I had the worst meal of my life at Fresh Naan

Reporter Tom Mack tucks into a chicken and cheese naan
-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


Maybe feeling that I was only reviewing tasty food recently and having far too much fun, my editor sent me out to review budget eatery Fresh Naan, in Lee Street. If you ever go to eat at Fresh Naan - and I strongly recommend you don't - one of the first things that will strike you are how cheap the food is.

Offerings start at 50p for a garlic or butter naan and, feeling that might not be filling enough or give me much to write about, I went for a £2.50 naan with chicken and cheese. Other options for £2.50 included a keema naan with cheese, a pesto naan with cheese and an egg naan. For £3.50, the most expensive thing on the menu was a pida naan with chicken or lamb. Alternatively, £1 will get you three plain naans.

The interior of the building was separated between the kitchen and the waiting area. There was a high counter in the waiting area that seemed to be designed for eating at, but the dining chairs were nowhere near tall enough to reach. So I took my wrapped naan, with the bread and blackened toppings rolled up into a tube, along with a can of Coke, and wandered out into Lee Circle to soak up the atmosphere.

READ MORE: I tried award-nominated Chinese Snack Box - and made a big discovery

In case you don't know Lee Circle, it's the unloved area behind the former Sainsbury's and former Wilkos in Leicester city centre. At the heart of the circle is the big, ugly car park, which was once described by a senior city councillor as being in need of "a few sticks of dynamite".

Biting into my lunch my first thought was that there wasn't much to it. It was a thin naan bread with a very thin layer of chicken and cheese.

As I strolled past the boarded-up windows of the huge abandoned tower block near Charles Street, I tried to work the food around in my mouth and get an idea of what it tasted like. Cheese, maybe, but certainly not chicken.

Fresh Naan is in Lee Street, opposite the Lee Circle Car Park
Fresh Naan is in Lee Street, opposite the Lee Circle Car Park -Credit:Google

It was impossible to compare it to other foodstuffs because it didn't really taste like food. It was unpleasant in ways I found hard to describe.

As I strolled up Charles Street I passed several rubbish bins and each time I thought about throwing the rest of it away. "Why?" I asked myself, lying in bed the following morning, feeling like my stomach was full of stones. "Why didn't I just bin it?"

Feeling disappointed but not massively surprised, I threw the empty bag away and moved onto the can of Coke, looking forward to that sweet flavour washing away the foul taste of the naan. But the Coke didn't really taste of anything - they'd given me zero sugar Coke.

Our rating: 0/5 It was the worst meal I've ever had. I don't like to write mean things about restaurants but eating at Fresh Naan was an unpleasant experience.

Official food hygiene rating: 3/5

Fresh Naan did not know we would be visiting, and we paid for our food.