I’VE fancied doing this one for a while. A tiny retail park sprung up a while back on Wakefield Road at Moldgreen opposite the BMW garage and it seemed an age before this Portuguese restaurant opened.

It looks ultra well-lit from the outside and it’s bright and roomy inside, too.

There could be a misconception that it’s just a takeaway, but there are plenty of seats both upstairs and down.

The owners are hedging their bets, giving the punters a choice of Portuguese food but also splitting the menu literally in half with the rest Indian.

The Portuguese side takes its inspiration from the restaurant’s name, piri piri.

The menu explains its all.

“Piri piri is a really, really hot pepper from Portugal. It’s so hot that you say the name twice, like a warning signal. The unique characteristic of sauces made with this pepper is the delayed sensation of heat when consumed.

“This allows the consumer to taste their food first and then experience the heat. This sensation commonly causes of bouts of euphoria and for this reason piri piri chilli is recognised to have stimulant properties.”

Now that’s quite a claim.

The restaurant has developed its own highly secret sauce using piri piri. If they tell us, they’ll probably have to eat us; coated, of course, in piri piri sauce.

The menu also makes quite a claim; the restaurant promises to refund the bill if you’re disappointed.

Suffice to say, we made no claim and concentrated solely on the Portuguese side of the menu.

If you like Kentucky Fried Chicken-style food, chips, salad and curry then this is for you.

The waitress was really friendly for this was a step into the unknown for us. We’d been on holiday to Portugal in 1986 and all I recall from then was that sardines seemed to dominate most of the menus.

Here it’s prawns and chicken.

The piri piri king prawns came as nature intended and after they’d been dissected the plate looked like the aftermath of a particularly messy battle that the king prawns seemed to have won.

Ruth’s wedges – coated in piri piri – were a cleaner affair.

One of the signature dishes is whole chicken frango, which turned out to be four large pieces of chicken. complete with bones, marinated in piri piri, roasted and grilled on a real flame and served on a red-hot terracotta plate.

They came with a big bundle of chips.

Tastebud titillation for sure and it even arrived with a bottle of piri piri sauce.

The other dish was Portuguese chicken curry, chicken in a thick-set curry.

Think along the lines of a madras.

Other dishes more than worth a mention are the seafood paella complete with prawns, fish, mussels and squid; oven-baked salmon with Portuguese masala; and Lisbon sea bass, steam-cooked and served with grilled vegetables and – according to the menu – whatever else you like.

The gourmet burger can be beef or chicken and comes with jalapenos, onions, green chillies, mushrooms, cheddar cheese, paprika, cucumber, tomato – or anything else.

Clearly this lot are eager to please.

So it’s not just a takeaway, not by a long stretch.

But it could be worth turning down those lights to turn up the ambience.

Venue Piri Piri Grill, Wakefield Road, Moldgreen.

Tel 01484 454550

Website www.piripirigrill.com

Opening hours 4.30pm to midnight except for Fridays and Saturdays when it stays open until 1am. Closed Mondays.

Children Welcome

Disabled access Yes and disabled toilet

The bill £38.90 including a bottle of wine