A Year of Nando's

The next post in our London recaps was supposed to be about our visit to Nando's Peri-Peri, our fourth visit to a Nando's in 2015 while on vacation. Unfortunately we haven't gotten around to recapping any of the other Nando's visits, so any comparisons we would make between the restaurants in London and the States would have no context whatsoever. Considering that, and also the fact that the next post in our Savannah recaps was also supposed to be about Nando's, we thought it was best to just put them all together in one post and take you through our year of Nando's.

Visit #1: Woodbridge, Virginia (Savannah road trip)

We had known about Nando's Peri-Peri for a long time before we ever tried it. Founded in South Africa, Nando's is a fast casual restaurant serving grilled chicken (and other stuff, but the draw for most people is the chicken) with peri-peri sauces, flavors that originated from Portugal and Mozambique. Nando's only recently expanded to the US, with locations in Virginia, DC, Maryland, and Chicago. Unfortunately they don't yet have one in New York, but that was why we definitely wanted to try some on our way to Savannah.

A got the half chicken, medium spiciness, with macho peas ("rugged pea mash with whole peas, parsley, mint and chilli" according to the menu). The chicken was very moist except for a few sections of the white meat which was a bit on the drier side. The sauce had a good amount of heat that didn't overpower his senses, and the peri peri seasoning added a nice floral hint. The macho peas were very tasty. They had a good bit of heat to them, and our guess was that they included the same chilli as their peri peri seasoning in them. The mint and parsley added a nice herbal freshness to the dish as well.

M got the sandwich called "Nandocas choice" which made her top 10 list that year. The sandwich was a chicken breast topped with cole slaw on buttery garlic bread. It was really, really good. She thought that the flavor of the chicken itself might have been a little bit better on A's regular flame grilled chicken, but all together, this combination was great. Can't really go wrong with a sandwich built on garlic bread.

Visit #2: Hanover, Maryland (Savannah road trip)

We liked Nando's so much on our first visit, just like we thought we would, that we also got lunch at one of the Maryland locations on our drive back home. The Hanover location was in the Arundel Mills mall not too far from our hotel, so it was our last real meal on the trip (if you don't count rest stop fries). We thought the Virginia location was a little better as far as organization and layout, but we really didn't care because we were eating delicious Nando's chicken.

The first time we got the chicken, we didn't add much seasoning or extra sauce to it, because we wanted to taste it right out of the kitchen with the flavors it was supposed to have. This visit, we experimented more with the sauces, especially the wild herb and garlic, which we liked even more mixed together. The garlic herb peri-peri sauce was our favorite on its own. We love garlic, and this had a really good garlicky flavor to it. The wild herb peri-peri sauce had a good flavor to it, but it just wasn't as good as the garlic herb. Together they formed a great, balanced sauce.

A wanted to kick things up a bit so he got the half chicken, hot spiciness, with corn. The chicken was similar, moist but with a few dry spots in the white meat, and the hot sauce was good and hot, but it was, for the most part, the same chicken he had on the way down. The corn was nice. He had seen a bunch of people ordering it on our first visit so he wanted to give it a try. It was really just a grilled ear of corn, but it was sweet, and the char on the corn gave it a nice smokiness. M isn't as big a fan of corn on the cob, but she thought it tasted good from the little bit she tried.

For her meal, M got a chicken breast (medium) sandwich with arugula, tomato, pickled onion, and peri-peri mayo, with sides of macho peas and fries. These were the same two sides that we had gotten in Virginia, and they were both good. As for the sandwich, it was fine, not as exciting as the Nandocas choice, but the chicken was really good. That said, M still thought A's chicken was better so she decided she would ditch the sandwiches and get regular chicken whenever we were lucky enough to go to Nando's again.

Visit #3: West Loop, Chicago (Great Lakes road trip)

The first Nando's in Chicago opened in spring of 2015 in the West Loop, and once we learned that, we knew where we absolutely had to go during our time in Chicago over the summer. This location was a little different from the other two we had been to, in that it wasn't located in a mall or shopping development, but just a regular neighborhood restaurant. We were really excited to see if anything was different about the Chicago locations, but they were mostly the same. The Chicago one did have better decor though.

A got a half chicken, hot spiciness, with peas and Portuguese rice. The flavor of this Nando's was just as good as before, but the chicken size was much smaller. The peas were tasty like last time, and the rice had really good flavor. We also used the garlic and herb sauce like last time and it was just as delicious.

M got a quarter chicken, medium spiciness, white meat, with coleslaw and garlic bread as sides. The garlic bread was delicious, even if garlic bread is the type of thing we could probably make it at home. The coleslaw was really, really good and better than M remembered from before. With the sides she picked, it was like she could make the Nandocas choice sandwich all over again if she really wanted to, selections which weren't intentional but perhaps subconscious.

Visit #4: Shepherd's Bush, London (2015 vacation)

Our stomachs weren't feeling particularly great after our pie and mash and jellied eels lunch, so we thought the best thing to do was to grab some Nando's for dinner. Grilled chicken sounded like it would be nice and calming. There were two Nando's locations not too far from our hotel, including one a little more conveniently located at the Westfield mall. (You might remember the mall from our first day visits to Square Pie and Pho.) The Nando's at the mall wasn't in the takeaway food court, but in a section with other restaurants. When we got there and saw the line, we were alarmed to see it stretching out of the restaurant and around a corner. The mall was packed, but it was a Tuesday night so we really weren't expecting it to be so crowded. (We kept forgetting it was half term.)

Since that wasn't going to work, we left the mall and walked over to the other Shepherd's Bush location, which had free tables and very little line. It was nice being in a place where there was more than one Nando's within walking distance.

M got a half chicken, medium spiciness, with garlic bread and coleslaw, pretty much the same thing she got in Chicago. She got a half so that A could eat some of the dark meat, since she was planning to eat mostly white meat. The chicken seemed to be very similar to the ones we got in the States, and it was nice to see that the quality was consistent. Both sides were good, but the garlic bread wasn't seasoned as much and didn't have the garlic spread to the edges, so it wasn't quite as good as the ones we had had previously. It was probably healthier that way, but M likes garlic bread with lots of butter and garlic on it. It was a nice, solid dinner that M really hoped would soothe her stomach and erase all memories of jellied eels.

A got the chicken livers which we both knew he was going to get as soon as we looked at the English menu. The chicken livers aren't on the American menu, and that's a real shame. The chicken livers came with a Portuguese roll and he got a side of fries. We couldn't pinpoint exactly what they used to cook the chicken livers, but they were so good. Looking at the Nando's recipes online before they were removed, it sounded like it was just butter and peri-peri sauce, but it tasted like something more than that. There was something familiar about it, but we just couldn't figure it out. We tried these on everything: plain, on the roll, on M's garlic bread, and even on the fries. It didn't matter how we ate them, they were just awesome. There was a little bit of a spiciness to the sauce as well as A ordered them with medium spiciness.

Dinner was really good. We were very glad that we had such a good, tasty dinner since lunch was not as good as we were expecting it to be.

After visiting Nando's four times in 2015, we haven't been to one since then, pretty much since they don't have one here in New York. When the day comes (hopefully) that they do open here, we will be so happy. It's the perfect fast casual type of spot - good flavorful food, no fuss, not too expensive. Nando's, please open in NYC, and if possible bring the chicken livers too!

Phillips Seafood

We stopped off at the Maryland House rest stop in Aberdeen, Maryland for a late lunch. It was always the plan to stop at one of the Maryland rest areas since they looked nice and renovated and like they had a lot of options for lunch. We were pretty impressed by the exterior of the rest area, bright and shiny and new, but didn't take much time to look at it from outside since the wind chill was still unfortunately in the 20s. Way too cold.

There were some familiar chains at the rest stop, stuff like Nathan's, Wendy's, and Dunkin Donuts, but also some more unique spots, like Currito (looked similar to Chipotle) and Phillips Seafood. Although Phillips looked a little (a lot) on the pricey side, we decided to stop there. It would be a little bit of a splurge, but our thought was, "When in Maryland, get some crab!" A remembered stopping by for some chowder once before on a business trip, but this was our first time trying it together.

We ended up spending about $35 at Phillips for our lunch, which was more than we expected for some fast food, but we hoped it would at least be tasty. We only got 3 things, so that should give you an idea of how expensive Phillips is. We didn't even get some of the more expensive things, like the crab cake and crispy shrimp platter (which was $20.49) or the lobster roll (also $20.49) or the seafood sampler basket (that one was $21.49).

One of the no-brainer choices for us was the crab cake sandwich ($14.99), which was a soft bun topped with "Phillips' famous lump crab cake," lettuce, and tomato. The crab cake was a single crab cake ball, and it was so much smaller than either of us expected that it would be, no bigger in diameter than a ketchup packet. (We measured.) Our first thought was, "That's it? That's what we paid $15 for?" We were planning to share everything, so neither of us got very much crab cake at all.

The crab cake was okay, but nothing special. The first bites were a little fishy for both of us, but for me, that eventually subsided the more I ate, and for A, it got better with the addition of some tartar sauce. I added tartar sauce too, but that was less about fishiness and more because I just found the whole thing rather flavorless. We know they distribute their crab cakes widely in frozen departments, so someone must like them, but trying this one here, their famous one, for the first time really didn't make us want to go out and buy them. It was a little disappointing overall since the sandwich was so small and then the crab cake was just mediocre to us. The sandwich also came with some seasoned waffle fries, which were fine but literally a handful of maybe 6 fries total. They gave us more ketchup packets than they did fries.

The second thing we tried was the baked crab pretzel ($11.49). Just like the crab cake sandwich, this wasn't very large considering how much it cost. It was supposed to be one of those large, soft, doughy pretzels topped with some crab meat and cheese, and then baked until the cheese was melted and browned. In theory, it sounds like this should have been good. Sadly, it was also just okay.

When we cut it open to split, we thought that it looked more like a tuna melt on a piece of bread. The base was supposed to be a pretzel, but for the most part, it just tasted like a bready pizza. The pretzel as a whole wasn't anything special, the flavor came more from the cheese than the crab, and the best bites were when you got crab, cheese, and pretzel/bread together, which didn't happen as often as you would think since there were only bits of crab and they didn't cover the whole pretzel. For the amount we paid, we really thought there should have been more crab, more cheese, and more pretzel.

We also got the New England clam chowder ($6.49) which came with oyster crackers. This was the only bright spot of the meal. It wasn't absurdly overpriced like some of the other menu items (at least not compared to Manhattan prices), and it was actually really good. We found it both sad and amusing that a place which is supposed to specialize in crab had a better clam chowder than any of the crab items. Considering how cold it was outside, this chowder was exactly what we were looking for. In retrospect, we probably would have been happier if we both just got a cup of chowder and not all the other stuff.

The chowder was rich and comforting. There were clams, potatoes, celery, onions, bacon, and lots of cream. The only not so great thing about the chowder was that they topped it with a lot of Old Bay (of course, it's Maryland). It was fine mixed in, but A licked the chowder off the cover which had a disproportionate amount of Old Bay, which turned out to be a little too salty. Other than that, the chowder was good and definitely better than anything else we had eaten at lunch.

Considering the size of everything we ordered, we weren't really full when we left the rest stop, and A was actually still hungry, so it was a good thing that when we stopped off at Costco an hour or so later that they were offering tons of samples. We got some seven layer dip, Canadian bacon, cheddar cheese, shamrock ravioli with pesto, blue crab dip, tuna salad, clam chowder (yes, more), wild salmon, and cashew clusters, and felt so much better. Our curiosity about Phillips Seafood was certainly satisfied by this meal, even if our appetites weren't, so we probably will not need to stop by overpriced Phillips again. If we did get anything again, it would be chowder, just chowder.

The Failed Krumpe's Mission

After we left Harrisburg and had a delicious lunch in Carlisle, it was time to head west for the rural southwestern portion of Pennsylvania. Neither of us had ever been before but we had plans to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's amazing Fallingwater and some of the other parks in the area. To get there, we decided to drive through northern Maryland, since it didn't take much more time than the PA Turnpike and unlike the turnpike, there were no tolls. The drive took us near Hagerstown, Maryland, and we decided to take a side trip into Hagerstown to get some donuts at a place I'd read about online. Getting off the road and "wandering" is often one of the nice things about road trips, and we hoped to take advantage of this in Hagerstown.

People said Krumpe's Do-Nuts were some of the best they'd ever had in their lives. Bold statement, but we wanted to check it out for ourselves. I had read that they opened at 7, so we hoped they would still have a good selection by the time we got there. We were very excited when we finally saw DoNut Alley (the donut shop is located in the alley off the regular street) and hoped there wouldn't be much of a line.

When we got there, it was completely empty. It also looked closed. We were confused. We couldn't be the only people at such a popular donut shop, and they shouldn't be closed up already.

Then we saw the hours on the door. They opened at 7 PM, not 7 AM. I guess I didn't see that in my research. Either that or I just assumed donuts --> donuts and coffee --> open at 7 means open in the morning.

Sadly our visit to Hagerstown left us with no donuts. It was also just one in a string of failed places and/or setbacks on our exhausting drive from Carlisle to Uniontown (pouring rain driving out of Pennsylvania, various parks that weren't where they were supposed to be according to their addresses, getting stranded in front of a private road in West Virginia by Google Maps who expected our car to take the private road to the river and swim across the river to connect to the highway, and many more). After all that wasted time, we decided to stop taking detours for the day and just drive straight to Uniontown. Maybe someday we'll get to try Krumpe's!

Next Stop Maryland

Four years ago today, we were on a weekend trip in Baltimore, indulging in an epic crab feast (and a baseball game). I was going to reminisce and post about that today, but then thought, why not just write about the whole trip instead of just all that crab?

We left for our weekend trip on Friday evening. On the drive down, we stopped for a quick dinner at the Molly Pitcher rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, which has one of the few remaining Roy Rogers locations in our area. What's the best thing about Roy Rogers? The curly fries! I have no idea why other fast food places won't serve curly fries. They're so much better than regular fries.

A got a roast beef sandwich. He likes roast beef sandwiches, but not many fast food places have those either. (Arby's does, but we don't really have Arby's nearby either.) He added some horseradish and BBQ sauce to his sandwich. A wishes more places served roast beef sandwiches since they're so tasty when slathered with that horseradish sauce.

I got the Gold Rush chicken sandwich, which was basically a crispy chicken sandwich with cheese. It looks bare, but Roy Rogers has a toppings bar where you can add things like onions. Guess I didn't take any pictures of our sandwiches after we put toppings on them.

We didn't stay in Baltimore proper because the hotel rooms were way too expensive (even on Priceline) and all booked up (thanks, Red Sox fans!). So we ended up staying out near BWI. Once we got there, it was time for a second dinner (or a late night snack) near our hotel. There wasn't much there but Chili's, so we went there to meet some friends and watch the Blackhawks game.

We started with some drinks. A got a beer and I got a pomegranate margarita. 

After flipping through the menu, we couldn't resist the Texas cheese fries with chili. Lucky for us (and somewhat surprisingly), the fries actually resembled the droolworthy photo from the menu.

The skillet had cheese fries topped with their "famous" chili, jalapeños, green onions, and applewood smoked bacon, with a side of jalapeño-ranch dressing. From what we remember, these were tasty. Completely unhealthy, but good. I hope we got a half order...

We apparently also ordered the bottomless chips and salsa.

We must have been really hungry after our drive if we got this on top of the cheese fries. Maybe we got them to share with our friends. My web album caption says we got refills so it had to be one of those two reasons. It's been four years, so we have no idea. They were just chips and salsa though. Nothing special.

We were really excited to finally be out of town, even if just for the weekend. After a night's rest, it was off to the crab feast!