Kimchee - authentically bland?

How the times have changed… A few years ago, a moodily lit, artfully ambient dark wood and slate room serving authentically ethnic South East Asian cuisine would have had queues out of the door. And it's certainly not that Kimchee is any worse than original contender Busabi Eathai, on the contrary, but we're no longer surprised at being able to eat such exotica in the midst of the city.

Kimchee promises an ‘authentic, full Korean dining experience in the heart of London…’ Apparently their founder hand noticed a paucity of decent ones. Given the number clustered round the Tottenham Court Road end of Covent Garden, he hadn't looked that hard. That said, you can't quibble with the description he provides. It's certainly a full experience, the menu must have forty or more dishes on it, many of them not seldom seen outside Seoul.

The majority of dishes fall into the ‘small plates’ territory. An extended number of them are a riff on the battered and deep fried, though sadly the few we shared didn't deliver anything that soared above the ordinary. Overly thick fried dough smothered the life out of already fairly tough squid, the knockout blow delivered by an acrid sweet chilli sauce. A Prawn Tuigim delivered a measly two (albeit decent) crustacea locked in a ‘tempura’ batter overcoat that could have held Hannibal Lecter.

Things got slightly better with the main, a competent if pedestrian dolsot bibimbap. After a heavenly experience in Naru a few months ago, I was definitely in the mood for another go on the hot stone bowl filled with gradually crisping fragrant rice and veg. Here it just lurked rather than jumping out. There was no discernible sesame aroma, scarce veggies and little kick from a side bowl of chilli sauce. If I'm back, it'll be to take something from the evocatively fragranced grill at the front of the restaurant, the smell of which was one of the few real highlights of the place.

Despite uncomfortable bench seating, the dark woods and soft stone delivered a handsome enough dining experience and for a business lunch where you're more concerned by chat than chow it gets a nod for being unobtrusively acceptable. It's a missed opportunity but one that still just about manages acceptability in the hinterlands of Holborn.

What ho!

Spring! As the first rays of life-giving sun hit your upturned cheeks and the nights recede into long placid evenings with the promise of chilled rose wine. A thousand BBQ's rumble out of garages, the long forgotten, rusty and oil stained armoured vanguard of summer. Spring! A time of salads and green and the lightest of touches. Spring! The perfect time to visit a gentleman's club inspired grill restaurant then… ah. No.. sadly not.

I'd had the Reform Social highlighted to me by a number of people back in the depths of winter (i.e. various points in the last 12 months) and the reports had all said broadly the same thing. Pretty decent food, if heavy on the meat and puddings, and a dark, clubby, cocoon of a space with snug leather seating you could drown in.

In summary, ideal for a long gentleman's luncheon before the weather breaks for the better… Well I'm no follower of fashion (just look at my wardrobe) and that's why I'd waited until the first fragrant days of warmth and light before pulling on my crushed velvet smoking jacket, adjusting my monocle and finding a saucy young slip of a gel to entertain.

Slotted underneath the Mandeville Hotel just off Marylebone High Street, the hotelish (and not entirely in a good way) bar was our first entry point. The way robustly blocked by a florid and fully padded post work crowd enjoying a discount deal on fizz we squeezed uncomfortably through to the dining room at the other side of the lounge.

Here I was pleased to see a full crowd of mixed ages. My gentleman's jacket wouldn't have looked entirely out of place, but neither were we marooned in fuddy-duddy land. The table of birthday partying hipsters and a gaggle of courting couples dining gave our section of the long dark room a gentle (and genteel) buzz.

Things started very well with a crisp, clean and perfectly cooked duck ‘Scotch’ egg, wrapped in a pliant and piquant black pudding shell. It clashed with an unnecessary trough of apple sauce, but solo was note perfect.

The mains sadly were less accomplished in their delivery. Both arrived on a generic root vegetable puree, hay cooked hake was a fine piece of fish, but smokier and saltier than a Glaswegian sailors mission. Stuffed lamb breast, a substitution for the stout sounding Angus rose veal chop I'd been salivating for, came as an underwelmingly small and fatty roulade filled with a fishy breadcrumb mix and topped bafflingly with tight and over-battered scampi, an odd mix that did none of the constituent parts justice. A side of pumpkin with chilli and sage gave none of the flavour of either and was verging on undercooked to boot. There's a good looking grill section here filled with some handsomely sourced cuts. I can only blame our ordering for missing them out.

Thankfully there was a knowing hand on the desserts, reason almost to return in themselves. My Bakewell Pudding, a crispy puck of choux filled with tart fruit and covered in thick vanilla custard the colour and consistency of whipped butter. A darkly decadent chocolate and blood orange pot was equally moreish. Given what I saw of the cocktails, I'm tempted to return for a lush's afternoon tea combining the two.

On a slight negative note, there was a noticeable level of fractiousness among the front of house team, commands and critiques hissed not sotto voce enough to be unheard as the harried team flew around us. It wasn't ideal. They were pretty good face to face, just less so when talking to each other.

There's less knowing cool than at that other modern bastions of of 'private member's-chic' like Dean Street Townhouse and Hawksmoor (both of whom definitely hosted planning meetings for this place) but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't do it quite as well as the aforementioned, but does well enough at a reasonable price that you won't probably shouldn't mind.

Come and join the food spotters…

It's a food-spotters and bloggers menu if ever there was one. Devised dishes described in a mash-up two-word list of current food trends. Raw this and that, ‘Kimchi’ here, ‘chicken skin’ there, ‘pulled pork’ everywhere… Check, check and mate, mate. That there's a pervading whiff of BBQ will come as little surprise to anyone who knows that chef Neil Rankin has hotfooted it over here from iconic meat Mecca Pitt Que, following a unfortunate turn of events between the owners and original kitchen prodigy Ben ‘Roganic’ Spalding. But of course if you're just a humble punter, you will neither know, nor care about this back story.

For the rest of you, the civilians still radiating bafflement at the one-word menu and the breathy introduction? Banish the gloom and forget about the ‘nu-restaurant’ wankery, you're in for a treat.

There's a seemingly more comfortable dining space upstairs, though we're relegated to slightly cramped and uncomfortable rough-hewn communal tables at the front, slotted in next to a mixed bag of trendy locals and slathering food spotters. Not ideal for a quiet date, and not something that they make a recommendation on when you book which feels odd. I'm also surprised that it's not as busy as the Twitterati would have you imagine. There's definitely room for walk ups, certainly in the loud downstairs bar space which serves a limited version of the same innovative menu.

And the food? Thankfully it's superb. Absolutely superb.

We go for (scratch that, I go for) a selection of the starter plates, topped off with a ‘Red Flannel Hash’. Only on discussion with the serving dude do we realise that's a type of beetroot, roasted to perfection with floury roast potatoes and delicate peas and corn, topped with a panko-coated soft-boiled egg. Perfect comfort food, if irritatingly undecipherable from the menu alone.

Those burnt leeks were a smokey revelation, the flavour of the BBQ subtle but pervasive, mellowed out by creamy rich yolk. Tiny and delicately tempura'ed oysters were gone in a heartbeat, much like a large fresh dose of buttery crab with a wallop of fresh sea served on a slice of deep fried puffed-up pig skin more akin to a prawn cracker. Simple flavours combined well and packing a real punch. Genuine food that puts a smile on your face.

The best for me was a simple salad of raw beef and apple, with a hit of chilli oil and a nutty sweetness from scattered sesame. A perfect small plate and bargainous at a fiver. For the same price we also enjoyed a riff on Canadian monstrosity poutine, here made with hunks of fleshy pork belly and softly warming kimchi. The couple packed in next to us were overheard contemplating a second portion of this, I wholeheartedly agreed with their ambition and would have done likewise if I hadn't known the reaction my suggestion would get from my guest.

And that Bacon Panna Cotta to finish with was designed to fulfil almost all of my fantasies. Every bit as wrong (and as right) as you can imagine. Soft creamy panna cotta with just a hint of smokey bacon, topped with crushed nuts and maple syrup. Absolutely heavenly.

I'm also delighted to say that it's very well priced for this quality of innovative cooking. Even with a (frankly poor and astringent) bottle of house white and (much better) service, the tab only came to £67. It certainly lived up to the hype, though I'm glad to say that it's not as crowded as expected (and as it deserves to be, but these are early days). Next time however I'll be going for a seat upstairs. Don't be put off by the cooler than thou menu, you can ask questions. Come and join the food spotters…

Quality new Victoria dim sum lunch

The feng shui inside might be stunning but it's difficult to imagine many less auspicious locations in zone 1. A Wong sits like a slightly out of place squat granite and glass monolith among the mediocre lunchtime options and sandwich chains of Wilton Road. Laid back decor inside, a clean mix of Scandinavian woodwork and soft straight stone lines.

There are three menus, a lighter dim sum focussed lunch menu, a more substantial evening list and a tasting menu spanning the both. They all dip in and out of a range of regional specialisms, so Sichuan standards like Gong Bao chicken and dry fried beans rub noses with braised lettuce, Imperial dishes and Yangzhou fried rice.

Prices are reasonable across the board, though at £1.50 a piece the dim sum will mount up pretty quickly. It isn't the place for a weekend blow out, but then you're unlikely to see many people round here during the weekend other than the confused tourists disembarking from Victoria station. Of particular note is the express menu, with two courses, a drink (and two lovely salted caramel petits fours) for a very reasonable £12.95.

A trio of dim sum wouldn't usually come close to satisfying me, even as a starter, but these are monsters. That classic shrimp har gau, here at least half again as big as the tiddlers I'm used to in Chinatown, came with an innovative twist, a protective bubble coat of sharp citrus and yuzu foam. That other stalwart pork and prawn siu mai came with its own welcome innovation, a tiny sliver of puffed pork crackling, texturally complimenting the freshly steamed and freshly made parcel. A grease free and delightfully crispy pork wonton completed the set, as delightful a dim sum experience as I've had in this country.

Of the four or so mains offered with the express menu, I went for Sichuanese speciality dan dan mian, or peddler's noodles, named after the distinctive cooking pots they were served from by wandering street sellers. Whenever I've had it before, the soft minced beef, seasoned with those numbing Sichuan peppercorns, mixed with chunks of chilli, veggies and noodles has come in a spicy broth made of noodle water, Shaoshing rice wine and stock. Here it comes, with a few beansprouts and a single vegetable, in a thick meaty gravy, dumped over pedestrian noodles. Not unpleasant per se, but unexpectedly dry, overly rich and not much to my taste.

I'll be back, if not for the tasting menu, certainly for a more detailed examination of the evening menu and some more of that super sized dim sum. The sun was out, and the open plan airy space will be gorgeous come the summer. Let's hope that the locals can tear themselves away from Nando's and the infinitely inferior Dim T just up the road and support the new kid on the block.

A pleasingly unexpected little Korean place in an unfancied bit of Holborn

Difficult to call on the accuracy of the cooking, I'm not a regular eater of Korean, which, considering the delicious menu I'm faced with, surprises me. I think that there's a trick missed in my dining life. A selection of stews, fried dishes, noodle dishes and the phrase I'm looking for, dolsot bibimbap, a (relatively) healthy dish served in a roasting hot stone bowl that I'm relying on to take away my Monday evening blues. Authentic or not, there's little else I recognise on the menu, often one of the best benchmarks for authenticity.

A larger than expected portion of ‘Crunch Chicken’ sweetly and oddly tastes just like a gourmet version of a McDonald's Chicken McNugget. Noticeably sugared flesh beneath a light battered coating, it's surprising and not at all unpleasant, in a guilty pleasure sort of way. There's definitely a food dude marketing angle in this, it'd sell like, well hot chicken, in an East End foodie market. Come to think of it, I might try and get in there before anyone else notices! The obligatory side of kimchi, fermented and chilli infused cabbage, is a welcome contrast (if a little cold) cutting through the chicken and giving a needed contrast in texture.

The main event, that dolsot bibimbap, is enough to make me kick myself for not having it more often. It's a superb piece of simple cooking with some wonderful flavour and texture contrasts. Small piles of steamed and fragrant veggies are placed adjacent to each other for contrast, alongside a healthy portion of beef slivers, atop a bed of plain rice. The stone bowl, boiling hot from the oven, has been coated with sesame oil before being filled and the smell is outstanding. An egg yolk completes the dish, stirred into the browning, crispening rice and coating the meat and vegetables, cooking as it does to give the whole dish a light yellow sesame scented sheen. Cut through with more of that kimchi, this is truly a heartening and hearty winter dish.

The FoH team are friendly and unobtrusive, the decor is inoffensively pale, a mid range fairly generic Asian restaurant that could be anywhere or serving anything. It's not overly designed, but is functional and very comforting, like the food. Just round the back of the Shaftesbury Theatre, you're not going to find it on any glitzy hit lists, but that won't stop me going back and shouldn't stop you going, assuming you haven't already been.

The romance of the rotisserie

One of my favourite restaurant memories is that of a tiny little place in Paris called L'AOC. It's partly because I had a wonderfully romantic night there, with the most beautiful girl in the world, but mainly because you just can't compete with roasted meat.

The big selling point of atmospheric, soulful old L'AOC is their rotisserie. Enormous spits of chicken and pork, co-mingled juices dripping and covering lascivious slices of porous potato, thickly cut with rosemary and garlic, gently roasting in the meaty aftermath. After witnessing, and tasting, that you have to wonder how the Parisiens remain so thin (and also wonder who would ever want to eat a simple side salad again).

So imagine how delighted I was to hear that a rotisserie chicken restaurant had opened in Soho, on the site of the sadly missed New Piccadilly Cafe none the less. It must have been the easiest sell for finance in recent restaurant history. Let's just take every single restaurant trend and jam it into one. Chicken with more pedigree than a Crufts winner, a single item menu, no reservations and dude food you're encouraged to manhandle? It's all there. There are definitely eyes on a bigger prize here. Their parent company is called Clockjack Investments and they pre-emptively talk about ‘their first restaurant’, like they're going to be so busy rolling out new locations they may forget to update the website.

The place itself defines warehouse chic. Smooth wooden sharing tables with concrete walls and the odd flash of London Underground inspired tiling. If they don't make the rent in here, it's the work of minutes to pull out the large rotisserie unit behind the counter and slam in a branch of AllSaints instead. The bench seating is a little ungainly, though it's nice to watch the ebb and flow of Soho through the large windows to the front. Sadly, the large windows on the rotisseries mean you only get the occasional whiff of the slow cooking meat as it pirouettes around the heat. A parsimonious tease rather than tantalisation.

And the chicken? It's good. Really good. As good as you'd hope a free range chicken from a small farming co-operative in Brittany would taste. And for £19 a bird (with no sides), it bloody should be. Despite being nearly double the price of Nandos, an obvious target for comparison, that's not actually as much as it sounds, and it's a good sized beast that feeds two easily with a couple of plates of additional sides. Sadly none that we had were that memorable, but I wasn't complaining. We had a couple of pots of differing dips to spice up the meat though it didn't really need anything much, dense and fully flavoured with a sticky dark skin, it really was a good bird.

So does it compare to L'AOC? Sadly not. I have to withdraw my earlier statement. Shockingly it's not all about the rotisserie. The chicken might be good, but there's just no soul here. It's beyond fine for a quick lunch, but it's not somewhere I'd choose to linger long with the most beautiful girl in the world.

Now I have to admit to being slightly inebriated when I first visited The Green Man and French Horn. It was the glorious day that Bradford City triumphed over Arsenal in the Capital One Cup. Not a day seared into most people's memories, but enough to send me into paroxysms of clappy handed joy as I watched the giant killing unfold.

In fairness, all I really needed was something to soak up a number of pints. The output from this cracking little newcomer and youngest sibling of Terroirs, Brawn and Soif, was almost certainly beyond my faculty. So good though that, while not capable of sobering me up, it did cause me to drag a non football obsessed guest back to confirm what I'd witnessed.

We're in mixed small plate territory here. Lots of lovely little ideas, pulled together with a loose thread of the Loire Valley, intended as much as anything to show off an outrageously interesting cellar.

A thick slab of pork rillette was pushed eagerly into the contents of a hearty, fresh bread basket and consumed within minutes, hearty and flavoursome. My main plate was, as it had been on the previous visit, one of the simplest dishes I've had in a long time, three beautifully buttery fat mackerel, served with butter, garlic and a spritz of lemon. The quality was superb and the simplest of touches was all they needed.

Alongside, I opted for a grassy almost cidery fresh Cabernet Franc, refreshing and unexpected. A punch in the mouth of clean flavours that it through the thickness of the pork and the fish perfectly.

Poached pear was almost unexpectedly rich after the simple fare so far and a little too sweet for me, reclining like an early Rita Hayworth in a limpid caramel pool. I couldn't stop eating till it was gone, but in hindsight I'd have snuck in another small plate.

It was only after I'd been for the first time I realised the background to the restaurant and its owners, the terroir if you will. It was obviously going to be a winner. Until that point I got to experience the sheer joy that comes with making a real find, of discovering a new restaurant that will stay in your little black book for years. The fact it's a known quality doesn't change that fact.

So how's the original outpost of growing tapas juggernaut of Brindisa doing since I last visited? Not as well as I'd hoped unfortunately…

Situated on the corner of Borough Market's southern corner, no bookings Brindesa was always a tough (and tiny) table to score, light wood interior filled with souls exiting the market laden with goodies, unable to wait until their home before sampling them. The unlucky masses would look on through the floor to ceiling windows and resolve to turn up earlier next week.

A recent midweek trip to the neighbourhood let me pop in for lunch on one of the less screwily busy days for the restaurant before the market next door grunts into life on a Friday.

The menu is still a organic shopper's wet dream, everything veggie sourced from the nearby stalls while meats and spices come from the Brindesa shop, hotfoot from the best suppliers in their Spanish homeland. The joy has always been that you don't want to wait until you get home from the market, mainly because what the kitchen can do with the same handful of ingredients is infinitely better than anything you could manage.

We've been spoilt by Jose, and the jamon croquetas he now serves up on Bermonsey Street. Those are light, fresh and heaven sent, these lumpen cigars of gluey mash under a too thick oily carapace just don't cut the mustard. Huevos Rotos – broken eggs over fried potatoes and Iberico pork sobrasada – is unevenly cooked. Soft slices of spud seemingly decanted into a lukewarm serving dish, the egg just the wrong side of soft and the sobrasada, a thickly spiced tomato based sauce, huddled in one corner under a slice of waxen potato. A great idea, and one I'm looking forward to borrowing for an inevitably hungover brunch, but there's nothing here any reasonably home chef couldn't improve on.

Sautéed chicken livers with an onion and caper dressing were fine, and well cooked. If I'd just taken a plate of that with a muscular minerally and obscenely dry sherry, I'd no doubt be hurrahing from the rooftops.

Compared to a recent revisit to gracefully ageing Barrafina, the team at Tapas Brindisa have got some way to go to regain their crown. If you're in the area, nip round to Bermondsey Street and see what their old boss Jose Pizzaro is up to at his brace of eponymous restaurants, either one of them easily has the measure of Brindisa I'm sad to say…

You can almost hear David Attenborough's hushed and breathy tones describing the place as he peers unobtrusively through the window…"Carefully created.. And lovingly placed next to a recently spawned Jamie's Italian for shelter and contrast.. Small and comparatively week now, but within years this will be a force to reckon with. Under an anonymous new build office block here in the Islington foothills, we are present at the birth of a chain…" It'll go great at the start of the next series of Human Planet.

Naamyaa (or N-U-M-indecipherable squiggle as the sign would have you believe) is, or certainly what feels like, a new concept being rolled out by Alan Yau. Many of his creations have become chains over the years; Wagamammas, Busabi Eathai, Yauacha, the mighty Hakkasan and ChaCha Moon (actually, scratch that last one… It's the black sheep of the family in so many ways) and while Wagamammas may have blossomed into mediocre provincial ubiquity, it's a damn site better than most high streets could have offered even 15 years ago.

The menu at Naamyaa Cafe, created in partnership with Michelin starred Thai specialist David Thompson (he of Michelin starred Nahm fame), is an odd one if you're in search of a new, or specifically Thai, experience. They cover a broad gamut of South East Asian dishes, many offered as shared or small plates, alongside a handful of international offerings such as burgers and European salads (it's styled as an all day Bangkok cafe, this appears to be a 'thing that those establishments offer, much like the culturally curious Indian railway cafes that inspired Dishoom).

So bring it on…

Walking in to a bright airy space of light pines, gorgeous orange pictoral tiling and cool pistachio green banquettes, one of the first things you notice is that Naamyaa smells of food. In a good way. Food that makes me hungry. Food I want to eat.

Pulling up a pew at the large bar overlooking the open kitchen (that'd explain the smell then) I skimmed through the menu before succumbing to menu Tourettes and ordering the smell that had turned me on as I walked in. I get the purpose of open kitchens in showier restaurants, where there's genuinely a sense of wonder about what the white clad magicians are doing with their exotic ingredients, less so when you're simply watching a bored guy repeatedly prep clingfilm clad tray after clingfilm clad tray of veggies.

Despite that smell, it didn't start well. Vegetable stuffed spring rolls or Po Pia Jay were as under-filled and generic as those you'd get from a local Chinese supermarket, Thai spiced chicken wings were a generous portion and easily suitable for sharing, but slightly greasy, under-flavoured and just too scrawny. I wasn't wishing I'd nipped into Jamie's next door, but I was starting to bemoan the fact I hadn't gone a little further down the road to Exmouth Market for my scran.

Thankfully, it was saved by the laksa, a deeply intense and flavoursome bowl of hearty spice. £8.50 is a pretty reasonable price for a dish of this quality, one so overfilled with yielding strings of braised chicken, silken noodles, crunchy beansprout and fried garlic that I struggled to finish it. I know that laksa isn't specifically a Thai soup, though versions are served throughout the region, and this one is a triumph.

Expectations finally met if not exceeded, I'll certainly pop back in to sample a couple of the other rice and noodle mains if I'm in the area. On the second half of this showing, I won't have a problem recommending Naamyaa, though you might want to wait until one pops up closer to you. It won't be long.

After Brasserie Zedel, I thought we might have turned a corner in the ‘restaurant-prices-like-phone-numbers’ debate. A Regent Street restaurant with appropriately sky-high rents and rates offering top drawer scoff you'll struggle to spend £25 a head on. Surely everyone would be onto this?

Now the joint genius of restaurateur team Corbin & King manage this pricing at Zedel with few reservations, lots of tables and very high customer churn, turning tables three or four times a service generating many more, albeit smaller, checks.

So surely, applying that rationale, a similarly ambitious venue next door which has just undergone an equally sumptuous redesign in another vast subterranean space should (if they turn twice in a service) mean that things only cost twice as much? Sadly not. We're back to £100+ a head territory now, as next door neighbour MASH sells steak, and not much more.

The opulent (and obviously masculine) dining room feels designed to appeal to the international expenses crowd: without a view, you could easily be in Dubai, Chicago or Singapore instead of London. Deals are to be done here gentlemen… over steak, expensive wine and casual misogyny. That's a tad judgemental and almost certainly untrue but, being only a Rolex-throw from Mayfair, it is at least plausible.

It has a vaguely Mid West American inspired opulence, though my descriptor is as lazy as the broad theming. Call it essence of robber baron… Thick, plush, arterial-red carpets? “make 'em plusher”. Gilded, glowing fittings? “make 'em golder”. Bulging list of rare American varietals in a leather-bound list? “make 'em rarer, and add a zero on…”

The shock is that it's not American, but Danish. Despite channelling Smith & Wollensky or Chicago Cut, it comes from the land of stripped pine and Arne Jacobsen chairs. The only sign of this Scandinavian heritage on the menu came with a trio of Danish-origin 70 day dry-aged steaks. I'm not averse to the Stilton-like joys of aged steak, but a 45 day aged piece I had recently from the Ginger Pig bordered on overpowering at times, and anything getting close to 70 is going to be considerably and challengingly funky.

Diving straight in, bypassing a relatively uninspiring starter list, we shared a surprisingly petit USDA Prime Porterhouse. It was wheeled up to be carved on a butcher's block. I was hoping for a lot from an expensive if troublesome cut. Advertised as fit for two or three, in truth it was probably only enough for one and a half or two with sides and starters. The problem with porterhouse is that you have two different cuts, sirloin and ribeye, separated by the thick T bone. Lesser chefs risk missing the balance and pushing the sirloin to a med/well, or leaving unforgiving ribeye fat un-rendered. As far as steaks go, this was a good 'un. Rich, buttery and with a decently deep flavour, it did everything a good steak should.

Along with that hunk of prime meat, sides were measly for the price, and fine, generally just fine. Like supporting dancers in a meaty musical. Chilli fries came with a crunch and a crackle of heat, while a soothingly bland mac n cheese ticked our other carby box. You can't object to either, but at £4.50 a pop, I want to have the best darned carbs in the city.

With a cocktail before, a digestif and a one of the cheaper wines (the leathery New World spell book unsurprisingly offered little below £40), we managed to splash £225 for two, certainly more than I'd expected.

Tangentially, I remember being told by the International Man of Mystery, no stranger to the jet set, that this bland luxe internationalism is welcomed by many who spend half their lives in assorted high-end business hotels. “They want reassuringly expensive stuff they recognise, with the odd plain local speciality, because it's impossible to know how an authentic, highly spiced x, y or z is going to go down when you don't know which continent you're on and your body thinks that it's 4am…” With that in mind, MASH fits the bill perfectly. Just don't expect to see me back without the expense account.

In essence, it's simple. Pick your base stock and key ingredient, add extra noodles or soft boiled egg if you will and serve. This simplicity is what for some can elevate the humble ramen noodle dish to an art form.

Here the soft egg was burnished bronze perfection, lightly gelatinous white leaking golden savoury depth into the clear stock, thickening and enriching almost like butter. The noodles were perfectly cooked with a slight snap to them (though I'm no expert on the subject) and sank into the life giving, clear and umami packed stock. With expertly crisped chicken karaage alongside, it's a simple, satisfying and savoury lunch.

Going to J Sheekeys for their fruits de mer platter is for me the equivalent of walking into a spa. A brief respite of pure unadulterated luxury, a heady healthy hit that generally goes a long way towards improving my state of mind. The definition of a treat in other words.

It hasn't changed here in years, an I mean that in a very good way. Nicco Polo and I settle into a luxurious banquette with a self-satisfied sigh entirely at evens with the surroundings. Acres of luxurious linen cloths, a friendly and superbly well drilled FOH team and an awesomely good selection of shellfish. Nothing else needed.

Given my frothing tone so far, I should stress that while Sheekeys is luxurious, there's nothing pretentious about it. Seeing that we were struggling and wasting time with the faff of peeling the succulent little brown shrimp, our waiter gave a handy seaside tip, pinching head and tail together to pop out the sweet, fresh goodness. If I were a newbie contemplating attacking a platter, then this level of thoughtfulness would be even more appreciated.

If there's something vaguely erotic about the eating of an oyster, then fruits de mer is the culinary equivalent of no holds barred, hanging from the lampshade sex with a fruity, nubile and entirely innapropriate ex. A plethora of succulent, juicy little nubbins, blushing creamy pink morsels and taut sinews, each begging to be sampled next. Like the aforementioned illicit tryst, there's a wild menu of differnt styles, types and positions, everyone has their favourites and it's all so borderline lewd that nobody wants to imagine their parents at it.

After that, an ice cold buttery white wine and something to mop up the juices (see, I said you didn't want to imagine your parents at it…) we collapse back into the banquette. Perfect, absolutely perfect.

didn't dislike the Hampshire Hog, well, not much. But I certainly didn't like it enough to venture back, at least not without very good reason. There for a business meeting on the recommendation of a couple of locals, I'd had a fleeting thought that I'd found a new local gem.

The decor manages to channel Jamie Oliver and Laura Ashley at the same time, but the shabby chic rustic air of a country tea room is likely only to fool those who haven't left zone 2 for a very long time.

It's a radio edit Mumford & Sons sort of place… The homely farmhouse look might come into its own on a sunny weekend, when I can imagine locals flocking to the lush beer garden, but on a random weekday lunch, other than a few Bugaboo toting mummies, we're almost alone in this West London ‘Chiswick borders’ pub.

Alongside a sanded down pale wood bar serving a reasonable selection of ales to the local Henrys and Jemimas, is a dining room and a ‘parlour’ with a few odds and sods for sale, nothing too risky, a couple of shelves of groceries and breads alongside posh ‘bits’ and locally sourced tracklements (or pickles as normal people refer to them) and the like.

It's in the dining room that you really start paying the price for this unfettered rusticania. If you're stupid enough to buy your bread from the local pub then you deserve to be charged through the nose for it, but £2.50 for a few slices in the adjoining restaurant feels sharp in anyone's book. It's pretty good bread (unlike the acrid oil it's served with), but it's been a while since I've even seen a cover charge, let alone one that steep.

This sharpness continues with the salads. You can have it unadorned for £12 (really?!) or ‘add’ salmon or ham, allegedly supplementary ingredients in a salmon or ham salad, for £2 a pop.

They're at the upsell again with the sides, slightly more to be expected I suppose, but adding £3.50 for frankly poor chips is frustrating. The fact we are told that most of the mains need an extra something takes the average main course price past the £18-£20 price point and into the “it better be bloody superb” mark.

So (finally) to the food…sadly, with the exception of that lovely bread it just didn't achieve for either of us.

“This is why people originally made fish cakes of course,” ventured my guest of his solitary desiccated puck. “it's definitely the old, dry fish they couldn't use elsewhere..”

I was slightly more pleased with a reasonably sourced piece of ribeye from O'Shays. It was a nice piece of meat sadly marred by that capital sin of not being rested, arriving still taut and virtually still crying after it's recent application of heat. The salted chips were too rested sadly and clumped together sullenly on the side.

I don't want to labour the point, but given that you can pick up 2 course lunch menus for £20 at many Michelin starred places in arguably more expensive locations, and would pay less than £9 for 2 courses at Zedel, this pricing for the level of quality delivered verges on the ridiculous. Lovely beer garden though…

Surprisingly, given my thoughts on most chain restaurants, popping into a Cote brasserie for a bite to eat at the bar isn't an issue. I don't mind the Covent Garden and Soho branches, having used both as a passible lunch or afternoon meeting spot previously. However the one in the City doesn't have a bar, just a large basement space, and a set of tables along one wall, facing out into the main restaurant and occupied entirely by single, middle aged men. Before I realised my mistake it was too late. I'd been identified as one of them and led gently to be deposited in the arctic of solo dining.

I'm not sure who was more on show; us or the inane works party we were facing. A works party dinner on a Tuesday night, oh what fun! I won't go into detail, suffice to say that they were definitely having a wilder time than the banquette of solo diners in silent judgement opposite.

The menu is generic brasserie, the quality matches, tonight at least. I tried first for a steak hache, before being informed “we can't serve below medium rare I'm afraid…” glad at least that they acknowledge why they're unable to serve that simplest of brasserie dishes served at anything less than a medium rare (you're not allowed to serve at less than medium rare unless it's minced on the premises…), sad because it was all I was looking for.

In the absence of home chopped steak I went for the onglet frites, served with a garlic butter and little else. Not bad. The solo diner in me couldn't complain at a single mouthful. Sure it wasn't the best steak i've eaten in my life, but nor was it meant to be. For the price, I could definitely have done with a thicker or more substantial slab. Served with a passible fruity Pinot Noir, it wasn't a bad experience, but the atmosphere leaves something to be desired for the solo diner.

Alan Yau's ‘other’ chain attempt Cha Cha Moon could well be described as The Danny De Vito to Wagamammas Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's like a pop up restaurant in a municipal leisure centre, and I certainly don't mean that in a good way.

Stumbling round Soho after a number of drinks we'd singly failed to find anywhere available for food and I'd singly failed to remember quite how perfect Brasserie Zedel would have been at a time like this until it was way too late.

After umpteen false starts, we finally rolled into Cha Cha Moon, somewhere I remember as a reasonable if innocuous local lunch spot from my time working in the area. Not amazing, but not bad, and at 9pm on a Friday night it was somewhere, finally, that had space for us.

The whole experience isn't one I'll be repeating, a courtesy that the food didn't extend to me.

The ‘concept’ and execution are frankly both lazy. A selection of generically South East Asian dishes dropped indeterminently into seemingly random categories and served as ready (seconds after ordering or minutes after we'd finished in the case of one sorry starter).

Despite the presence of a small army of wok bothering chefs in the open kitchen, the whole operation had the stench of the microwave. Nicci Polo's seafood ho fun arrived, barely lukewarm, minutes after ordering, as if it'd been hanging around from a previous mis-order. Frosty's halfhearted bun noodles were a pale and forlorn imitation of an impossible to screw up staple.

My Crispy Duck and Noodles managed to be both flabby and dry, with almost no redeeming feature except quantity, though that merely extended the torture. The noodles served alongside were undercooked and coated in a coagulating salty brown sauce, like the bastard child of a BBQ Pot Noodle and an elastic band ball.

We shared a selection of small plates, squabbling over who would (dare) finish them off. The chilli squid managed to hit every level of wrongness and thick, doughy potstickers came stuffed with what I can only describe as budget brand sausage meat. The less said about the Sichuan red chilli oil wontons the better, resembling swamp dredged body parts and putting back the cause of regional Chinese cuisine by several years.

At £20 a head including a single acrid cocktail each this isn't cheap fare. Finally seeing sense and retreating to Bar Americain in Brasserie Zedel, I was roundly mocked for not bringing the party here first. They were right.

If it was an attempt to recreate the flyaway success of Wagamammas then God knows it fails, and badly, on so many levels. It has the feel of a chain being readied for rollout but 4 years after this one arrived it's clear that this plan has fallen by the wayside. What's not clear is why this one, surrounded by some of Soho's finest eateries, has not.