This is not going to be a long post. Not because Luna - a cosy little new wine bar from the people behind Legare just over the road - isn't good, but rather because it really isn't going to take me long to describe why it's good. Because it's really not rocket science - take an lovely old converted Shad Thames warehouse building, put a good-sized open kitchen on the ground level and a light (if ever-so-slightly cramped) and attractive dining space on a mezzanine level, fill it all with enthusiastic and capable staff and put together a menu of enticing and accessible small plates. The result is the kind of friendly little space that everyone wishes they had on their doorstep. Everything we ate was at least good. Oysters - cool, fresh and lean - came dressed with ginger and finger lime, a combination which enhanced the natural salty minerality of the bivalves without being too strong. They were also cleanly opened with no little gritty bits, which I know isn't a dealbreaker but still isn't a given everywhere. The Aberdeen Angus carpaccio with pistachio was boldly seasoned and full of flavour, with the petals of beef having a good solid bite and healthy, dense texture. This was clearly good beef, prepared and presented well. Lamb cutlets were cooked nicely pink inside and though I would have liked a bit more texture - the crunch of a fiercely-grilled piece of lamb fat is the kind of thing that haunts my dreams - they still had an excellent colour and disappeared quickly, the charred onions and yoghurt providing a perfect accompaniment. But never let it be said that I don't occasionally allow myself simple pleasures because my favourite thing overall was probably the simplest - these matchstick fries covered in Old Bay, which had a deliriously addictive dry-crunch and a good hit of that famous Southern US seasoning. If you came in just for a glass of their excellent wine (a blend from Tenerife was their daily special the day we visited) and a bowl of Old Bay fries you would still leave happy I'm sure - although I bet it would be difficult to resist ordering more. 8/10 I was invited to Luna and didn't see a bill. The dinner above would by my rough calculation have cost about £50pp if we were paying, so not bad really.

You will probably be aware that Catalonia has well more than its fair share of influential restaurants, a tradition that runs from El Bulli through Can Roca and Disfrutar and has fanned out in all kinds of interesting ways across all levels of the culinary scene, from the most high-falutin' multi- Michelin-starred temple of gastronomy to the small-town seafood grill. In fact, you're far more likely to see the words "Ex El Bulli" on a chef's bio in this part of the world than a mention of any culinary school, a result partly of the myth-like status that place in Roses holds over the collective mind of the area but also because Ferran Adrià used to get through junior staff like most kitchens get through blue roll. Albert Sastregener of Bo.tic is that rarest of rare Spanish head chefs - he's never worked at El Bulli (or even claimed to - which is even more unusual) or done time at Can Roca. He did, admittedly, have Joan Roca as a teacher for some of his time at the Escola d’Hostaleria in Girona but most of his culinary style was borne of working in resolutely Catalan kitchens in places like Mas Pau in Palau-sator, or La Cuina de Can Pipes in Palafrugell, restaurants open all year round that seamlessly switch to catering largely to discerning locals when the tourist seasons fade. It's restaurants like these that form the backbone of the Catalan food identity, serving dishes like braised pork cheek, botifarra (Catalan sausage) and aioli, grilled sardines, xiperones (fried baby squid) all alongside never-less-than-perfect-anywhere patates fregides. To this day I do not know why every single restaurant in the north east of Spain is a master of fried potatoes. They just are. Anyway, back in Corçà, a sleepy little town near Girona, while a dangerously dark sky was threatening to unleash all hell outside, our lunch was about to begin. First was a bit of tableside theatre - posh "Bloody Mary's", involving a tomato-vodka consommé, a peeled and frozen cherry tomato and a celery mousse squirted out of an espuma gun. The flavours from the tomato and celery were bold and clean, and I'm never not impressed by anything built tableside (which must be quite a stress for the server given the number of things that could go wrong) - I just would have liked a bit more of a burn from the alcohol. Mind you given that this was the first element out of a few dozen to come over a long lunch, perhaps they knew exactly what they were doing. As mentioned, Sastregener is a resolutely and proudly Catalan chef, and so it would make sense that even in this grandest of fine dining surroundings he would want to showcase everything that makes this part of the world such a joy to eat in, albeit in a format suitable to a €300+ a head tasting menu. So what followed for the next 15 or so dizzying minutes was a collection of dramatically presented morsels that attempted to tell the story of Catalan cuisine one bitesize burst of flavour at a time. So here we have a little mussel escabeche presented in a hard shell-shaped cracker (rather too close to eating actual mussel shell for my liking, but the flavours were great); "Peanut", a kind of freeze-dried and reconstituted peanut biscuit which had a fantastic texture and rich, satisfying savoury flavour; a cute square of L'Escala anchovy on a pillow-shaped cracker filled with tomato and topped with some kind of fish roe; a wonderful ball of potato and onion omelette which was soft and warm and comforting; and a piece of very lightly battered squid standing in for that staple of Spanish childhood, calamares a la Romana. We continued with another set of canapés laid out on the branches of a metal tree, because why not. Here is a grilled leek buñuelo (doughnut) topped with romesco sauce, a nod towards the traditional Catalan calçotada winter feast; a dainty cup of melon juice and "sea ham" (dried tuna belly) which I'm not sure is very Catalan (though could be wrong) but had that nice nostalgic 70s throwback vibe; octopus salpicón (salad) in a glossy, richly-seafoody mousse on a salty cracker; chunks of white prawns from Palamós in a clear seafood aspic which tasted sweet and garlicky; a completely brilliant foie gras and corn nut candyfloss creation which melted in the mouth releasing buttery, meaty flavours so utterly moreish I could have easily made myself sick on these if there was enough available to hand; and finally a shot of tomato, basil and parmesan, kind of a liquid salad which also worked incredibly well. Then a serving called "roasts" which involved bitesize versions of three more famous Catalan dishes - "Cannelloni", slow cooked beef mince draped in luxurious béchamel; "Suquet", basically a Catalan bouillabaisse containing chunks of fresh fish and seafood in a salty, thick, deeply satisfying broth; and "Senyoret" rice, a bitesize paella full of yet more beguiling seafood flavours. Incredibly there was still one more round of snacks to go before the main menu began, and they conspired to be some of my favourite of all. Pigeon, slow cooked in a red wine sauce and served inside a folded crepe was the only taste of wild game that day, and didn't disappoint - the flavour was intense, and the glossy texture coated the mouth satisfyingly; wagyu beef buñuelos had more intensely rich flavours in the sauce, the result I'm sure of many hours' work reducing and improving; and best of all a mushroom and truffle xuixo, which we were instructed to bite into from one side to stop the thing splitting and ejecting the contents all over the table and ourselves. The xuixo in particular was an incredible thing - delicate enough to break apart with the softest bite and releasing a heady mix of sweet pastry and truffle-spiked dairy, it was a genuine highlight amongst highlights. So far, then, so good. But perhaps I should insert a little bit of reality into proceedings by talking about the way Bo.tic handle their bread course. Because for reasons best known to them, at Bo.tic, bread is charged extra. I'll repeat that in case you think maybe you've misunderstood - at this two Michelin-starred restaurant, despite punters paying on average €300+ for their lunch and sometimes quite a bit more, they've decided that bread is such a wilful extravagance that it requires a supplement. Now if I was generous I could give them the benefit of the doubt and suggest that perhaps in the recent past the kitchens wanted to spread their bready wings a bit and offer two or three options, and too many people were just going for all at once and filling up too much too early in the meal. Maybe this happened. But honestly, guys, it's just bread - let people order too much if they want, and suck it up. Charging extra for something that in most restaurants is just part of the furniture just looks like profiteering. Anyway, after a nibble on a bit of sourdough with Brittany butter (perfectly nice, €11.40) we were finally at the first of the starters. White crab, encased in a lovely translucently light tube of pasta, was dotted with various vegetable emulsions (green bean, carrot) and cute little nubbins of pickled chilli. Vaguely unadventurous set of flavours perhaps but nonetheless very enjoyable, and gorgeous to look at. White shrimp from Palamós formed the centrepiece of the next dish, perhaps slightly cured but perhaps completely raw, it was hard to tell but didn't matter - being some of the finest seafood in the world you really do not need to muck about with these things. They were topped with little blobs of mousse made (presumably) from the heads and shells, and surrounded by a smooth, glossy herb emulsion. I'm such a fan of Palamós prawns that I ended up eating them on a number of occasions throughout this trip, and I never got bored of them. These were great. Although the bewildering number of snacks at the start of the meal was designed as a Catalan Cuisine 101 course in local food appreciation, there was still room for more nostalgia in the main courses. This "gyoza" bared more than a passing resemblance to little squid empanada things they used to serve at a little local favourite spot in L'Escala in the late 80s, with that same heady mix of seafood, tomato and olives in the filling. Admittedly in Hostel La Vinya in 1989 they didn't serve spiralised squid meat masquerading as tagliolini or serve it with a jet-black sauce made from squid ink, but the basic premise was the same. "Turbot and prawn" had lots of really nice things going on. Continuing the running theme of tomato-seafood bisque this dish had some nice bouncy prawn and a meaty chunk of turbot in another rich, salty sauce. Also in the sauce were clever little 'gnocchi' made out of more Palamós prawn and the whole thing was topped with clouds of foam made from turbot and fennel. On the side was a little rice cracker containing yet more raw prawns and bisque which made a very satisfying little mouthful. The final savoury course was lamb - squares of grilled terrine that dissolved very pleasantly into crispy/chewy layers in the mouth, dressed in a garlic-rosemary-butter sauce and surrounded by a ring of what I think was some kind of thick potato purée. The lamb and the sauce were lovely and had they stopped there I think I would have had a better time, because the potato was very strange - a big, cold, congealed ring of bland potato which lifted up rather disconcertingly off the plate as one piece, like a big grey flappy bangle. But I liked the little pillows of pommes soufflées (not easy things to make) and a bitesize lamb and cheese bread thing served on its own glass plinth was very enjoyable, so overall it wasn't a disaster, just a rare misstep. A palate cleanser came in the form of citrus sorbet, lime pound cake and jelly, topped with yoghurt and ginger emulsion and little shots of frozen basil and ginger. I loved everything about this - partly because by this stage in what had been quite an intensely savoury meal I was absolutely ready for a bit of summer fruit. But it was also quite brilliant, a collection of textures and flavours that worked absolutely perfectly together to become better than the sum of their parts, and I wish it could have lasted forever. And if anything the next dessert was even better - a shockingly powerfully flavoured cherry sorbet with chunks of peach, pears and orange variously as coulis, jelly and emulsion and topped with frozen 'tears' of raspberry. Look if you have access to some of the best fruit on the planet why not just use everything all at once - especially when the result is as good as this. Like the dish before I polished it all off in record time and wished I could have had more. A lot more. The final sweet was perhaps more technically impressive than overtly enjoyable - a water-based dark chocolate mousse next to a branded coffee and chocolate biscuit. Perfectly nice but not particularly memorable, at least not compared to the fireworks that had come before. And of course Bo.tic couldn't let it finish there, so petits fours came in the form of these pretty little things, our favourites being the raspberry meringue bites at the top of the "tree" and the rich, creamy (and very delicate, you really had to rush them into your mouth before they fell apart in your fingers) Crema Catalana 'eggs' just beneath. Like much of what had come before they were technically brilliant, showstopping to look at and very easy to enjoy. And we did enjoy Bo.tic - it's really hard not to be charmed by a place like this, where in a bright, beautifully designed dining room, enthusiastic and experienced staff serve intelligent and attractive dishes made from the best ingredients the region can offer. Even a scary moment when all the mobile phones in the room simultaneously squealed out a flash flood warning didn't seem to break their stride - front of house acted like it happened all the time, which perhaps it does - and although we didn't feel brave enough to take up their offer of interrupting kitchen staff with queries about our food whenever the fancy took us ("honestly they won't mind!") it was nice that the offer was there. The atmosphere of the place was easy, and pleasant, and very much designed to give everyone the best possible time. It's just that for this amount of money - especially in Spain where food and drink is noticeably cheaper than most of the rest of Europe - I just think we needed a bit, well, more. I don't mean physically more food - there was plenty of that - but a bit more innovation, a bit more spark and fire, a few more surprises. I don't think it's too unfair to compare this meal to a similarly-priced lunch at Can Roca a few years back where a couple of the dishes - the white asparagus Vienetta and the prawn dish - made such an impression on me at the time I can still taste them if I close my eyes and think back. Plenty of the dishes at Bo.tic were very good, and one or two were excellent, but none were at that level. And Can Roca didn't charge extra for bread. Still, it was more than worth the journey to this little Baix Empordà town and if nothing else our meal - particularly the first few courses of it - was a reminder that Catalan food can shine no matter what the format. Yes you can go and spend €300+ on dainty little reconstructions of classic dishes served in spectacular surroundings, and you can enjoy that very much. Or alternatively you could stop at the nearest roadside joint hung with woodsmoke and get a plate of galta de porc amb patates fregides flung at you by a bloke in a string vest, pay €7 for it and go home just as happy. Both approaches are valid, and both only exist because the surrounding ecosystem of food-savvy and discerning customers, either local or visiting, is there to support them. So really, I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that we should be happy for all kinds of restaurants, at all budgets and for all occasions. Where would we be without them? 7/10

Hard as it may be to believe from my supremely easy-going and liberal attitude these days (no laughing at the back), there was a time when I was, well, if not completely anti-vegan then certainly vegan-skeptic. To someone who once considered vegetarianism radically restrictive, veganism seemed like vegetarianism with the few remaining good bits (butter, cheese, cream, eggs) taken out, a path taken only by people who didn't really like food in the first place and were looking for a more socially acceptable word to substitute for "dietary neurosis". And certainly, there are cuisines that (for want of a better word) "veganise" better than others. Most of the SE Asian and Indian subcontinent handle veganism supremely well - certain subgenres of Indian food are largely vegan anyway, and I have it on good authority from a vegan friend who went on holiday to Thailand recently that he ate extremely well almost everywhere. Just don't try being a vegan in France - one member of my family recently asked for a vegan alternative to a set menu starter and was served pâté de foie gras, a substitution very much from the Nana Royal attitude to hospitality. Sushi, with its focus on fresh fish, doesn't seem like an obvious cuisine to lend itself to going vegan, but then chains like Pret and Wasabi have done so for a number of years already with their avocado and cucumber rolls. What if it was done properly, with a chef's attitude to detail and with real presentational flair? Studio Gauthier attempts to do just that, making excellent sushi that just happens to have no animal in it. Can it really work? Well, in a word, yes. The first thing to arrive to our table was this cute presentation of plant-based "caviar", the deception strengthened by being served in a little custom-printed caviar tin. The "caviar" itself was remarkably realistic - certainly the equal to the lumpfish roe you can get from Tesco, probably even nicer - and underneath was a layer of creamy, salty plant-based crème fraiche of some kind (probably made from nuts but don't hold me to that). It was all rather lovely, despite the vegan blinis perhaps not working quite as well as their butter and milk-based counterparts and also being somewhat burned. Passing the huge open kitchen a little later, I noticed one of the staff despondently picking through a pile of burned blinis for the occasional one that could be salvaged and used, so clearly something had gone wrong in the preparation that day. I'm sure they're normally a lot better than this. When it comes to accurately describing the actual sushi, I'm going to have a bit of an issue, as some of the very clever techniques they used to recreate the standard sushi sets are quite beyond my powers of deduction. But alongside avocado nigiri here are "salmon" and "tuna" nigiri made, I'm told from tapioca starch with more fake tuna urumaki, all of it more than convincing. What also helped was that the sushi rice was warm - a detail that plenty of "actual" (and far more expensive) sushi places get wrong. Another plate of nigiri featured chargrilled aubergine, piquillo peppers with passion fruit chutney and, in the centre there, "Green Dynamite" - crisp rice fritters topped with tofu "crab", and sliced jalapeño dotted with sriracha. Thoughtfully put together and each mouthful bursting with flavour, I think it was about this point that I completely forgot I was eating plant-based food and was just eagerly looking forward to the next thing to arrive. More "tuna" and avocado and truffled miso nigiri came sharing a plate with a bitesize inari - a spongey, sweet tofu thing stuffed with soft, warm rice. Inari are actually vegan anyway, so perhaps the success of this shouldn't be too much of a surprise, but it was still a very good example of its kind, and right up there with the caviar as one of my favourite things overall. With a couple of cocktails, the bill came to £43pp, more than reasonable for London these days, certainly for food which although doesn't contain any expensive protein did still clearly have a lot of work and thought gone into it. I'm just docking a couple of points firstly for the burned blinis, and also for slightly inexperienced service charged at slightly-over-normal 15% - we had to ask a couple of times for various things. Also, the room isn't air-conditioned which you could just about get away with when it's 28C (the day we visited) but once it goes over 30C, which it often does in London these days, you're not going to want to be there very long. Still, these are niggles. Even a committed protein eater like me had a blast at Studio Gauthier - it's intelligent, enjoyable food done well in attractive yet informal surroundings, and for not very much money at all. For vegans though, this could very easily be everything they ever wanted in a restaurant, where instead of having to choose between the only plant option (usually mushroom risotto, or something involving butternut squash) or going hungry, they can have anything they want from this enticing menu, and be just as smug and satisfied as their protein-eating friends anywhere else in town. And that alone has to be worth a trip, surely? 8/10

After traipsing halfway across London, dodging travel works and closed Overground lines and carriages with malfunctioning air conditioning and all the other things that make moving around this city on a weekend in the summer such an endless joy, it's equally annoying to find that your destination is good or bad. If it's good, you will bemoan the fact that somewhere worth visiting is so bloody difficult to get to, and seethe with jealousy of those lucky locals who have such a good place on their doorstep. And if it's bad, you wish you'd spent your Saturday morning and sanity going somewhere else. Uncle Hon's isn't awful. It's not great, but it's not awful. The brisket (sorry, ox cheeks) was over-tender to the point of mush (it would definitely not pass the competition BBQ "pull-test" and a bit too sweet. Pulled lamb had a decent flavour but a rather uniform texture - the joys of the "pulled" element of a BBQ tray lie almost entirely in finding little crispy crunchy bits of fat and charred flesh; this was just a bit boring. And some cubes of pork belly were decent enough in that Cantonese roast style but was yet more sweet, syrupy, mushy meat next to two other piles of sweet, syrupy, mushy meat and the whole thing was just a bit sickly. Iberico ribs were a bit better in terms of texture - they did at least have a bit of a bite and didn't just slop off the bone as is depressingly often the case - but I feel like Iberico has become a bit of a meaningless foodie buzzword like Wagyu, ie. nowhere near the guarantee of quality it once was (if indeed it ever was). These were definitely the best things we ate though, and were pretty easily polished off. Oh I should say pickles and slaw were fine, if fairly unmemorable, and a single piece of crackling weirdly lodged vertically into a mound of rice like the sword in the stone had a pleasant enough greaseless texture but was pretty under seasoned. Look, I can see what they're trying to do at Uncle Hon's - fusion American/Chinese BBQ food, bringing a bit of a new twist to what is now fairly ubiquitous London drinking-den fare, and with a bit more thought and skill it could have been, well, if not completely worth that awful journey but at least some compensation for your efforts. But after having paid £50pp for what is an only fairly mediocre tray of food plus 3 small extra pork ribs, we were left feeling fairly unhappy, not very satisfied and more than a little ripped off. 5/10