Nando’s has about 1,ooo peri-peri chicken restaurants in 30 countries, but I wanted to try in South Africa, where the chain was born in 1987.

The problem: I was out of time.

With an hour to kill at the O.R. Tambo International Airport, I was about to fly out of South Africa, and I was still a Nando’s virgin.

I spied a Nando’s in the food court at the domestic terminal in the Johannesburg airport and strolled over.

It seemed a promising sign when five or six flight attendants walked up to the Nando’s counter and waited in line to order in front of me. They could have eaten at any of the food court’s many restaurants but chose this one.

First a little perspective. Nando’s isn’t fast food. Usually, you’ll sit down in a full-service restaurant and get served by a waiter or waitress. But in this food-court location, you have to place your order at a counter after choosing from a large menu. You’re assigned a number and asked to take a seat.

A busy waiter soon found me and delivered my order of a quarter chicken peri-peri mild, with peri-peri fries and Portuguese bread. Including the drink, the bill totaled 59 rand ($5.40 USD). Compared to U.S. prices, you can’t beat that. Operating hours are unbeatable too at the airport Nando’s location — open seven days a week from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

I’d waited a long time to try Nando’s chicken. There are now 20 Nando’s in three states — Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

The chicken was tangy, crispy and tasty.

Nando’s butterflies its chicken, marinates it for 24 hours in peri-peri sauce before flame grilling it and then bastes it in more peri-peri sauce. The peri-peri sauce that Nando’s uses comes from the African bird-eye chili, aka peri peri. It grows in South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the highlands of Ethiopia and tropical forests of South Sudan. Early Portuguese explorers took it around the world.

Nando’s has become known for mentoring and promoting South African artists locally and internationally via an art initiative, launched in 2001. The Nando’s in O.R. Tambo did not have any local art displayed prominently, but a brochure on the counter featured the mosaic art of Audrey Anderson, a Nando’s artist.