Chiquito's || Review

Recently I headed along to another of the new restaurant's that has opened at Fort Kinnaird, Chiquito's! Yet another one that I have never been to before and because it is a Mexican restaurant I wasn't sure that I'd like it however I was very surprised!

The restaurant inside is laid out beautifully with a stained glass window, a pretty patterned mirror and is very spacious with comfy seats. Our waitress 'Sam C' according to the receipt was amazing, she was so friendly, helpful and full of recommendations. She also brought us a little complimentary popcorn bowl which I think is a nice touch. 

I did think that the choice of drinks was quite limited for a big company though- for soft drinks there was only Tango, Lemonade, Pepsi and Diet Pepsi. However, for £2.55 on the lunch menu you can get free refills as many as you want which I think is really good value for money. I'm not sure if the same offer stands for dinner time though!

For starters I was spoilt for choice, I found it so hard to decide between loaded potato skins, the garlic bread or the chilli poppers but in the end I got chilli poppers and Gary got garlic bread with cheese. The garlic bread with cheese was incredible, I hold my hands up to stealing a few slices and the dip it came with was like Domino's garlic and herb but improved...who knew that was possible!! My chilli poppers were breaded jalopenos filled with cream cheese, they came slightly hotter (temperature wise) than I expected so I did burn my tongue but apart from that they were delicious. They also came with a jalpeno jelly that was delicious. 

As I'm not overly keen on Mexican food, there was nothing really on the menu that appealed to me other than the Halloumi salad so I got that and Gary got a pulled pork wrap. He loved his wrap although he was very full and couldn't finish it because the portion sizes are big. My halloumi salad was really nice, I liked the tortilla chips on the side, the sweet potato and the skewer idea. My only criticism would be that it would be much nicer if the peppers, cucumber and red onion weren't cooked because I find those nicer cold. I just find it quite hard to eat warm salads but maybe thats just me!

For dessert which was what I was most excited about they had churro's so naturally I had to get them because I've wanted to try them for years. Our waitress also recommended them to us and the golden nugget cheesecake so that's what we went with. Gary said his cheesecake was delicious which it definitely looked and my churro's were amazing. I loved the chocolate dip and strawberries too although I think they need a little extra dip because of how much churro's you get and they taste better with chocolate.

As we went at lunchtime our meal was very reasonably priced for all of this it cost us around £31.50 including the two drinks which I don't think is too bad. 

Have you been to Chiquito's? Do you like it?

Lots of Love,

♥

* I was sent a £20 voucher to contribute to the cost of this meal

Frankie & Bennys Fort Kinnaird || Review

Now I know this is deemed as some sort of crime but I have never been to Frankie & Benny's before!!! It's really strange because being an Italian food chain you would think that since my diet is limited to pretty much Italian food only that I would have gone before but I hadn't.

I realise that if you don't live close to where I live this post may be pretty frustrating but most of the chains will be pretty similar so if you want to see what food they offer or are just interested in pictures of food then stick around. 

I actually live really close to Fort Kinnaird and work there too so when I was asked to review the new Frankie & Benny's restaurant thats opened I jumped at the chance. I was sent a £20 voucher to contribute to the cost of our meal and as I went with Gary I think we ended up spending around £42 pounds. I thought this was pretty pricey for what it was and the quality of the food but I've heard their lunch time menu is much cheaper so that could be a good option.

The layout of the restaurant is really nice, it kind of looks like a posh American diner (not like Ed's or five guys) with the red leather chairs and it does have that American meets Italian feel about it. My favourite thing about the layout of this restaurant is that you can see the fire that the pizzas are made in, I love a good fire (I'm not a pyromaniac, promise). They have a nice bar area too so it might be a nice place to pop in after work to have a few drinks!

Normally when I eat out I just get a main or a main and a starter because I'm not a massive eater so usually a lot goes to waste if I get all three but since I was reviewing it for you guys I went all out! For starters I got loaded potato skins that had bruschetta in them and Gary got garlic bread with cheese on it and a barbecue base. 

The potato skins were nice, they weren't anything special but it was a nice change since I've not seen many restaurants that do them. Garys garlic bread was however amazing and when I go back I'll defo be having that!

Barbecue garlic bread

For mains I ordered margherita pizza (what a shock haha) and Gary got a cheeseburger. He really enjoyed his and it's a big portion so he couldn't even finish it so you definitely get a lot of food for your money. To be honest though I was not a massive fan of my pizza, as you can see it was overcooked, I didn't like the lumps of tomato on top and it just wasn't anything special. It wasn't that it was horrible, it's just for £9 you kind of expect something better than what you could get from a freezer at Tesco's. 

One thing you can compliment Frankie and Benny's on is their massive menu choice, I truly believe it would be hard to find a person who wouldn't like something off of each section of the menu here and coming from an extremely fussy eater you can trust me on that one!

For dessert I got a chocolate fudge brownie sundae and Gary got a chocolate fudge brownie cake. We were so full that we couldn't finish either of these but they were really nice, very sickly so you can't eat a lot of it but still tasty! I think Gary felt for the size and stodginess of the cake you really needed more ice cream to go with it to make it go down easier but apart from that we really enjoyed dessert.

Our initial staff member wasn't very friendly and we'd have to wait a while to get her attention but there was another staff member who was such a lovely girl (small, dark hair, smiley) and she couldn't do enough to help us and make sure the food was nice! I didn't manage to catch her name but if she somehow manages to see this - thank you! 

I enjoyed getting to try out Frankies, although I think its without a doubt overpriced for the quality, I'll definitely be going back at lunch time and trying out some other things from the menu at a cheaper price. Have you been to Frankie & Benny's? What do you think of it?

Lots of Love,

♥

Filling Station Relaunch || VIP Night

Heyyy beauties,

 Last week I was invited to the Filling Stations royal mile branch for their VIP night for the relaunch of their restaurant. It has all been revamped and the menu has been tweaked to perfection and the most exciting part was that I was allowed to bring Gary too! I really liked that because normally I can't really involve him with my blog things and he now thinks it's the coolest thing ever to have a girlfriend who blogs after his free dinner and drinks!

 I was super excited about the menu too because as a very fussy eater it's extremely rare for me to find a restaurant that actually does one food I love let alone multiple ones but having seen their menu I knew it would be a good night!

 When we arrived at the event there was swish red carpet and gorgeous girls cheerleading outside -very fancy, we were handed a glass of Prosecco and shown to our table. Our lovely waiter for the night Shaun brought out the barbeque board and the salted pretzels with garlic dip to start. I didn't like anything off the BBQ board (obv) cause it's all meats and fish but Gary vouched for the fact that it was delicious and I think he was quite happy to have the board to himself. The pretzels are my favourite thing eveeeer, I can't believe I'd never had anything before, I loved the garlic dip too! If i could eat these every day then I most definitely would eeeek. 

Delicious raspberry mojito

   For our main courses I chose macaroni cheese obviously because it's my favourite food eveeer and Shaun also brought me a side of chips with it. I'm not gonna lie it obviously was not as good as my grans homemade mac n cheese but it was still delicious. I couldn't anywhere near finish it no matter how much I wanted too (here I was starting to regret stuffing my face with all the pretzels) and I almost cried at not being able to finish the food. Fun fact I actually starved myself all day to allow room for maximum food that night because I knew I'd be spoilt and I stilllll got stuffed! Gary ordered a burger which actually came with a jacket potato AND chips??? I've never heard of that before but that's such amazing value for money! He said they tasted really nice too and even though he can eat for Britain he couldn't finish it all either.

This was all I could manage because I was sooo stuffed!! Nearly cried having to leave it it tasted so good!

Gary's meal and my side of chips!

We were defeated, couple vs food!

  We then had a massive break to make room for dessert because after looking at the mouth watering menu there was no way we were missing that part out no matter how much our tummies were bulging! I went for the Mint Oreo Sundae because I love Oreo's and I love mint choc chip ice cream so it was a bit of a no brainer really. It was so scrummy, it had big chunks of oreo in it which was so so tasty, again was very gutted that I didn't have the room to finish it all but I'd have been there till the next day trying I was soo full. Gary went for the new york vanilla cheesecake which looked delicious and I did have a sneaky bite and I can confirm it was yummy! I really liked the sound of the chocolate brownie and the doughnuts too so I may need to get someone to come along again with me soon.

 We were also very lucky and were handed goody bags as we left which I totally was not expecting so big thanks to the filling station for that. My favourite thing out of the goody bag (admittedly also the dogs) is the baseball we were given which the dog has now claimed both of ours and carries them to his bed constantly. The event was also to help raise money for CHAS, the childrens hospice association scotland so there was a raffle for this which we entered so fingers crossed and we also got some cute love heart sweets from them. If you are looking for a new, good charity to donate too then this is definitely a really worthy cause. I had a very funny incident with these sweets which is on my instagram if you're interested in taking a peek (@whatabbyloves). I upload a lot of lifestyle snippets and sneak peeks for my blog so if you're into that then give me a follow!

Keyring bottle opener....very handy thing for a student to have at all times ;-)

Have you been to the Filling Station before? I hadn't but now I will definitely be paying another visit soon!

Lots of Love,

A x x x