I love a good challenge and I love getting a bargain! So when Frankie and Bennys asked me if I wanted to take part in their Value Challenge I couldn’t say no! So armed with £70 worth of vouchers I was challenged to eat there for breakfast, lunch and dinner with a friend. Mine and Mr E’s first date involved a trip to Frankie and Bennys so Needless to say Mr E bagged going on this one, and we set off to plan when to go- luckily it didn’t have to be all on the same day!

Being fans of an F&B brekkie (it level-pegs with a Wetherspoons one in my eyes) we went for that first. The day after the black tie event I talked about here , where I knew alcohol would be consumed , I thought it would be the perfect thing to look forward to when we woke up feeling rough!

Thanks to the bank holiday traffic we only just made it in time for breakfast which is served until 12, and by that time I was starving! I knew there was only one option for me: The Papa Grande (£9.95) the biggest breakfast they do! Mr E went for Eggs Benedict, which at £5.95 meant we had enough money for an unlimited refil coffee for Mr E and an apple juice for me. Pretty good for just under £20 for us both I thought! Everything on the breakfast was yummy and there was a good portion and mix of everything. Mr E didn’t stop talking about the eggs benedict afterwards so I presume they were fantastic! Thanks to the timing and amount of food it meant we didn’t need to eat anything else until tea time too so was even more bargainous.

   
    
    
 

Our next visit was for Tea. We went after work one night,and were spoilt for choice and couldn’t decide between The Family Feast which is £24.95 for 3-4 people and is a large pizza and sharing pasta plus salad or unlimited fries or the midweek value menu.  However we decided to go for the evening midweek value menu (available Monday to Friday after 5.30pm which gets 2 courses for £11.95 and a third course for £2.50 extra.)

I fully thought I would be up for a dessert so would each go for a full 3 courses but after cheese and bacon potato skins, sharing a garlic and cheese pizza bread and then tucking into a Yankee Hotdog I couldn’t fit anything else in! We sacrificed having soft drinks and just had water so we could go for a dessert too,I was gutted.  Our meal that night only cost £23.90. I wasn’t sold on the hotdog though as I found it a bit dry , the sauce on it was lovely and could have done with a little more on it. Mr E had the Calzone which was lovely and filled with sauce so I stole a bit to dip my bread into! Overall it was a nice treat to go out for the evening and it meant no cooking! 

   
    
 
Mr E was dumped for my last outing which was for lunch. I wanted to try out the value lunch menu which is available Monday to Friday so I took a friend from work to spend our lunch hour there. With £25 left to spend I wasn’t sweating it at all! Each lunch dish is £6.95 with a starter or dessert for an extra £2.50 for each one. If you include an unlimited Fanta refil you can get 2 courses plus drink for £12.20 or 3 courses for £14.40. So my friend took one for the team and decided to have water so we could have a starter to share. We asked for it to come alongside our mains as we were tight for time which it all came really promptly. The Garlic dough balls were plentiful and I was glad we had shared them as I wouldn’t have been able to eat them all on my own! I went for the BBQ cheeseburger with salad and it was delicious. The bbq sauce was lovely and sweet and a bit sticky and the burger was ever so juicy. I would eat that again in a heartbeat as it was so nice. My friend had a Frankie’s Pizza Dog which is a hotdog wrapped in pizza dough and fried. It looked amazing and she said it tasted that good too.   

    
   
We both finished with desserts, me the chocolate brownie, which is served warm and basically is just amazing, my friend with cinnamon waffles which she enjoyed and I tried and they were lush.Our lunch cost us £24.15 thanks to my friend drinking water and us sharing a starter. So we got 2.5 courses for that which I think was fab!

  
   
All in all I spent £68.05 on 3 meals at Frankie and Bennies which is fantastic value and I met the £70 challenge! Whoop! I’ve also converted a few friends into going there for a one course lunch soon as it was such good value and the next big night out I have I just might visit again for a bumper breakfast/brunch! If you’ve got any recommendations for dishes I should try next time I go please leave them in the comments for me.