Night out at Nandos Chicken Singapore

I was really excited to go to Nandos in Singapore yesterday evening but the night went awry.

When we entered the restaurant, they placed us right next to the kitchen. I wanted a change as smoke was just drifting out of the kitchen. We requested for a change in tables and were placed outside which was perfect for us. Then more trouble ensued as we watched the kitchen just fill up with smoke. A lot of it. The smoke was not dispersing and it even reached the tables outside. There was so much of it that Danjel promptly got us out of our table to stand away from it so that we could breathe.

At this point, you would think the management would shut the kitchen down, check on what orders were not grilled up, apologize to the guests and provide gift vouchers, etc. and get their employees out of there.

Guess what? They did not.

I noticed servers started telling people who have not ordered anything that they could not order anything because the kitchen would not be able to complete their orders. However, they did not tell us (and other customers near us) this and I assumed that perhaps our orders were already good to go. Yet when I peered in through the window, I saw that there were staff still attending to the grills. It wasn’t long before I saw a couple of female employees being assisted out because they had difficulty breathing. Another one was carried out because she looked like she had passed out.

Our chicken arrived which was delicious. Just how I remembered them from Vancouver.

I felt guilty eating it because these girls were just a couple of meters away from me having difficulty breathing and also compelled to finish my meal because they had gone to all that trouble. It was a mixed bag of emotions and very uncomfortable. The servers came round to apologize and to tell us that our meals were on the house. Well at least they did ONE thing right. (OK, two if you count the chicken)

The ambulance finally arrived, together with the fire trucks and police. The girls were taken to the hospital and they had to shut the joint down for the night.

I’m still reeling from this experience because it was appalling the lack of concern for the safety of their staff. Perhaps they were trying their best to peel them from the grills but nobody realized how dangerous smoke can be, I don’t know. Frankly I don’t care. Employee safety should be taken seriously and management should have been on the ball. It’s not excusable.

I’m so consumed by this experience that I can’t believe that I didn’t even bitch about the lousy server we had in this post. She was rude, and gave me coke light instead of coke zero! I hate coke light and I can taste the freaking difference! You don’t EVER pull shit like that. Did I mention she was RUDE? The other servers seemed nice enough though.

Here’s wishing Nandos Singapore all the best! I’m looking forward to dining there again and posting a better review. I love chicken at Nandos so I’ll probably be dining there again and I do hope that they will iron out the kinks soon enough! I Want them to succeed in Singapore so we'll have more Nandos outlets across the isle!