Nando's BYOB — peri peri noodles + chicken tenders + sides ($15.90)!
Nando's Bugis Build Your Own Bowl: peri peri noodles base, sweet soy grilled chicken tenders, fried tofu, grilled broccoli and edamame corn salsa. $15.90.
Lunch at Nando’s Bugis. Build Your Own Bowl, $15.90. 😋
What was in the bowl:
- Peri peri noodles base: thick udon-style noodles tossed in the mild peri peri seasoning
- Grilled chicken tenders: flame-grilled strips glossed in the sweet soy peri peri sauce (flag planted to prove it)
- Fried tofu cubes: golden blocks soaking up the sauce
- Grilled broccoli: properly charred florets, not steamed afterthoughts
- Edamame corn salsa: the sweet-fresh scatter
The BYOB format was Nando’s Singapore stepping out of the chicken-and-two-sides template: pick a base (noodles, grains, salad), a protein, vegetables and a sauce, assembled as a grain-bowl-style lunch. The pitch was the healthy-bowl trend with peri peri DNA, and it mostly lands: everything in the bowl came off the same flame grill the platters do.
Peri peri, the short version: the African bird’s eye chilli that Portuguese settlers met in Mozambique and Angola, turned into the marinade that Nando’s (founded Johannesburg, 1987) built a global chain on. The sweet soy peri peri here was the Asia-market sauce: the chilli-citrus base rounded with soy and sugar, sitting at the mild end so the bowl eats more teriyaki-adjacent than fiery. Heat-seekers should flag the hotter sauces instead.
The supporting cast review: the grilled broccoli’s char was the best vegetable Nando’s serves; the tofu was the surprise protein-stretcher, fried firm enough to hold sauce; the edamame-corn salsa kept the bowl from reading beige.
At $15.90 this prices like the mall grain-bowl chains, with a flame grill the salad bars can’t match.
Overall: 4.3 / 5. Healthy-ish Nando’s that still tastes like Nando’s. 😋👍🏼 The charred broccoli was the quiet standout. Would re-build.
