As far as I'm concerned you can't go wrong with an American-Italian restaurant and Frankie and Benny's was always a favourite of mine when I was younger.
A couple of months ago I was extremely excited to see that they were opening in my university city of Leicester and so I vowed to visit after Christmas. True to my word I've been twice in the past week (judging forbidden) and I was not disappointed!
Lunchtime on a Sunday isn't the best time to go if you're looking for a quick meal, I had to wait 20 minutes before being seated but the staff were really friendly and went out of their way to make sure we were seated as soon as possible. In the mean time we waited in the bar area. Although I played it safe with a diet coke I watched the barmen prepare a fair few cocktails and they seemed to go down very well with some brave Sunday lunchtime drinkers.
Whilst waiting I browsed the menu and was impressed with the 2 courses for £11.95 offer that's available all day Sunday to Friday. You can pay a little extra and have three courses for little over £14 but me and my friend decided one of us would order starter and a main and the other a main and dessert.
For starter we shared warm dough sticks with a garlic butter dip. I'm going to make a statement now and it's a pretty bold one.. I prefer them to Pizza Express' dough balls. They were warm soft inside and big enough to wet your appetite for the rest of the meal. If you don't like garlic butter you can choose a philly cheese dip instead but I'm quite the garlic addict so this was perfect in my eyes. You get four per serving and a generous amount of dip.
I chose the 'ultimate hot dog' for main. The sausage was wrapped in bacon and on a bed of pulled pork in the bun with BBQ and cheese sauce. It also came with more than enough chips, a small corn of the cob, coleslaw and fried onions. To say it was delicious would be an understatement. The sausage and pulled pork were perfect but there was so much I had to leave the bun although I wasn't too bothered about that. F&B chips are my favourite so I made sure to leave some room in my increasing full stomach for them.
My friend had a meatball calzone and for review purposes (tee hee) I had to have a taste. It's filled with full size beef and pork meatballs, slices of pepperoni, mozzarella and bolognaise sauce. Although I preferred the hot dog, next time i'll choose the calzone. One bite was not enough!
Dessert was one of those tough decisions that you have to make in life and after ten minutes contemplating what to order we settled on the salted caramel cheesecake. It's served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and sprinkles of chocolate honeycomb. I'm not a massive salted caramel fan so I wasn't crazy about this but the cheesecake was nice and I munched up all the pieces of chocolate honeycomb.
I'll definitely visit Frankie and Benny's again in the future. The food was delicious but it was the atmosphere that will keep me going back. The decor gives a lovely relaxed feel that caters towards adults and families alike. The toilets were clean to a very high standard and instead of music playing in them, there was a 'learn Italian' disk playing. It's those little touches that really keep the atmosphere constant throughout the restaurant that I love.
I never say this lightly but all the staff were helpful, polite and efficient. The restaurant was extremely busy but all our needs were catered to and when we needed assistance we were seen to straight away.
Do you love Frankie and Benny's as much as I do? What's your favourite dish?
I'll be back with my second review from their breakfast menu soon so watch out for that.
Lucy ox
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