National Cafe

National Cafe, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DN 

2 course lunch for two: £50

The term cafe is misleading here. This isn't a cafe in the traditional sense of the word. This is a brasserie. A simple restaurant. A fine place to break a day's outing to London. Or to entertain clients or foreign dignitaries or a friend. This is one of my favourite places for lunch in London. The room is light and airy. The funky lights and simple decor smack of modernity, but it is also elegant; a classic venue in the historic heart of London. And the food is good too: solid, seasonal British cooking.

Flat Iron, Soho

Flat Iron, 17 Beak Street, W1F 9RW

Steak, wine and sides for roughly £25 per head

Going out for steak in London is far from straightforward. At one extreme is steak so good you need a spare kidney or a second mortgage to pay the bill. Lurking in the middle-ground is the Angus Steakhouse: a dire London landmark and gastronomic sinkhole. There are cheaper steaks that excel, but they are squirreled away on the menus of London's fine gastropubs and brasseries. Enter Flat Iron, an extremely affordable Soho steak house that is both excellent and hip. Happy days.

The Begging Bowl, Peckham

The Begging Bowl, 168 Bellenden Road, SE15 4BW

Meal for two with wine: £60

I expected the Begging Bowl to be a little rough around the edges, more hipster chic than polished, clean design. And yet it is the latter - a gleaming, neighborhood restaurant that wouldn't look out of place in one of London's more obviously gentrified areas. Its bright dining room is lit by a wall-length window leading to a pavement-side glassed in veranda. It's filled (literally - you may have to queue) with a hip, moneyed crowd, drawn by the promise of excellent and authentic Thai food. There are people better qualified than me to judge the cooking's authenticity. But I can confirm that it is excellent.

Shake Shack , Covent Garden

Shake Shack, 24 Market Building, WC2E 8RD

Concrete: £4

The UK's first Shake Shack opened in Covent Garden last month. One of several recent New York imports, Londoners, bloggers and critics have been queuing up to point out that it's not as good as [INSERT NAME OF ZEITGEISTY LONDON BURGER JOINT HERE]. They're right of course. Patty and Bun, Byron, MEATliquor/market/wagon deserve the credit for London's increasing maturity as a centre of burger innovation. But we're missing the point. Shake Shack isn't from the Brooklyn hipster heartland. No knowledgeable New Yorker would queue for hours for a Shake Shack burger. They're all up to their eyes in pig flesh at Pork Slope. 

Flesh and Buns, Covent Garden

Flesh and Buns, 41 Earlham St, WC2H 9LX

Meal for two with a cocktail: £60

The eagerly-anticipated sister to Bone Daddies, Flesh and Buns brings another little slice of Tokyo to London in the form of a hipster izakaya. It's vast and buzzing, with booths for groups and long tables to share. It's also not quite ready to be open, or at least it wasn't last Friday. The food is competent but not exceptional. The staff are charming but they lack experience. Given a few weeks or months, it may just be perfect. In the meantime, there is a risk that, like us, you'll leave feeling unsatisfied.

Blend, Paris

Blend

44 Rue d'Argout

75002 Paris

Meal for two with beers: 38 euros

It's August, and London is awash with US imports. Londoners are spending hours queuing for honest-to-god, real American burgers. Critics are vying with each other to be most underwhelmed by the experience. They must be laughing at us in Paris. They don't need a US import. They have Blend.

China Town Noodle Bar

China Town Noodle Bar

2 Bath Passage

Birmingham

B5 4SZ

Meal for two with beers: £20

This cheap as chips cafe has been a favourite haunt for Birmingham's many students for more than a decade. Ten years ago, I was one of them. But it's more than just a cut-price feeding station for those rich in time but poor in money. With a voluminous menu spanning several regions of China, as well as a handful of other Asian cuisines (not recommended), there's a reason it also attracts well-heeled shoppers and Chinese customers of all ages. And with most dishes coming in well shy of a tenner, it has long been one of my favourite places for lunch. Yet somehow life has come between me and my first neighbourhood-restaurant-love. Last weekend, after an absence of nearly five years, I returned to rekindle my affair with their Big Plate Rice.

Burger Lobster.. Bentley's?

Bentley's, 11 - 15 Swallow Street, W1B 4DG

2 course meal with wine: £55 per person

Trying to get a table at Burger and Lobster on a Friday night was, in retrospect, a terrible idea. Thankfully we phoned ahead or else we would have gone there without knowing that they already more people in the queue than they would be able to accommodate in an evening. That would have been Very Bad. Instead, we drank another bottle of wine and conducted a remote trawl of the surrounding restaurants - what did we do before mobile internet? There was a table at Bentley's, so there we went expecting to have oysters or steak but instead found lobster burgers were the special of the day... result.

A short trip to Cape Town: lunch at Groote Post

As always in adult life, time just flies by. In a blink of an eye another month goes past without much writing. Even more daunting, all of a sudden Mr F and I have been married for more than two years. Gulp. Thankfully, we seem to be as happy with each other now as ever we were in the past, even if he has spent more than 150 hours over the past year playing Dark Souls. Last year, we chose Dinner for our anniversary celebration. Topping that was always going to be difficult, so we chose the only really safe path: returning to site of our nuptials, the wonderful Groote Post. OK, so we didn't go all the way to South Africa just to have lunch. There was some family stuff involved too. However, seeing as we were there, it seemed only right to stop by... After all, it's only just about my favourite place in the whole world. Ever.

A few more London burgers

Once again, I have neglected my blog. New job, new flat (hopefully), Skyward Sword... The list of distractions is almost endless. However, with January safely dispatched for another year, I find myself with time to reflect on the meals that missed out on a write up. Among them, a mixed bag of burgers. Cue the inevitable round up post, the blog equivalent of the episode of that show you love, compiled almost exclusively from recycled old footage. 

The Poke at the Draft House

In with the new at the Vincent Rooms

The Vincent Rooms, 76 Vincent Square, SW1P 2PD

Two course meal with wine: £25 ish (we split the bill, some people had dessert)

Sometimes, when I want to escape to an imaginary world in which I have won the lottery and can afford a beautiful house in SW1, I go to Vincent Square. It's the perfect place to reflect on just how awesome it would be if I were ludicrously rich. It is quiet, it has a big playing field in the middle and the houses look like the sort of accommodation American film-makers imagine all well-to-do Londoners live in, complete with a Rolls Royce and a butler. Once a year, they even hold the London rum festival in Vincent Square; presumably so the wealthy folk don't have far to roll home. However, until recently, I have been missing out on one of Vincent Square's best attractions: the Vincent Rooms. Attached to the college that trained such luminaries as Jamie Oliver and (ahem) Antony Worrall Thompson, the Vincent Rooms lets one test the abilities of the current batch of chefs-in-waiting, and all at prices a mere mortal can afford. I only wish I had tried it sooner.

Sushi in Soho: Kyoto

Kyoto, 26 Romilly Street, W1D 5AL

Dinner for two (with beer): £50 plus service

It is only the twenty-second of December, but already I feel jaded. It's not a wholly bad feeling, coming as it does from a few weeks of deliberate boozing and eating. However, even the best December sometimes wears thin and an occasional pretence at healthy eating can help to assuage the mince pied excesses of the month. Such was my reasoning when Mr F and I found ourselves in search of supper in Soho. For what could be healthier than sushi?

La Girole, Grenoble

La Girole, 15 Rue du Docteur Mazet, 38000 Grenoble

Dinner for two: 140 euros

Had Mr F not lived there as a child, it is likely I would never have thought to visit Grenoble. It is a long way away, more than six hours from London by train and an hour from Lyon by road. It is a small town, whose few well regarded restaurants are outshone by the gastronomic institutions just down the road in Lyon. However, all parts of France, even its most remote corners, have their own culinary highlights. Located on the edge of the Alps, Grenoble and its environs are bastions of mountain cooking, home of the gratin dauphinoise and an unusual dish of chicken and crayfish. Best of all, there are stunning mountain vistas and challenging walks to stir the appetite for all that cheese.

At home with Hawksmoor

Hawksmoor at Home by Huw Gott, Richard Turner and Will Beckett: Preface Publishing, 13 October 2011

October was a challenging month. Work sucked, I managed to gain half a stone seemingly without a concomitant increase in fun and I struggled to rise to the challenge of making the perfect burger at home, despite having invested in a cranky old mincer that must weigh half a tonne. To top it all, reading about how much fun everyone's was having during the soft opening of the new Hawksmoor didn't helped my rage. However, I can't complain. Whilst I may have missed out on the restaurant opening, the kind people at Random House sent me a copy of Hawksmoor at Home so I could recreate the fun myself. Rock and roll.

What would Hideo Nakata think of the Banana Tree?

The Banana Tree, 103 - 109 Wardour Street, W1F 0UQ

Back when the millennium was still young, Mr F and I went through a phase of watching Asian horror films. The early noughties were a bit of a golden age, particularly for Japanese scary movies, and we revelled in the fear for a couple of years until one fateful night in 2004, when we finally got around to watching Dark Water. We enjoyed the film but I was less than impressed by Mr F's subsequent attempt to frighten me by turning on all the taps in the bathroom and hiding behind the shower curtain. Oh how we laughed at that one... once I'd stopped screaming and trying to batter him to death with the shampoo. 

Our thoughts turned to those happy days when we ate at the Banana Tree last week. Not because the Banana Tree is scary or in some way possessed by a supernatural force - although it would be ace if it was. Rather because we remembered how we felt when we saw our favourite films had fallen victim to the West's need for a Hollywood remake. Yet this wasn't the crushing disappointment of a classic butchered by the upstart newcomers, rather this was something a teensy bit edgy rendered mainstream by a sensitive adaptation. 

The Hand and Flowers: popping my two star cherry

The Hand and Flowers, 126 West Street, Marlow

Every year, the publication of the new Michelin Guide generates congratulations and controversy in the catering industry whilst, at the same time, a crowd of naysayers pop up to point out how the whole system is flawed, antiquated or elitist. Neither reaction has ever really interested me, I can't get excited about stars because I'd so rarely choose to eat in that sort of restaurant. Yet whilst I'm no Michelin apologist, I do see its value - I'm a Bib Gourmand girl. However, the early publication of this year's results did have an impact on my Michelin equilibrium; we had booked the Hand and Flowers for a family meal, inadvertently throwing ourselves in the path of a gastronomic super star. Having never eaten in a Michelin starred restaurant, all of a sudden the Forks were booked at a place with two. 

Shake Shack sacrilege

Shake Shack, Madison Square Park, New York City

Burger, fries and a shake: $14

On my first trip to New York, I agonised over which of the city's super-burgers to try first. In what Shake Shack fans would no doubt view as a controversial move, I chose the Burger Joint. It was an amazing experience. This was before we had Meatwagon, back when Byron was still quite new, and the slightly pink, extremely meaty burger in the bowels of Le Parker Meridien was a revelation. I never made it to Shake Shack on that trip. So on my most recent visit, I felt obliged to queue in Madison Square Park and get my chops round one of the Shack's finest. 

Maltby Street marvels

40 Maltby Street, SE1 3PA
Wine and lunch for two: £35

Aside from the important things - Mr F, my family and friends - I sometimes feel as if London is one of the great loves of my life. I don't feel that way all the time, particularly when it is grey and damp. However, on a sunny weekend such as this, I cannot imagine living anywhere else. When friends talk of their aspiration to live in the countryside, I find myself dreaming of a different, more urban sort of village. This weekend, it was Bermondsey village that caught my eye and, in particular, the unstated brilliance of Maltby Street.

The queue for coffee at Monmouth

Favouritism and Great Queen Street

Great Queen Street, 32 Great Queen Street, WC2B 5AA

Meal for two: £70

What is your favourite... surely one of the most irritating questions in the world?

I hate having to reduce my appreciation of something, whether food, music or literature, into such stark terms. Favourite or not-favourite, like good or bad, can never really capture the nuances of how I feel about a thing, a person or a place. And yet... here it is: Great Queen Street is my favourite restaurant in London, if not the world. There, I said it. If you disagree, that is your prerogative, but bear in mind that I will probably question your judgement if you do. Why? Because Great Queen Street is unquestionably marvellous and peerless in its seasonal and simple yet excellent cooking. Because it is affordable and friendly. Lastly, because Mr F took me there for the my birthday when it opened, one of his most thoughtful acts in our pre-married life.

The Diner Diablo: a burger coming of age

The Diner, 18 Ganton Street, W1F 7BU

I was invited to try the Diablo but it would normally set you back £9

It took me ages to wean Mr F off the Diner. It was a source of discord in our otherwise happy home: he liked the Diner, I preferred Byron. Thus, lazy Thursday evenings and hungover Sundays were peppered with disagreement and one of us was doomed to perpetual disappointment. However, in a flash of genius inspired by the Big D, I introduced Mr F to the Byron double burger and the Diner was history. Even with the cute booths, my favourite lager in the world and Blue Oyster Cult on the playlist, the vastly superior meat finally won him over. Result.  Could a preview of their special Halloween burger change my mind? It turns out it could. Watch out Byron, the Diner might finally be about to offer you some competition. It's about time.