Frankie and Bennys

Name: Frankie and Bennys

Chain or Independent: Chain

Cuisine: American

Price: £ - Relatively Cheap

Out of Five: 4/5

Whether you are in the 'vegan community' or not I am sure you have all heard about the new vegan options available at Frankie and Benny's. Its been everywhere, I personally have hardly been able to escape all of the posts and excitement around it. Vegan options are coming more and more popular in restaurants with the ever growing demand, Frankie and Bennys bringing out vegan options has really brought this to my attention considering that in the past all we could get as option there was a plain pasta dish.

For veganuary, Frankie and Benny's teamed up with Peta to offer everyone 50% when you ordered a vegan option, all that you had to do was to show your server the barcode at the end of your meal.
For those of you who have never been here before, it is an american style restaurant that serves something for everyone! (Now) They also have a gluten free menu with something on each part of the menu such as; Tuscan soup for starters, Pasta dishes, Burgers, Pizzas, Grills and Desserts. They cater for everyone.

We visited Frankie and Benny's on a Sunday evening expecting it to be packed but to our surprise it was busy but there were plenty of tables for us. The vegan options are clearly marked on the menu as there is not a separate menu. We order a starter to share, two mains which we halved and shared between us and then a dessert each.

For starters we got the 'Chicken-less Nuggets'. Back in November (2018) on the 16th, Frankie and Bennys had an 'unlimited all you can eat nuggets' and they included the vegan option, this was before they introduced the new vegan options. This also went down a treat, maybe they were testing the waters to see how well the vegan options would be taken in by the public, clearly the response must have been good as now they have all of these options. Anyway, the nuggets came on a plate with a vegan mayonnaise as well which was really good! The texture was just right, on the whole i am not the biggest fan of 'Fake meats' but I really enjoyed these, at first (as I always do) I was genuinely worried of the chance of them being actual chicken, of course they weren't but that thought always lingers. The nuggets are 'tumbled in a siracha mayo' according to the website. The nuggets were definetly an excellent choice and you get a fair amount of them as well!

For mains, we ordered the 'Mac-no-Cheese' and the 'Viva La Vegan' burger.
The Viva La Vegan burger is a fake meat style of burger, my go to is usually more the bean style burgers so it was good to give this one a try! It is a quarter pounder burger served in a fluffy burger bun with a 'Burger Sauce', Lettuce, Tomato, Red Onion and Gherkins. The burger is also served up with fries on the side and a pot of the 'Burger Sauce'. If I was to get this burger again I would ask for the sauce not to be put on the burger as I wasn't the biggest of this personally.

Then we had the 'Mac-no-Cheese'. As stated in my previous post for 'BY Chloe' (https://charlotteggallery.blogspot.com/2018/12/by-chloe-covent-garden.html) I am a big fan of Mac and Cheese. So of course, I had to order this. This Macaroni Cheese sauce is made with cauliflower, it has pieces of butternut squash within the sauce, a bread crumb topping and rocket on top. So to start with a really loved the butternut squash being added to the dish as this is something I haven't seen before. I pasta dish but overall I felt that the sauce could have been much thicker which would've then improved the whole dish.
Out of the two main dishes that I tried I think that if I had to choose between the two I would pick the burger over the Mac-no-Cheese.

For dessert, I ordered the Cookies and Dreams sundae, we were also going to order the chocolate and raspberry lava cake but unfortunately they had sold out of that. The cookies and Dreams sundae is a lovely vegan chocolate chip ice cream with oreo cookies, mini marshmallows (dont worry they are vegan) and vegan whipped cream. I felt that the sundae was the perfect size and just the right amount without it being over-facing or too small. I would definitely order it again but I would also love to try the raspberry and chocolate lava cake. One downfall of the sundae would be that compared to other peoples that I have seen on social media whos had more toppings than ours but overall, loved it!

Overall, I really enjoyed my trip to Frankie and Bennys. I will defiantly be back, with it having options for everyone it is perfect for special occasions with the whole family as well.

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