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With quality food, friendly staff, quick service and excellent value for money, Nando's is a great place to eat. Don't expect identikit, pre-fab restaurant interiors which are usually a staple of the larger chains; each restaurant is tailored to its local surroundings and customers, offering up a unique restaurant experience to go with the equally unique taste of legendary, Portuguese, Peri-Peri chicken.

Your peri-peri chicken, when the chips are down so to speak, is a fresh A grade chicken that has never seen the inside of a freezer, but having made the supreme sacrifice is butterfly-cut, marinated for 24 hours in a secret brew called - you've guessed - peri-peri, and is then cooked to your choice over an open flame.

There are, of course, many variations on this broad theme, numerous plays on words such as Nando's experi-perience, peri-peri good reasons why you should eat at a Nando's, and all one hopes is that for their sake chicken never goes out of fashion. New Nando's are opening all the time, peri-peri quickly in fact, the spicy bastes become hotter and more daring, and the full platter offers a whole chicken, large chips or spicy rice and Nando's salad or coleslaw.

Since chickens are vegetarian it seems logical you can order veggie or bean burgers and patties, and still feel the heat from the peppers. All in all, Nando's is hotly recommended for those occasions when you have a large following of permanently hungry children, or adults even, to keep happy - the only thing taken really seriously is the quality of those peri-peri good chickens

Nando's is a place for bright people who love to laugh and love to eat, and is guaranteed to spice up your taste buds. Their fun approach to life means that when you visit Nando's you can fully relax without the airs and graces associated with more starchy dining out.

For the location of your nearest Nando's restaurant and a host of details about menus, parties and drinks, a click on their Website will reveal a Pandora's box of information.

It always helps if a restaurateur is motivated by reasons other than monetary gain to start the enterprise. In Allso Thai's case, the inspiration is twofold, partly from the owner's mother who has always been interested in fine cuisine and from the need to provide North West London with sumptuous and truly traditional, hand made fare.

The surroundings are stylish yet understated. A varied menu of seasonal specialities is offered and their dishes are created from the freshest and most authentic of ingredients. Thai starters never fail to delight, some spicy hot and sour soup flavoured with lemon grass, limejuice, and ginger will provide a pleasing start to your meal.

Other choices might include phad Thai of fried noodles with shrimps, prawn tempura, zesty red and green curries, satay as well as stir-fries and salads. There is always a range of wines, beers, spirits and cocktails to complement the food.

Gana is a friendly little Sri Lankan café on the busy Ealing Road. The place is well known amongst the local population for cooking up good quality traditional Sri Lankan dishes in a relaxed atmosphere. Workers often pop by for a set lunch with dishes priced at just £3.95, making for a far more satisfying lunch than just a sandwich for not much more money. Evenings are a very laidback affair with dishes such as fish curries and what's known as string hoppers, a type of rice flour pancake. Not the kind of place to impress a date but it does act as an ideal stop off point to fill up before a night out or to grab a quick and inexpensive bite to eat on your way home.

Reviewed by Linda Buttle

Everyone knows that the Greeks are well schooled about having a good time and this fact is nowhere more evident than in the Arena Restaurant located in Wembley. This Harrow Road eatery has been around for more than two decades and has continued to grow in popularity for the simple reason that it provides exceptional fare in a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Whether it's a business lunch or a party with friends, the ambience has just the right amount of character and charm that befits such a venue.

The à la carte offers a wide variety of Greek and continental dishes to choose from and typical starters could include chicken fillets stir fried with cashew nuts, spring onions and fresh peppers or maybe a mixed platter of char grilled haloumi cheese and sausages with spicy tomato salsa. For the main course, Arena's kleftico, knuckle of lamb, marinated and cooked in a slow oven with herbs and wine served with rice, is a popular choice. There's an excellent range of sweet confections to end the meal.

If you've always felt that vegetarians might just be given short shrift in restaurants, then then this could be the time to rethink your opinion for Sanghamam offers nothing short of a complete feast for those who stay away from meat. This Wembley restaurant provides a variety of tasty snacks and delicious curries that are popular across India, and not even the famed Indo-Chinese cuisine is spared, much to the delight of most expats.

Amongst the starters, there could be the cocktail fried idli, steamed rice dumplings stir fried and tempered with spices and mustard seeds while later on you could try the gobi masala, cauliflower florets tossed with onions, tomatoes and other herbs. There's a vast choice of naan breads, fried rice, biryani and dosas but if you?re fond of street food then you could head straight for the chat express section that offers at least twenty tantalising choices. Finally, you could bring the meal to an end with gulab jamun and ice cream.