Restaurant Review: TGI Friday's, Covent Garden

Restaurant name: TGI Friday's
Location: Covent Garden, London
Description: American-style chain restaurant that is popular with tourists
Reason for visit: I'd never been, and since I came across a recipe that recreated one of the restaurant's dishes (which I made and really enjoyed) I wanted to try it. Also, we had tickets for a play in the grounds of a church two minutes up the road (which I highly recommend - check out the Iris Theatre.

mozzarella dippers

I ate: Sizzling Chicken: "Tender garlic chicken breasts on a sizzling skillet of onions, peppers, melted Monterey Jack and gooey Colby cheeses, with a serving of cheesy mash topped with spring onions." I chose it because I found a recipe based on this dish in a book called "America's Most Wanted" and wanted to try the original.
My companion ate: Classic American burger with cheese

 

The food was: My chicken was disappointing - it wasn't as strongly flavoured as I had expected, and the skillet it was served on was so hot that a lot of the cheese had completely burnt. I couldn't really taste the garlic in the chicken and the cheesy mash wasn't that exciting. I much preferred my version of this dish. My boyfriend was quite happy with his burger, and my cocktail was nice, though when I saw two prices on the menu, I assumed one was the happy hour price, but in fact it was for small or large versions of the drink. The mozzarella dippers were lovely.
The service/atmosphere was: There was a queue outside and I heard people being told it would be a 40 minute wait, yet there were a lot of empty tables inside which didn't seem to be reserved. The background music was quite quiet - I'd read reviews complaining it is too loud - but we were eating early evening so maybe it would be turned up later. Our waitress was fine, though it took a little while to have our order taken - we had wanted dessert and had 20 minutes before we needed to leave to go to the theatre, but by the time the waitress came over we decided we should just get the bill and go. Overall I couldn't help finding the huge half-empty restaurant a bit soulless.

Price range/value for money: I guess average for this part of town
Would I recommend it? Not especially, it's a good location and seems popular with tourists but I wouldn't particularly be in a hurry to come back here.