by!
Instead, she replied that all burger orders came with a choice of soft drink.
I ordered the only vegetarian dish as someone had to be conscious to carry on with our trip.
The sit down area of Nando’s is small but very cleverly designed so that each table has plenty of space and privacy.
The overall decor was art deco with huge lampshades and large bold print upholstery.
The most striking feature is that one wall is taken up by three enormous paintings of chickens.
Well, I could make them out in their various poses pretty quickly but the male component of my group, after a lot of head turning and squinting, finally got the “picture” and were suitably impressed.
Windows take over the wall facing onto the street and provide lots of wonderful natural light while the high bar counter along this wall is high enough to prevent you from feeling that passers-by are showing an interest in your choice of food.
A smiling waiter brought our order after a short wait, which proved to be too short as one of the burgers was cold and had to be returned to the kitchen for heating up.
The chips with the second burger were also not very hot in temperature.
My Portuguese salad was presented in the normal take-away plastic container which I thought lowered the standard a bit.
Some thought into presentation would go a long way to making this dish a bit more appetising. Iceberg lettuce, tomato and cucumber normally define a “green salad” so please Nando’s, add a bit of variety and I don’t mean the three very small olives that hid themselves cunningly among all the lettuce.
Despite these few hiccups, the burgers lived up to their Portuguese standard and the peri peri eaters were grateful for their soft drinks and chips.
We were almost about to leave when the waiter appeared and he did apologise for the delay, but if he had come a bit earlier to explain the problem we would have happily waited as our car was not yet ready.
Overall, Nando’s Kwekwe is a good place to break the Harare Bulawayo journey if you need to.
It’s clean and bright. All members of staff were cheerful and they know their stuff.
So, I hope that if you do stop at this Nando’s, your food will be hot and you may be lucky enough to have some croutons in your salad!
Speciality Restaurant
3 plates
Expect to Spend US$10 – US$15
Nando’s Kwekwe,
92 Robert Mugabe Way,
Kwekwe
Telephone: 055 25185
Something sweet after the hot peri-peri
The hot peri-peri eater then needed something sweet.
So I went back up to the counter to make a choice between the duo choc mousse and cheesecake .
The mousse won but unfortunately it was rather a disappointment as again the presentation lacked imagination and the chocolate flavour was bland.
However, it was cold and soothing. The cappuccino was hot and frothy but a bit on the weak side and had taken almost 15 minutes to get to the table.