Frankie and Benny's Specials Menu - Our Review

Frankie and Benny's have a new Specials Menu where diners can select two courses for £10.95 (a third course can be included for an extra £2.25)  Drinks are not included in the Specials Menu and a fizzy drink costs £2.55.  The offer is available all day Sunday to Friday.  

As a family of vegetarians, I was pleased to be see not one, but two veggie options in both the starters and the main course options.  We were looking forward to sampling them when we were sent to test out the Specials Menu!

Our closest F & B's is about 20 miles away from home in Telford.  The menu was well advertised both indoors and out, and the sound of old rock n roll songs being played over the loud speaker got us well in the mood!  We really like the layout and decor of Frankie and Benny's with its New York Italian styling.  We were greeted at the door and escorted to a comfortable booth where we were given the menus to look through.

Our orders were taken and the starters arrived very promptly.  The Cajun Blue Cheese Mushroom Crostini looked good.  A good portion of creamy mushrooms was heaped on two slices of garlic ciabatta bread.  My only criticism was that by the time it reached the table the bread under the mushrooms was really soggy.  Other than that it was a tasty and well conceived starter.

The Warm Dough Sticks with Philly Cheese Dip consisted of four large freshly baked dough sticks and a pot of spicy cheese sauce.  I really liked this starter as the dough sticks were perfectly cooked and still warm.  The cheese sauce complemented them well but you couldn't eat too much of it as it was so intensely flavoured.

For the main course, we sampled the Cajun Mushroom Pizza. The thin base was topped with a handful of spiced sauteed mushrooms, chopped red onion and tomato bruschetta mix and a drizzle of philly cheese sauce.  It was a good pizza and I enjoyed the mix of toppings.  However it was basically the same as the children's margherita pizza except with the toppings added on top.  Given that the kids' pizza comes with a dessert and a full size drink and costs just £3.95, it would be nice to add a side dish to the adult's pizza to justify the huge difference in price.

The Veggie Gnocchi Bake was a bowl of gnocchi tossed in Neapolitan tomato sauce, red onion and green chillies, topped with Mozarella and glazed in the oven.  The gnocchi itself was incredibly filling.  I feel it could have done with a bit more sauce to make it more palatable and less heavy to eat.  The tomato sauce tasted nice and the red onion was crunchy and added texture. It had hardly any cheese on top which was a shame.  It had a sprinkling rather than a topping.  It was almost a nice dish, but was just too dense and was a bit of a struggle to eat.  A higher sauce to gnocchi ratio would have definitely helped.

Our meal that consisted of the above two specials meals of two courses and two glasses of fizzy drinks cost £27.00.   We were two full for pudding but could have added a cheesecake, waffle, brownie or crumble for an extra £2.25 each, which is great value.

The service we received  was attentive, friendly, speedy and efficient.  The surroundings are attractive and well maintained and the atmosphere is fun and relaxed with the added bonus of a great soundtrack.  The food was mostly pretty good and I was glad to have some new and different vegetarian choices to choose from on the Specials Menu.

Find out more at www.frankieandbennys.com

Woo Woos, Martinis and Other Cocktails!!

I don't often go out with my husband on our own.  Even though I have my older children who are willing and able to look after Freddy, I don't like seeing them as built-in babysitters.  I put their social lives above my own and anyway, we tend to do things together as a family more often than not, which I'm more than happy with. However, occasionally they insist that I take advantage of their kindness and so when I received the chance to go to Frankie and Benny's for dinner and cocktails, it was an opportunity they wanted us to take together.  So last night Ian and I headed off to our local F & B's without the kids in tow!

Frankie and Benny's have a new cocktail menu and although I am usually tee-total, I thought it was a chance to jump off the wagon for a couple of hours in order to sample their own brand of mixology!

Which One To Choose?

We started off with a WooWoo and an Espresso Martini which looked fabulous and were served with a smile by our waiter.

WooWoo

Archers Peach Schnapps, Eristoff Vodka and Cranberry Juice shaken with fresh lemon juice and sugar.

Espresso Martini

Fresh espresso, Eristoff Vodka and Kahlua Liquer.

My Woo Woo was very refreshing and very easy to drink!  It looked so very pretty in pink.  The Espresso Martini had a far more grown-up taste of strong coffee and alcohol.  It looked amazing with coffee beans floating on top.

Our main courses arrived very promptly and we had the Mediterranean Vegetable Burger and House Fries.  The veggie options are a bit limited, consisting of two pizza dishes, a pasta dish, a wrap, a calzone and a burger.  I'd love to see something a bit more fancy for vegetarians that would compete with the premium meat based dishes on the Specials menu.  However, the burger is really good especially with a side of onion rings!

We followed our dinner with a couple more cocktails.  I went for Strawberries and Cream and Ian had a non alcoholic smoothie.

Strawberries and Cream

Disarrano Amaretto and Strawberry Liquer blended with strawberries and cream.

My strawberry cocktail tasted like a cross between a strawberry milkshake and a bakewell tart with its hint of almond.  It was very creamy and fruity and presented beautifully.  The non-alcoholic version was just as good with a real authentically fruity flavour.  They were lovely.

We finished off our meal with dome delicious desserts; a Caramel and Pecan Cheesecake for me and an Apple Crumble and Custard for Ian.  The atmosphere in the restaurant was very relaxed, the staff were attentive and friendly and we loved the diner style decor.  It was nice to get away and spend a couple of hours together as grown-ups (even though we spent most of the night discussing the kids!)  We had a good experience 

The Aftermath

For more information and to view the menus, including the cocktail menu online, go to www.frankieandbennys.com

We received our meals and cocktails free of charge for the purpose of this review.

Frankie & Benny's Restaurant Review

It was perfect timing to be asked to review the Frankie & Benny's restaurant chain at a time which coincided with my birthday.  So yesterday we headed off to the Telford branch to see how their food and service fared  up against the scrutiny of the Wendy House team!

Frankie & Benny's oozes pure Americana with great attention to detail ensuring that you feel immersed into a fun, 50's vibe that included authentic memorabilia and music.  The booth style seating adds to the American feel and the open plan kitchen area provides entertainment for the children as they watch the chefs at work.

We arrived at 4.50pm and the restaurant was very quiet allowing us to be quickly seated with an assortment of menus to hand.  The new Specials Menu was unfortunately not much use to us as there was only one vegetarian option on it.  However, although we were cutting it fine, we were allowed to order from the lunchtime menu that had much more choice and was much more reasonable than ordering from the Main Menu (a consideration when dining with the whole family) at only £8.25 for two courses.  The Children's Menu has offerings for children up to 11 so both Freddy and Kizzy ordered from that.  A Kids' main, dessert and drink costs £3.95.  The Junior version for larger appetites costs £7.55.  Both include a side of vegetables. We also got bottomless sodas for us grown-ups allowing free refills of fizzy drinks which proved great value.

After ordering, I inquired about the kids' activity packs to keep Freddy occupied while he waited for his meal, as no-one had mentioned them.  Unfortunately we were told that they were out of stock but instead gave him a colouring sheet and a handful of colouring pencils to use.  He was quite happy with that.

I started with the Garlic and Cheese Mushrooms with Garlic Ciabatta.  It was very nice but I ended up with bowl of sauce after I had eaten the mushrooms that was too much for the ciabatta to mop up.  I contemplated slurping it from the bowl but thought better of it!

My main was a Mediterranean Vegetable Burger which is a patty of peppers, tomatoes, olives and cheese in a bun served with garnish fries and a pot of relish.  The burger was very moist and tasty and I was impressed with the lettuce, onion, dill and tomato packed into the bun.  The fries were a very nice accompaniment and made for a very feeling and tasty vegetarian meal.

Meanwhile Freddy and Kizzy had their children's meals.  Freddy's Margherita was huge and he tucked into the freshly made pizza with gusto.  For £3.95 this was excellent value.  Kizzy's Junior meal was a Vegetable Pasta Bake which was some penne pasta with tomato sauce with a handful of carrots and broccoli thrown in.  Coincidentally, carrots and broccoli were the free side vegetable that the children received, so I felt that it was not really worth the extra money paid to get the upgraded kids' meal for her.  She did however really enjoy it.

We were really enjoying our meals and were receiving friendly and efficient service from the waiting staff who brought us refills of drinks and regularly asked if we needed anything.  We were very excited to test out the new dessert menu.  Freddy and Kizzy had their free ice creams from the Children's menu, but we ordered from the new range of sundaes.  I opted for Banoffee and Ian and Ella went for East Coast.  Having seen the photos on the front of the menu we were looking forward to tucking in to our sweet treat, which at £5.25 each promised to be good.  Sadly, this was not the case.

 My sundae was described as:

"To die for! Layers of toffee ice cream, banana, chocolate covered honeycomb and toffee sauce all topped with lashings of cream."

I  had visions of a delicious sundae, chockablock with good stuff.  Unfortunately, disappointment was all I felt when I received it.  One very small scoop of ice cream at the very bottom of the glass was topped with half a sliced banana and about 4" of aerosol cream.  Some toffee sauce was squeezed over the top, but it was really pitiful.  Not at all like the photos on the menu or posters advertising their new sundae range. The cream which constituted more than 50% of the dessert, virtually evaporated in seconds and the sundae was not worth the price at all.  In fact I can not believe that who ever made them up thought that the pathetic contents justified the price tag.  The East Coast sundae was no better.  Ella actually laughed at how little ice cream was in her ice-cream sundae!  I thought this was really unfortunate, sullying an otherwise very good meal.  As the sundaes are one of the new dishes being promoted, I would have hoped that Frankie & Benny's would have put effort into making them live up to the menu description.  It was a disappointing end to an otherwise good meal.

The bill came to £51.65 for five of us which is a reasonable price for a family meal including unlimited soft drinks  in a themed restaurant such as Frankie & Benny's.  I liked the ambience and the relaxed atmosphere; the lunch menu (available 11-5 Mon-Fri) is great value and there is a good choice for vegetarians on it....but seriously, forget the sundaes...what a let down!!

*We received a voucher in order to review the restaurant.*

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Angry Birds at Frankie & Benny's