I used to eat at Frankie and Bennys quite often, but it’s been a while since I was back. I went for their veggie burger to remind myself of what it was like! The menu describes it as follows:

“A Mediterranean style combination of red peppers, olives, sundried tomatoes and mozzarella. Served in a toasted sesame seed bun with fresh baby gem lettuce, tomato, red onion, dill pickle and mayo. With house fries and tomato-chilli relish on the side.”

It is priced at £10.75, so it’s one of the more expensive burgers you will come across in this type of restaurant. The ambiance is good most of the time, but it has a tendency to break into the annoying – such as every time someone has a birthday. The lights dim, and “Congratulations” plays, every single time – sometimes four or five times a night during your meal if you go on a busy day. But having said that, there are places with more annoying traditions. Let’s move on to the burger now!

This burger comes with a very tasty fruity relish, which I enjoyed. Actually, I’m always on the lookout for a good burger relish – I may add some reviews later on, after recently picking up some at a local craft fair. This one fit the bill and was one of the highlights of the meal. It was served with a good amount of onion and some nice stringy cheese which melted nicely against the rest. There was a kind of average bun which did not make so much of an impression on me. Unfortunately, I would also have to say that the burger was not so remarkable. It is made with large amounts of olives but not a very strong taste – on the one hand this is good, as I’m not really an olive fan. On the other hand, I expected more flavour. It does need a little something added – as is so often sadly the case, the burger itself is just not anything special. I really want to see more of an effort made in this area by restaurants – plenty of their other dishes are packed with flavour, so this is a disappointment.

It was also served with thin chips, which felt quite cheap and did not add much to the meal. You had the option to change to a thick cut chip if you wanted to pay more, but that hardly seems worth it. There is a lot more that could be done with this meal, particularly for the price at which it is sold.