Category: Reviews

1. Frankie & Benny's New Specials Menu review

   Posted on 9:39pm Wednesday 17th Jul 2013

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   It is no secret that, as a family, we love Frankie & Benny's, so when we were asked to go and review their new specials menu we were delighted to go and try it out. Now I generally have a love / hate relationship with dining out with the childen, mainly because alot of restaurants consider that all children just eat chicken nuggets, chips and beans but thankfully my daughters like the F&B's menu (especially the warm dough sticks) and unusually on this occasion my eldest plumped for the pizza.

   

   Some of the new dishes include BBQ Burger, Crab Bruschetta and Pulled Pork Pasta Bake and even though we arrived on the wrong day (the menu is actually only available Sunday - Friday), the staff were super helpful and didn't turn us away! The new Specials Menu is only £10.95 for 2 courses, so it won't break the bank and if you are anything like me, you can top up to 3 delicious courses for an additional £2.25.

   

   As always, the F&B's food came out fresh, hot and well presented .... frankly looking good enough to eat ;-) I think that the original diner style eating experience of Frankie & Benny's is sometimes personal preference, so you either like it or you don't, but as a family we always enjoy our time at F&B's and will be returning. Dessert is usually a top priority for me but I simply didn't have room after the delicious Pulled Pork Pasta Bake so maybe I need to choose something lighter next time if I fancy a pudding.

   

   As I said earlier, I find it increasingly frustrating when we dine out as a family to find the limited choices on the childrens menu, so I was interested to read about the new research from the Out to Lunch campaign from the Soil Association and Organix, which included Frankie and Benny's. Out to Lunch is calling for the restaurant industry to improve standards and make changes to their children’s menus. The investigation shows 66% of parents think the food provision for children in restaurants is not good enough. 21 popular high street restaurants and pubs were surveyed looking at what’s on the menu for children over a three month period, revealing that:

   • 12 out of the 21 restaurants and pubs have children’s menus dominated by nuggets, burgers and sausages
   • Eight out of 21 chains don’t include vegetables or salad in the majority of their children’s main meals
   • 10 don’t include a portion of fruit in any of their children’s puddings
   • No restaurants have signage welcoming breastfeeding on their premises
   • Only 2 chains offer a children’s drinks menu free from added sugar and sweeteners

   In line with the research, Out to Lunch has today issued a league table ranking the 21 restaurants and pubs to show the industry and consumers what chains are offering children.

   The Out to Lunch campaign is calling on all high street restaurants and pubs to:

   1.       Offer all young diners the choice of a children’s portion of adult meals

   2.        Serve freshly prepared food, not ready meals

   3.        Offer free water to families on arrival

   4.        Offer children’s cutlery as standard

   5.       Make breastfeeding mums feel welcome

   Anna Rosier, Managing Director at Organix says: “Four out of 10 parents (40%) told us they eat out once a fortnight or more with their families. If restaurants and pubs want to ensure business stays strong and see customers return, they need to start improving what they’re serving to children. “We want families – parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles – to help get behind our campaign to see change. Restaurants will only start improving if we start being more vocal about what we’re seeing and vote with our feet.”

   Out to Lunch is asking families to carry out four simple steps to back the campaign:

   1. To tell restaurants what they think. The Out to Lunch downloadable Campaign Pack includes a review slip to make is easy for families to leave it behind on the table.
   2. To be vocal and share feedback with family and friends.
   3. To vote with their feet. If a restaurant is not up to scratch, don’t go back.
   4. To support by wearing the ‘I support Out to Lunch’ badge on their Facebook and Twitter profiles.

   For a more detailed insight into the Out to Lunch league table visit www.soilassociation.org/outtolunch.

   So out of the 21 restaurants, where did F&B's come? They were 8th in the league table .......

2. KandCo Kidspace Table Review & Competition

   Posted on 1:12pm Monday 15th Jul 2013

   

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   When we were approached by the online retailer K&Co.com to review their children's table and chairs, we jumped at the chance as the littlest member of the family loves to sit and draw, so we thought it would be perfect for her.

   Typically, I asked my other half to put it together on the hottest weekend of the year, which I am sure you can imagine how that unfolded, given that flat pack furniture was involved! The box was a little damaged upon arrival but thankfully all the pieces were well packaged, so everything on the inside was fine.

   

   I am told that the instructions were "fairly" simple to follow but well detailed (in comparison to some flat pack instructions). I can't personally vouch for this as I was off entertaining the little one while the construction was in process but I didn't hear any shouts or bangs as it was being put together, so this has to be a positive. There was a little stumbling block with the legs on the table but we shan't mention that reading the instructions fully *may* have been a good idea. For any mums or dads looking to buy this table and chairs, I highly recommend reading the comprehensive instructions supplied to prevent any unecessary fall out :-)

   

    And Ta Dah .....

   Useful info for those needing to fit it into a tight space:

   • Table dimensions: H 50, Length 77, D 55 cm
   • Chair dimensions: H 63, Length 31, D 31 cm

   

   On the hottest day of the year so far, in just under an hour, we (I mean the royal we, obviously) constructed a well made, sturdy and frankly adorable little table and chairs for our own little princess. It will be great for her to draw, colour, paint (eek) and it will hopefully grow with her as she gets older and has homework from school.

   

   If you like the look of this item, we are thrilled to be working with K&Co.com to give one away to our blog readers. The table and chairs are available in Pink, White or Blue so the winner can choose their colour of choice. Just enter using the easy Rafflecopter options below and Good Luck!

   a Rafflecopter giveaway

3. Why we love everything "little"

   Posted on 3:33pm Tuesday 9th Jul 2013

   

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   We were recently asked if we would like to review the new Little Us dolls and with two girls in our house, how could we say no? The Little Us dolls are a gorgeous range of rag dolls each with different personalities and we have had lots of fun with them creating new adventures for Amelia and Chloe.
   

   

   My eldest daughter may think she is too cool these days but she loves Amelia because she is a little bit shy, she likes to read my books and look after animals (well that's what we were told). Lots of dolls targeted at young girls are too sexy, too old and frankly too expensive but the Little Us dolls strike a happy balance of affordable and adorable.

   

   My youngest daughter loves blonde haired Chloe. We are told that Chloe likes singing and dancing all the time and when she grows up she wants to be a princess or fairy. (sounds like someone else we know). The Little Us dolls are designed for children aged 2+ and are super soft and perfect for sleepy cuddles.

   

   The Little Us dolls are sure to be high on the Christmas lists this year and when you can get them for less than £10 on Amazon, they would make perfect gifts for little girls. My mum always said that the best things come in little packages and the Little Us dolls stand testament to this!

    

4. Can you feed a family of four on £10? #cbias

   Posted on 8:55pm Monday 8th Jul 2013

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   For the avoidance of doubt, I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client. Now the formalities are out of the way, let me tell you about our £10 challenge!

   How often do we really think about what we are spending? I don’t mean in total, I mean when we are throwing things into our shopping trolleys or online baskets, are we really conscious of how it is adding up? My eldest daughter is now in Junior school and we have weekly homework on multiplication and division and whilst I may moan at her to do it each week, she actually has a good knack for maths, so when we were set the challenge to create a yummy family meal for £10, we put her in charge of the calculations.

   

   So off we trooped to the Asda store in Minworth, Birmingham, which despite being by my parents’ house, is actually quite a rare event for me when I do most of my shopping, including the groceries, online. I was pleasantly surprised to find ample parent and child parking spaces, as given the hot weather I was expecting it to be heaving with people buying BBQ food. Both children wanted to get in the trolley, which meant we needed a big trolley (although we didn’t have a spare pound coin for the smaller trolley anyway. It still baffles me why they have a coin release on those and the bigger ones don’t?) and so we entered the lovely cool store.

   Even upon entering, we were still unsure of what we were actually going to buy as our meal. It has been so hot over the last few days that we haven’t really felt like cooking or eating big meals so as we were browsing round, we thought a cooked chicken would be a good idea. We navigated our way through the busy aisles towards the hot food counter and my daughter asked the question "are these the same price as a normal chicken" and to her credit, she found that the fresh chickens were considerably cheaper, leaving much more of our budget to spend on other things.

   

   I am most definately not the gourmet chef in our house but with the weather being so scorching hot outside, the inclination to create a full on meal was fairly non existent. Thankfully both my girls love their veg, (which can sometimes be a challenge in itself when we dine out as everything seems to come with chips and beans) so we chose some seasonal veg to go with the garlic chicken and some garlic potatoes .... good job we are only kissing each other! They all came freshly sealed in ready to cook foil tins, which was not only handy but reduced the washing up too!!

   

   The chief estimator told us that we had just over £1 left, so she went off in search of something for dessert and came back with Moshi Monster cakes. It wouldn't have been my choice but she was so excited that she had found something in the budget, who was I to argue?

   So in the end, we had a fresh chicken, flavoured with garlic and herbs, seasonal vegetables including courgettes and aubergines, garlic potatoes and cabbage. Asda have a great range of "ready to cook" vegetables so it really was a case of popping it in the oven and waiting for it to be cooked. (now that is my kind of cooking). One thing I was really pleased with about our shop was that we didn't have to buy the cheapest or "budget" options, to meet our £10 challenge.

   

   I have to admit that the Moshi Monster cakes were a little more labour intensive but the girls really got involved in the mixing (and testing of the cake mix - obviously) and I had to get involved with the extra cleaning of the cake covered floor. They had a great time, with big sister assuming responsibility for reading the instructions (she is quite good at literacy aswell as maths! She must take after her mother!). In the end the cakes looked more like little green blobs than cakes but apparently that was the point and for £1, it certainly kept them captivated.

    

   Grocery shopping is usually a one man (or woman's) job in our house, usually by me ordering online late at night, so it was great to get us all involved with the meal selection and even the cake making!

   The savings in store are undeniable and as someone who doesn't shop instore on a regular basis, I can see the benefits. However, unless you bring your 8 year old (or a calculator), you don't really take account of the things you are adding into your trolley and with so many good deals on offer, it is easy for the shopping bill to mount up. Asda really do seem to have everything, including toys, games, sweets and everything else that entices children ..... not to mention the musical ride on's that are always so conveniently placed by the front door, so whilst we had great fun with our £10 challenge, it wasn't quite enough to stop me ordering (and budgeting) online.

   As for the £10 challenge .... I think we did pretty good!