Franx Snack Bar

This is a lovely little place on Shaftesbury Avenue in London, I went by on Saturday morning to fill up before another day working in the city.
I instantly got the feeling that this was family run restaurant or that all of the staff know each other very well. They were all very chatty and quickly invited me to take a seat as I walked through the door. I had a look over the menu and went for the salmon and scrambled eggs teamed with an americano. The thing that impressed me the most was the speed of the service here, within ten minutes of sitting down I had both my coffee and my breakfast. This was perfect for me as I needed to get away quite quickly but didn’t fancy some of the less healthy take away options. My eggs were light and the salmon was fresh and tasty, it was all served on brown bread and was a really good size portion.
At £5 this was a decent breakfast at a good price for the area. If I was around Covent Garden again I would be tempted to come back. A good value, no frills restaurant can be hard thing to find!

So I fancied a jacket potato/​baked potato today and looked on Unilocal for advice. It told me two stops, I picked one, which turned out to be shut, and so I randomly walked around the area to find another café for jacket potatoes.
This one does not disappoint! Prices were cheap, I ordered a bacon and cheese jacket potato for £4.95 and had the option to add in butter, pepper, and salad. What a bargain!
The potato was moist and delicious with the melted cheese. Bacon was a bit overdone and there was only a little bit of salad, but I still think it’s well worth it for my comfort lunch.
It was also very busy at 1pm. I walked in and 3 people were ahead of me, then while I waited around 5 – 7 min for my potato another 7 came in behind me! Wow!

I stopped here Sunday morning for a Full English. The food was very nice and the staff was friendly and helpful. They found me a paper to read with my breakfast and my coffee was refilled. The price was 4.95 which was quite reasonable for the quantity and the quality of food. They had some lovely salads displayed and other warm dishes that looked tasty. I would recommend it and also stop in again if I ever was back in the area.

We went here on a whim as we’d just gotten out of the British Museum and were starving. Saw they had some specials and it seemed reasonably priced, plus their sandwiches looked huge! Plus they had loads of ciabatta and foccacia bread (YUM), so we ventured in.
Not knowing what a chicken escalope was, I got «The Londoner». Not because I’m touristy or anything, but because it was roast beef and horseradish (I love me some horseradish!). The boyf got a chicken escalope with cheddar so I could try (he’s a dear). We got the last of the foccacia (score!) and the sandwiches were served melt style. The sandwiches filled our hunger pains, but they didn’t bat out of the park.
The wait staff were very nice and all smiles, the prices reasonable, and the food a-​ok. The final verdict? Yeah it’s a good pitstop, but I wouldn’t go out of your way.

Really you have to have a really hideous hangover and be at work to want to eat anything from here as the speciality seems to be greased up, mega-​stodgy, super-​sized pasta dishes including the cheesiest lasagne in London. It’s also pretty grubby and not especially atmospheric to eat in, once when I was here a junkie came in and lay on the floor for a little while. So maybe take away is the best option if you have a high tolerance for soggy polystyrene. It sounds like I think this place is beyond contempt it’s so disgusting but actually I really like it. The staff are really friendly and it’s always busy with local office workers and it’s also very cheap.

Franx doesn’t have people queing out of its doors each lunchtime for nothing. You select a huge box of «crazy salad» built to your request, gut defying portions of tasty pasta or risotto dishes, shepherd’s pie, panninis, baguettes. All served at lightening speed as though the guys lives depended on it.