The best of both worlds

With a catchphrase like American fare, Irish hospitality, Bennigan’s promises diners a lot and, thankfully, doesn’t disappoint.

Located in bustling Juffair, near the US Navy base, the restaurant couldn’t be in a better location to offer a taste of home to service personnel working in the kingdom.

However, despite its obvious appeal to an American crowd, it also attracts a wide range of other customers from different nationalities thanks in no small part to the friendly service and varied menu.

The décor provides a warm and inviting ambiance with a combination of booths and tables, split into two sections for smokers and non-smokers.

This is a venue that prides itself on customer service and that was abundantly clear to me as I was waiting to be seated and caught wind of a patron having a friendly chat with a server he was on a first-name basis with.

Yes, this is a restaurant that keeps customers coming back and, after sampling the menu, I now understand why.

Now with an Irish-named menu that boasts everything from salad to gourmet burgers, steak to pie, fish to pot roast and practically everything in between it can be hard to decide on a main course.

Luckily for me, operations manager Marlon Padua Talamayan was on-hand to talk me through the most popular dishes (which incidentally are labelled under ‘legendary bites’ on the menu).

He said: “We have a wide selection of dishes here at Bennigan’s and I think that’s one of the reasons we have so many loyal customers.

“Our goal is to provide, great food, great service and great value for money, we want people to feel at home here, to relax and enjoy themselves.

“In fact, we are popular with a number of customers from families to businessmen and everyone in between.”

I started off with a portion of boneless Buffalo chicken wings in a spicy sauce, complimented with cool blue cheese dressing and crisp celery sticks. A steal at BD4.

To say it was love at first bite is an understatement and these light, bite-sized bits of goodness were a perfect start to the evening.

Marlon recommended I try the World Famous Monte Cristo … a concoction as delicious as it is intriguing. Honey wheat bread with tender ham, roast turkey, Swiss and American cheeses dipped in batter and deep fried then coated in powdered sugar.

This is not a meal for the faint-hearted, the sizable BD4 serving comes with chips and if you manage to tackle it in one sitting you are a bigger man than I.

Honestly, it’s so huge I thought I was going to have to dislocate my jaw to take a bite. Admittedly it sounds like an absurd combination but rest assured it is a taste sensation that has to be tried to be believed.

The flavours complimented each other in ways I never dreamed possible … I wasn’t sure if it was a main course or a dessert but I didn’t care at all.

Fortunately, for the less hungry, it is available in a smaller portion for a respectable BD3.200 but I’m a believer in the old ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ philosophy … and besides, you don’t need a dessert afterwards.

That is a doubled-edged sword because the dessert section looked pretty impressive with options like New York Cheesecake, Brownie Bottom Pie and Abbey’s Apple Sizzler.

There is also a loyalty card available which entitles customers to a discount on their next order, I recommend snapping it up.

The restaurant is currently in the process of updating the menu to offer a range of new dishes while keeping the familiar favourites that customers know and love.

Bennigan’s is open for breakfast from 6am and closes at 2am.

For details, or to make an order for delivery, call 17813750.