Nando's, George Street, Oxford

‘You know what this is like?” Mr Greedy said raising his voice, the kids looking up in alarm. “It’s just like that garden shed we’ve just bought. You pay top whack for it and then you have to build it and paint it yourself, and by the time you realise you’ve been conned and it’s not what you thought it was, it’s too late,” he objected as he peered at his food, disappointed.

It was a good point and I could see where he was coming from, but what did he expect? Nando’s is where the teens come to eat in droves. It’s a notch above KFC and judging by the queues of people waiting for tables enormously popular. Put it this way if you’ve got feathers, the Swedish chef in the Muppets would be a better bet.

“Mum come on, this food is sick (that’s good in teen speak)” they implored, seeing the panic in my eyes, wanting me to enjoy myself and stop staring like a vegetarian in an abattoir, because having given them a choice of where to come for dinner, Nando’s was it.

And if you can’t beat them join them, so we had, being shown to our table at the George Street branch where the menus were explained by our waiter. I say waiter, but as you have to order your own food at the counter, it’s a bit of a false economy.

And with menus more complicated than the new benefit system, my brain hurt trying to work out what was even on offer. It was like navigating my way through maths GCSE all over again because you can have burgers, pittas or wraps five ways with varying combinations of sides, fino (posh) sides and chilli strengths. There is also peri- peri-chicken as butterfly or chicken wings, platters, specials, veggie burgers and salads, all in endless choices and sizes. And they weren’t cheap. The double chicken wrap with two sides for example coming out at £13.25.

I just couldn’t cope. Even choosing a drink was difficult. Did we want the bottomless Coke, my teens asked hopefully, which was the equivalent of offering an alcoholic free whisky. Whatever! I was past caring.

The Nandinos menu, complete with colouring sheet and crayons, was similarly complicated with a spice Peri-ometer to battle with, at which point my entire body gave up.

I was reminded of my father going to Burger King and declaring in astonishment that he was the only person in there wearing a tie. But reluctantly, after half an hour of negotiations which made the Irish peace process look simple, Mr Greedy finally trundled up to the counter, requiring the memory of an elephant studying probabilities at Oxford University, to answer all of their questions accurately, coming back scratching his head, £60 down.

Luckily we weren’t alone; I spotted several other tables of bewildered looking parents, but we were the minority, the predominantly young clientele being utterly at home here. Is this what it’s come to? I wondered, as the happy diners around us ate their orange food in apparent satisfaction.

“I went to a Nando’s in London 15 years ago and it was fine,” Mr Greedy reassured me, before adding wistfully “although they had table service back then.” There must be something in it though, I promised myself, for all of these people to be enjoying themselves, while noticing the lady next to me had left most of her meal on her plate.

When our food arrived, my burger was so lukewarm it was hard to tell if it had been cooked at all and I sent it straight back. It then re-emerged at the same temperature ten minutes later and I gave up. Neither did it have the necessary sides they’d insisted on, the waiter returning with the peri-peri salt pot, shaking it on by hand.

So I ate my medium-spiced lukewarm burger complete with one lettuce leaf and a slice of tomato, accompanied by some limp chips, a tasteless piece of corn, and some utterly unimpressionable coleslaw, and thought of England.

The kids, now on their 10th Coke were ploughing through their chicken, as hyperactive as Barbara Cartland at a pink doll festival, but it was all hard work. Even the cordial came in little bottles so you had to fetch the accompanying water at the work station which supplied ketchup, napkins, salad dressing, water, drinks and so on, meaning sitting down was a luxury. In fact, I probably burned off the calories I ate just through the sheer hard work involved in the Nando’s experience.

And I suddenly realised what Nando’s reminded me of; having to scan your own supermarket shopping at those new machines, when deep down in your soul, you know you’re being done. I’d rather queue or go to a restaurant with a proper waiter and proper food. Life’s too short.

Even Mr Greedy wasn’t enjoying himself: “I don’t know why people bother. The chicken is dry, the chips are soggy, it’s mainly cold and I’m £60 down. Plus the garlic bread isn’t garlic bread at all but individual burger buns,” he said holding them up for inspection.

And as we left, we exchanged glances and universally acknowledged, in that split second, several moot points. We were too old; too old to serve ourselves, too old to eat orange food and drink enough carbon dioxide to float like the BFG, too old to get up and down like Yo-Yos and certainly too old to understand what was going on.

In fact, my children will be delighted to hear that this was my first and last time at Nando’s, rendering it the one place I’m happy to leave to their generation, along with Instagram, Spotify, and acne. Sorry Nando’s: I just didn’t get it.

Nando’s
77-79 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2BQ (and also 80 Cowley Road, East Oxford, OX4 1JB)
01865 727465 www.nandos.co.uk

Opening times: Monday to Saturday 11am-11pm, Sundays 11am-10pm
Parking: Nearby Worcester Street car park
Make sure you try the... Wing roulette — dare to share 10 wings in a variety of peri-peri heats £9.65
In ten words: I’d leave it to the next generation— they know better