Comments on: I Love Nandos

By: quisquis

quisquis — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:52:25 +0000

Well, I don’t know what they called it in your youth, but people who live there now call it Green Lanes.

By: Andrew Coates

Andrew Coates — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:38:24 +0000

Re: Green Lane. Yeah, well Place Clichy is referred to on maps of Paris as Place de Clichy. No-one calls it that.

Since I grew up in Wood Green maybe I should know about how people talk – not the maps.

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:46:19 +0000

Now that IS middle-class; going to a restaurant and having your achatina achatina’s cooked for you. Here in the real ‘hood you used to be able to buy them live and cook them yourself (before some New Labour busybody who probably spends too much time in South African chain-restaurants banned it anyway.)

By: Venichka

Venichka — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:18:29 +0000

Alan LOL – would you believe I’ve heard the same song sung about…Woolwich?

Anyway I’ve now concluded the theme of this post is utter bollocks – even if some of the boycotters appear to be utter smug [nasty people], I don’t see any objection whatsoever to those who don’t want chain stores or restaurants or bars invading their high streets – - more power to their elbow in fact, there’s too much of this “clone town Britain” thing about. Que vivent quality local, individual, family businesses, not impersonal international bit-part chains! France and (especially) Italy understand this far better than the UK does – - what a disgrace that we have so sold our souls to the satanic ideology of neo-liberalism!

Anyway, if you don’t want to be surrounded by ponces (either of the sort who despise chain businesses, or those who are attracted to them in an épater le green-voting bourgeoisie sort of way), you shouldn’t live in Stoke Newington!

By: alan

alan — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:33:14 +0000

There used to be an African restaurant in New Cross called 2000 AD. I served snail. None of your namby pamby escargot mind, but those big African snails – tough as shoe leather and competely tasteless.
It was the kind of place where they ask what starch you want first – cassava, pounded yam or maize, and then ask what meat you want.

You only get that kind of gritty authenticity and masochism in middle class places.

By: alan

alan — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:28:25 +0000

Graham,
I went into a pub in New Cross once and saw the Millwall slogan behind the bar: “Nobody likes us and we don’t care”. Outside somebody was singing “New Cross, New Cross, so good they named it twice, New Cross, New Cross, the mugging and the fights.”

I assumed it was all middle class irony.

By: Sue R

Sue R — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:24:42 +0000

Green Lanes connects the village greens of Stoke Newington, Turnpike Lane (Ducketts Common), Wood Green, Palmers Green, and Winchmore Hill. It was a pilgrim route in days gone by, to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, and a droving road from Norfolk to Smithfield. I’ve never eaten at Nando’s although I have often wanted to. I remember a South African restaurant in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, where we had several family holidays, which served such exotic meats as crocodile. Does this Spurs place serve up that kind of thing?

By: Venichka

Venichka — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:45:49 +0000

“Green Lane” (singular, never referred to as “Greek Lane”) could refer to the road between Ilford and Beacontree Heath…I suspect there may be others. We’re not all north londoners you know

By: Dave F

Dave F — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:34:02 +0000

How can you compare KFC to Nando’s? The colonel’s stuff is colourless, tasteless and ordourless. I am not too keen on very spicy foods, not with an acid reflux affliction, but I had a Nando’s chicken takeaway at a Newlands test match once and found it pretty appetising. American fast food chains like KFC and McDonald’s are selling rock-bottom product. Bottom-line cuisine.

I had no idea South Africa’s traditional fast food restaurants had opened up UK fronts. Shows how long it is since I lived in London.
Ironically, although Spur initially wiped the floor with McDonald’s when the golden arches arrived post-apartheid (Big Mac couldn’t compete with the weighty burgers of 100% top-grade minced beef), it lost the marketing fight for the kids market. But it seems to be bouncing back.

By: hasan prishtina

hasan prishtina — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:20:39 +0000

‘Posh’ in Catford would be somewhere like The Ram. The Litten Tree and Yates’s are two pub brands that make Wetherspoons look like Claridge’s. When I used to work in Staines, there was a Litten Tree where the police used to park a van at closing time on Friday and just fill it up with the patrons of the pub.

BTW, has anyone ever eaten at Salt and Pepper on Stoke Newington Church Street? I mean, anyone?