RESTAURANT REVIEW - FERNANDEZ GRILLHOUSE

My friend sent me a snapchat of a new grillhouse that had opened up near The Brewdog pub. Alas I rounded up Sandy and Miles and we headed there to go and try and eat as much of the menu as possible all in the name of gluttony and review. Here's plenty of pictures and what we made of Fernandez Grillhouse.

*Note: I've chose to discard the previous points scoring system I employed whilst writing these restaurant reviews. It's kind of hard to judge all eating establishments by the same criteria when some are chicken shops, some are chain restaurants and some are stand alone independent traders. Also, I scored a couple pretty average places pretty high a few years ago so it never left me much wriggle room haha

NAME: FERNANDEZ GRILLHOUSE
LOCATION: 10 FRIAR LANE, LEICESTER, LE1 5PY

click these photos to enlarge

DECOR: It's kind of nice inside. Just looks like all of those Tex Mex grill places look, so it's not really notable. Sort of a similar vibe to a Nandos. One thing that was really nice was that tables weren't all packed in right next to each other. You really feel like you have your own space in there, Which say for example in a Nandos, or those other Tex Mex places is quite rare isn't it. Lots of big booths and long pews make it perfect for a big group booking.

Sandy Feat. Olives

PRICE: The prices were really good. We all went mental, had a main and about 3/4 sides, and then a steak to share and it was about £24 per head. This was kind of like my big blow out meal of the weekend, so I was expecting to clear £30-40 quid easy. Very pleasantly surprised. You could eat really well for around £15.

My med veg was mostly tomatoes and mushrooms. Need to do a twitter poll to find out if this is ok to be classed as 'med veg'.

FOOD: There was so much actual food on the table. We did a good job of trying to get as much as possible to review. The food wasn't blowing my mind out of my ears, but everything we had was pretty nice. The blue cheese sauce was really good haha. The steak we got was the best thing, I think if I went back again I'd get another steak. It was juicy and really thick and came with a nice little pot of cheese and jalapeño sauce. All the sides were of a certain standard, nothing fancy, nothing wildly offensive. The chicken strips were big and thick. The onion rings were battered instead of breaded which was a result. The burgers were nice enough and made with love, they hadn't been thrown together, but I feel like we are a bit spoilt for gourmet burgers in Leicester. Everywhere else where I would regularly go to serve fresh, handmade burgers. These were nice, but tasted a bit sloppy because I think they were frozen ones.

In regards to the menu and the selection it was absolutely 10/10. There was SO much to choose from, they do everything you can imagine they would and more. Every kind of burger or steak or chicken or whatever you can completely customise and there are loads of sides, sauces and other little bits. We could easily go 3 man up again, have as much food as we did and not have anything we had on this table this time. However there was no pork, or alcoholic drinks. I assume given the other diners in that evening they were aiming at an Asian market. If you aren't craving ribs and a beer you'll have a wild night.

the aforementioned juicy steak. When toying with the idea of ordering one after our original orders came out we said we should share one, and then on 3 said how we had our steak and we all said '1..2..3...medium rare!' It was like that bit on stepbrothers where they realise they just become best friends.

Miles' chilli chips and tower burger

ATMOSPHERE: The atmosphere was really cool, similar to a Nandos. The room was so big and nicely lit that it felt really chilling. If I remember correctly they had similar music to the stuff they have playing at Nandos too. In terms of the sort of people it was attracting when we were there it looked to be big parties, mainly family bookings. The odd little twerp kid darting about but aside from that it was all calm and cool.

My Mexicana burger 

B-B-B-B-B-burger boys

SERVICE: The service was sick. The guy who took our order (Kyle) at the till was very very good. I was still kind of undecided on exactly what I wanted, so I ordered in a really round-about way by accident and he smashed it. While he was taking my order something had happened and he was between serving me and passing on to one of his subordinates how they should deal with this situation. He still nailed it. We ordered loads and nothing fucked up. However, I think they were so eager to impress and could see that we were having a good time. People just kept coming over to us to check we were enjoying our food. Only a yellow card offence, obviously better than them not coming over, but it was a bit much. 

Just as we went to leave I headed for the toilets downstairs. As I sauntered back through the restaurant I again thought how nice it was that they hadn't packed it out wall to wall with tables. Then I got downstairs and saw these three little booths, hidden away, but right next to the toilets hahaha. One of them was lit with a disco ball or something, and had loads of sequins all over shit. It was odd, I wouldn't like to sit and have dinner opposite the toilets ideally.

The downstairs bog booths, complete with skis

CONCLUSION: In conclusion it's a nice place and I think it'll last. Maybe the location let's it down a little, but then it is on the DMU side of town, not too far from St Martins Square and the Highcross and over the last few years more and more independent places are opening up and people are venturing into other parts of the city centre to eat. Look at that steakhouse that I slaughtered that is on Granby Street. It's ticking over nicely. Also, they've clearly put the money in. It all looks nice and clean and wide open and so on, with the big noticeable neon signage out the front. The menu was wide and affordable, perfect if there was a big party of you, you could all go and eat for about £15 each. I'll definitely go back, but i'm not in any mad rush. The food was really enjoyable but it didn't blow my mind. I'll look forward to next time.