Frankie and Benny's, Swindon

3:23pm Thursday 27th March 2008

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AS the on call weekend reporter, I decided to shun a night on the tiles in favour of a family meal.

Taking my mum and younger brother, whose university diet runs to beer and Alphabetti spaghetti, we headed to the Greenbridge Retail Park in Swindon.

Frankie and Benny's, Greenbridge Retail Park, Drake’s Way, Swindon

(01793) 613136

On arrival we were taken aback by the throngs of people waiting for a table, but were reassured by a polite waitress that the wait would be no longer than 30-minutes. And no less than 25-minutes later we had been seated and ordered our food.

I went for oven-baked chicken Parmigana, a chicken breast cooked in garlic breadcrumbs, smothered with cheese and ham on a bed of Neapolitan spaghetti.

Mum decided on the tuna fishcakes and salad dressing and Luke plumped for a gigantic Manhattan burger.

My chicken Parmigana was perfectly cooked and crunchy on the outside and the spaghetti was delicious. It was seasoned well and left a sweet coriander aftertaste.

Mum said her fishcakes were just the right texture and had obviously been made with 100 per cent salmon, because they were extremely fishy.

Luke wolfed down his towering burger and caught his breath enough to say it was one of the best he has eaten in a long while. Coming from a connoisseur of fast food that was a compliment indeed.

For dessert mum and I ordered cinnamon waffles and Luke chose traditional apple and blackberry crumble.

The waffles were divine and accompanied by lashings of toffee sauce and vanilla ice cream. Luke's crumble did not have enough fruit to compete with its mountain of crumble.

The atmosphere in the restaurant was quintessentially Italian-American, with Rat Pack music and a how to speak Italian CD playing in the gents.

The bill came to an impressive £48 and, as I waddled home, I thought that this on call malarkey wasn't so bad after all.

Scott McPherson