Nandos - perfect for chicken and children

Four of us, three adults and a five year old child, went to Nandos for lunch. Nandos is a family favourite restaurant and a known quality. 

Chicken, corn and mashed potato and butter at Nandos, Stanmore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. copyright.

Parking in Stanmore

In Stanmore you can park outside if you are lucky. Other car parks are around the back, a public car park. 

Behind Sainsbury's we thought had public parking. It seemed to be mostly for customers. The criss- crossed markings on the spaces were reserved for local businesses, but only for Monday to Friday. 

Many Tables

Inside is a huge place with loads of tables. We had no need to book on a Saturday late lunch time July 25th 2026. We chose one of half a dozen alcoves with benches which suited mother and child, and granny with a big bag containing a pop-up reading book.

Children's Menu And Colouring

As soon as we arrived, we were given the family menus and children's menu. Also a jar of crayons and pages for children to colour. 

Pre-paying

The most active of our group went to order for us all from the counter. Pay in advance, like at the smaller fast food places with smaller menus. The advantage of pre-paying for the customer is that you can leave instantly when your car park reminder goes off on your phone. The driver can run off to collect the car, and then pull up outside to load up your passengers who don't need to walk back to the car park.

Post Box Topper Summer Flowers in Stanmore

 Post box topper in Pangbourne Drive, Stanmore, Middx, North West  London.

Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I have other posts on postbox toppers in London and worldwide. You can see more in Wikipedia and on Facebook.

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Nando's in Stanmore For Tasty, Moist Chicken

 

This reataurant is a favourite of families. It has a large ground foor seating area.

Their chicken is tasty with delicious coatings keeping in the moisture.

Choice of tables. Spacious or secluded. Pleasing decor. Wood effect and pictures.

Leftovers are packed in a fold up paper box.

Cocos Restaurant in Stanmore for lunch or breakfast

Coco's Restaurant in Stanmore. Exterior. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

We had a choice of seating areas, in the glass sided conservatory at the front, or the warmer indoors.

I ordered a smoothie with mango and passion fruit. My friend wanted to avoid too much sugar and opted for the smoothie featuring kale.

I thought mine was better, more flavourful and satisfying.

Smoothie at Coco's Restaurant in Stanmore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

 The ladies toilets are upstairs above the section of the property used for events such as Salsa dancing on Friday nights..

-ends-

Please share links to your favourite posts. Read my other reviews of nearby Barracuda and Nandos.

Barracuda Restaurant, Stanmore, Middx, England - Ground Floor Toilet and Fab Food

Barracuda restaurant, Stanmore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. COPYRIGHT. 

Barracuda is a fish

The menu includes a fish section but also a selection of other meats and pizzas.

 We were looking for a restaurat in north west London which I could visit without using stairs.  We opted for Baracuda in Stanmore. My family had visited it previously and liked it.

We booked a table for five on Saturday night for 7 pm and when we arrived they were busy. 

Parking

Varous options in Stanmore. In the metred area outside.  The Sainsbury's supermarket car park which has different rules upstairs and downstairs in the car park.

A large car park around the corner with signs warning you to read the signs.

Starter

For starters we ordered mushrooms breaded. They came up crispy. You might say gritty. In an attractive bed of green and red salad.

Main Courses

I chose the chicken with mshrooms in white sauce. My old favourite from Italian restaurants. The dish was listed as being with new potatoes. I used to find new potatoes inspiid compared with roast potaties or even chips. But these were perfect.

I loved the soft sweet carrots and ate those first. 

Lastly came the copious amount of flattened chicken wing.

One of my fellow diners had opted for the meat which came with mashed potatoes. UM1 Perfect potatoes.

Finally, desserts. 

I loved my baked New York style cheese cakes. Licky, sticky.

Toilets

The toilets and handicapped tpoilet are on the ground floor. Convenient. Pleasantly decorated with plants.

Service

Service was fast, smiling obliging.

We were given limoncello each, on the house.

Tarongino Orange Wines from Khoki United

 Seven award winning orange based wines, only 7 % alcohol, with a great orange taste.

Buy them from

Khokiunited.com

Costing around £18.

They are served at Abercorn Indian restaurant on Stanmore Hill Middlesex, NW London, England.

Orange colour wines are the latest trend but these wines fulfil the customer's imagination of orange flavour. The wines are not cheap, but aimed at the luxury market, or restaurants where diners go for food and drinks whose flavour jumps out at you. One of the highlights of the London Wine Fair. Not just a pretty colour. The phrase which springs to my mind is the real deal.

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Planning for Valentine's Day: cards, crockery, fruit, shops, parties, restaurants

Problem
What do you do for Valentine's Day?

Answers
1 Stock up with heart shape crockery or heart shape cutters for celebrating at home.
2 Look for recipes for valentine's cakes, sandwiches, pink colours.
3 Book a restaurant for a twosome with your spouse, fiancee or loved one.
4 Find leftovers from last year at the back of your cupboards.
5 Download Valentine's cards to print or email messages and pictures.
6 Find pictures of previous Valentine's days for a collage of years of happiness together.
7 Organises a group celebration for a group of couples or couples and singles so that singles are included in an evening out.
8 Remember that in the USA Valentine's day encompasses love and affection for all sorts of people, not just romantic love and proposals of marriage. For example, children might make Valentine's Day cards at school and send Valentine's Day cards to teachers, fellow pupils and parents.
9 Look for reduced price goods the day after Valentine's Day for next year.
10 Wrap your leftover goods for next year in wrapping paper or a bag with a large red heart so it's easy located in your store room or attic. Photograph what you have in stock and where you have stored it. Label the photograph Valentine's day or email it to yourself and store in an email file marked photos or Valentine's.
11 Research the history of Valentine's Day and memories or plans if you are going to a Toastmasters International Club meeting where Valentine's will be theme of the evening in February.
12 Allow time to plan parties and meetings, and order goods online including clothes and hats and banners and paper ware.
13 If attending an event, look for colours to co-ordinate, such as reds and pinks.
14 If you forget - improvise clothes or cards by drawing a heart. You fold your stiff cloth or card in half and draw half and heart and cut the curve so both sides of the heart match. You can also use a heart from a website as a template to print and draw around it.
15 Heart shapes can be cut out of bread or any cake or tart. Or a red fruit such as a red apple. Mark a heart on the skin or a series of hearts and cut peel off the exposed areas.
16 Lonelyhearts: to avoid being alone on Valentine's Day: organise a group party. Alternatively visit a rural location or island or a Muslim country such as Malaysia or Saudi Arabia where Valentine's day is not celebrated or is vigorously banned.

Stories
1 When we lived in America we discovered that children had taken Valentine's cards and gifts to teachers. Our British child, not knowing anything about this, was embarrassed that we had not warned him. He came home from school with Valentine's Day cards for us.
2 One year in London, England, we spent Valentine's Day in an Indian restaurant surrounded by Indian couples. I think I was the only lady who was blonde and not wearing a saree. All the other restaurant's were fully booked weeks in advance and twice the price. It was different. Strange. Different. Curry for Valentine's Day.

Tips
1 Party shops in London stock supplies for Valentine's Day.
2 Supermarkets worldwide will stock cards, crockery, banners, balloons, and paper ware.
3 Department stores will have displays in windows, greeting card stands, confectionary and cake departments, and crockery departments.
3 List your favourite Valentine's Day websites and heart shape crockery manufacturers.

Read the Wikipedia article on the history of Valentine's day, which seems to have a lot to do with Chaucer, springtime, the change in the calendar, and the introduction of the penny stamp enabling people to send numerous anonymous cards. I was also fascinated by the differences around the world, such as of giving chocolate on one day and returning the favour another day (in Japan).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine's_Day
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please see my other posts and blogs and profiles on this subject and others on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram..

Edgware and Stanmore Xmas Lights 2016 Last Look

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please like my posts, follow me and share.

Stanmore Lights, Xmas tree in 2016, Xmas trees delivered or make your own

I had another look at the Stanmore lights. Yes, the Christmas tree or Norway Spruce is there.


Many businesses also have decorated trees. I remember a Christmas tree in Sainsbury's in Stanmore last year.

You see trees everywhere. This year I can confirm that Fitz Gym in Harrow has a tree with baubles.

You could go out and about and print out a Christmas card of your local lights to decorate the table. Alternatively email a card of local lights to family and friends overseas.




http://www.sainsburysmagazine.co.uk/recipes/baking/biscuits-and-cookies/item/christmas-cookie-tree

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
type in Angela Lansbury, author or travel writer or poet. Fortunately there are only four people with my name. Most people I look up on Facebook and google and linkedIn have twenty namesakes worldwide. As for people called Patel, Cohen and Levy, Singh - several million of those.
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Stanmore Lights, trees and memories of best Watford lights

Where are the best lights? Go north to Intu shopping mall by car or train to Watford High Street, and you can enjoy an indoor mall with a train ride for children (small fee to ride about £2), Sant'as grotto and lovely lights up the columns and entertaining activities. If on the other hand, you do not get out of the car, you will pass different light in high streets driving into London via places such as Stanmore.

Taken from a moving car, but a reminder of the lights in Stanmore in 2016. White lights in the trees.


Driving through Stanmore, I noticed that the Apollonia restaurant had a banner saying they can offer kosher catering for events.
http://www.apollonia.co.uk/events.php

I have more and better pictures of lights around London this year on other posts, plus photos from previous years in London and Singapore.
Here are a couple of my favourites:

Putting up a Christmas tree in Hatch End in a previous year.
Previous year's decorations in Intu shopping mall in Watford.

It's good to be able to look back and compare. Memory can play tricks on you. One year I thought that coins were getting smaller. I got out a box of old coins, all stamped with the year they were issued. No, I was wrong. Coins were the same size as my childhood. So if you think last year's were better, or not as good, those old photos can tell you the truth.

Previous year's lights in Stanmore - look the same to me.
A later, better photo is in the post on Dec 6 2016.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
type in Angela Lansbury, author or travel writer or poet. Fortunately there are only four people with my name. Most people I look up on Facebook and google and linkedIn have twenty namesakes worldwide. As for people called Patel, Cohen and Levy, Singh - several million of those.
Follow me on Facebook and like my pages here and there and everywhere including linking to me on LinkedIn, Watching me on YouTube.

Stanmore lights and video of lights

What I enjoyed in Stanmore:

1 The decorated tree and street lights.

2 The moving light displays in windows.

3 The sculpture outside Sainsbury's. Very large and grand for a small shopping street.

1 The lights are up in Stanmore. Same as last year I think. They must have stored the lights. 

Blue on the tree. White on the lamp poles. Starbursts in white.  

The summer flowers are still out in the last of the warm days for the few hours of sunshine in late November.  Summer and winter. Summer flower boxes contrasting with the pre-Christmas light displays ton the tree and lamps to lighten the dark evenings.

2 Flashing lights. I noticed them in passing. It wasn't until I stopped that I realised they were changing colour and then I really appreciated them. Thank you to whoever put them up.

3 The sculpture. Two pieces of sculpture. Taller than I am. When you consider the cost of buying any ornament to go on a table top, these must have cost somebody a lot of time to buy or commission, and make, and install. 

No great colour. Could not see the name of the installation nor the artist. But I do like concentric circles.

4 Finally, the party shop. If you need a hat or complete costume, fancy dress, balloons, banners, table decoration, anything and everything for a private or public party, the shop across the road from Sainsbury's will supply a choice of festive fancies.

22 The Broadway, Stanmore, Middlesex HA7 4DW
Phone:020 8420 7444

balloonandpartyonline.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer, author and speaker.

Christmas Lights in Stanmore and Santa's Pants in Tiverton, Devon

This year, 2015, Stanmore's winter decorations include white lights on the standard lamps and Christmas tree with blue lights.

The lamp posts by the traffic lights near Stanmore station have the best lights, a curve rising to two five point stars. Towards the next intersection near Sainsbury's the white lights are vertical. As you are driving into Stanmore from the station, the Christmas Tree is on the right by the parking area by the next set of traffic lights, lit in blue, by some real, permanent trees, on the right of the picture below.

Photos by Angela Lansbury.
These pictures were taken from a moving car.
Scroll down the list of my posts on the right to find better photos by Angela Lansbury of the lights in Watford and photos of the lights in central London taken by Trevor Sharot in a previous post.

The lights in Stanmore are in the immortal words of Ben Jonson, worth seeing  but not worth going to see. Very pleasant if you live in or shop in Stanmore. If you are in the area, better lights to see are in Watford's Intu shopping mall. For tourists the main attractions are the lights in central London.

Biggest success / failure story of lights this season is the lights in Tiverton, Devon, simi circular arches which are said to look like Sant's Pants.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p039491h?intc_type=fourcardmix&intc_location=avs&intc_campaign=fourcardmix&intc_linkname=signup_xmaslights_contentcard28

For Christmas lights in the USA, Far East and worldwide see Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_lights


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. 

Squires Garden Centres - Scented Roses, Workshops, Animal Umbrellas, Aquarium, Cafe and toilets

Something for everyone here, bulbs, plants, advice, umbrellas

Outside are plants to buy including fruit trees. I was looking for roses. They had small pots of bush roses and climbing roses and the smaller patio roses like tiny trees.. The taller standard roses ("like lollipops") will be available next month (April). I was looking for fragrant roses. Some roses are lightly scented. That might suit you if you are allergic or don't want strong smells clashing with your perfume or wine tasting. However, I like a rose with a proper rose perfume. 

The aquarium centre has little fish teeming in tanks, as well as these amusing tank decorations which open and shut their mouths.

I bought an umbrella decorated with chickens (£10.99) to match the tote bag of the same design which I had just bought at Wyvales (see previous post).

Squires branches include the large one in Stanmore. 

Reminder - Xmas tree lighting in Hatch End today mid afternoon

Xmas tree light-up in Hatch End today Dec 4th.

Xmas trees or lights on lamp posts are already shining in Stanmore and North Harrow to brighten the last few hours of the afternoon now it's getting dark early.