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.

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.

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.

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. 

Paris pit stop: A la Biche au Bois

A la Biche au Bois, 45 avenue Ledru-Rollin, 12th
Dinner for two: 80 euros

I hate flying, love trains and adore Paris. Accordingly, when Mr F and I were planning our summer holiday in the south of France, the budget flight to Nîmes was not an option; not when there were adventures to be had on the TGV. Taking the train meant crossing Paris to change stations, and how better to spend a few hours in Paris than in the company of people who are serious about traditional French cooking? 

Cycling to the World's End

BBQ Shack at the World's End, 60-61 London Rd, Brighton

Enough BBQ to kill a horse and sufficient beer to drown a rat king: £20 each

With all the meat love going around London this summer, I find it surprising that excellent examples of the flame-grilled genre are still hard, if not almost impossible to find. Perhaps our fabled fondness for the burned sausage at our own outdoor feasts is impeding an inevitable BBQ revolution. Many a foodie has lamented the lack of BBQ perfection in London. I had reluctantly concluded that only a trip across the Atlantic would satisfy this hunger, until I read an article that dared me to hope. A Texas-trained ex-chef-turned-BBQ aficionado? Only 50 miles from London? Get me to Brighton.

Resurfacing memories of New York: doughnuts

Doughtnut Plant, 220 West 23rd St, New York City

It's lunchtime on day two of a girls-only trip to New York and we're piecing together reminiscing about the previous night. Following an evening fuelled by martinis, we reflect on the revelation that one of us meows under stress, my plans for new world order based entirely around people with the same name and the mysterious head in one of our photos. They, quite naturally, want to know if I remember having a long conversation at the bar, leaving them waiting for drinks. More importantly, they wonder if I remember what it was that caused this unwelcome delay in an otherwise well-lubricated evening.

Of course I do. With an unfailing ability to sniff out a conversation about food, I had turned to the man standing next to me at the bar and started talking about doughnuts. Unlike many of the things I did that night, this was entirely sensible because he pointed me in the direction of the Best Doughnuts in the World. 

Fette Sau: the BBQ benchmark

Fette Sau, 354 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, New York

Meal for three starving people (excluding drinks): $75 or £46

It feels like it's all about BBQ here in London this summer. Not the burnt sausage, crappy burger kind but the sort of cooking one associates with the Southern States of the USA: all pulled pork, sticky beans and shots of bourbon by the pit. Within the space of a few weeks, we've had a new restaurant open up in Hoxton and a van pull up under Hungerford bridge (review on its way), both dedicated to the fine art of cooking with fire and smoke. However, whilst both make an admirable attempt at recreating that American stalwart, neither of them have quite got it and they fall short of smoky perfection. Even with our new-found love of the BBQ pit, we still have to leave our beloved city for the good stuff. Having put off writing up my recent (ish) visit to New York, BBQ disappointment has finally given me the impetus to blog about the opposite: BBQ heaven. For as I discovered on my last visit, our urbanite cousins in New York can hook themselves up with fantastic BBQ at the drop of an artfully distressed hat. Mind you, they do have to leave Manhattan which is perhaps just as traumatic for some. Fette Sau is the sort of place I would love to see transplanted to London. In fact, I would even sell a fairly vital organ in order to make this happen. 

An Idiot Abroad: Mr. Fork in Los Angeles, Vol. II

In-N-Out Burger, 7009 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, Los Angeles

Combo Meal for one with iced tea and a promotional t-shirt: $16.98 (about £10.35)

Confession time: I was forced, totally against my will, to do some actual work during my recent trip to Los Angeles. As such, my ambitions of rigorously blogging every morsel to pass my lips went sadly unfulfilled. It’s not that I didn’t go to any bars or restaurants (quite the opposite) but I’m not sure there’s much interest in me reviewing the various “networking” events I attended. Plus, I seem to have mysteriously failed to photograph any of the identikit canapés that formed the majority of my food intake (if not my main source of calories) for the week of the show. Finally, I suspect that the buffet breakfast from my 2-star hotel in an insalubrious part of downtown is not of interest to anyone, let alone the kind of person who likes food enough to read a blog about it.

An Idiot Abroad: Mr. Fork in Los Angeles, Vol. I

KyoChon, 3833 West 6th Street, Los Angeles

Combo meal for one with Pepsi: $9.07 (around £5.50)

One of the perks of the “career” I’ve ended up in is the opportunity to travel to Los Angeles once per year for a “business conference”. In the past, this has boiled down to the daily cycle of meeting/boozing/sleeping/hangover that accompanies events of this kind. This cycle, combined with the fact that Thea is on the other side of the world and therefore incapable of cajoling me into eating offal, means that my diet for that week usually errs toward the immediate satisfaction of jet-lagged cravings for chilli burgers rather than embarking on foodie adventures.

Get Forked for less in Istanbul

Nevizade sokak at night

There are plenty of reasons to love Istanbul: its long warm summers, its location by the sea at the point where two continents meet or the proliferation of historic buildings which feature on the list of things one is supposed to see in a lifetime. However, for a glutton such as myself, Istanbul offers more than enough to justify the journey on that count alone. Moreover, if you find yourself there without many liras to your name, as we did, it need not affect your enjoyment of the city's culinary delights.

Though I generally prefer cities to the countryside, even for a holiday, some places are incomparable in their atmosphere and style (and have bloody good restaurants). Whenever I visit one of these cities for the first time, I irritate Mr Fork by declaring a desire to either move there or, if it has been a truly successful trip, to rearrange history so that I can be from there. I mention this merely to illustrate my sincerity when I say Istanbul is a marvellous place, peerless in its happy mix of cultures and lately top of my list of places I would leave London for.

Get Forked in Miami

When work told me that they were sending me to Miami for a week, it was a rare moment of sunshine in the oft-grey drudgery of my daily toil. In my mind, I would go and fill the breaks between meetings with seaside runs, I would find time to explore and I would extend my trip to spend a weekend eating the food of diverse cuisines - soaking up the culture of expatriate communities from Central America and the Caribbean. Unsurprisingly, this was somewhat ambitious. However, whilst my daily runs failed to materialise;  my trip, and Miami itself, were exactly as I expected them to be. The sky was invariably blue and the sun shone on beautiful people driving ostentatious cars.

Although principally there to work, my secondary aim was to eat as much as I could within a week. Food between meetings rather than exercise. My experience of the Miami restaurant scene veered from the sublime (excellent seafood served in view of the sea) to the mediocre (I visited a number of chain restaurants of the sort that will sell the unsuspecting diner vast quantities of generic, under-seasoned food). Somewhat disappointingly, in a week of Miami eating, I managed only a relatively small number of memorable food experiences. Fortunately, these were sufficiently brilliant to make up for the alternative: slightly generic American fare. 

A postcard from the Fork family Christmas

The Hinds Head, Bray, SL6 2AB

If Hollywood ever made a film of our lives, the director would need to employ the full range of his or her talents to gloss over and romanticise the Fork idiosyncrasies. However, last weekend would require no editing. We were channelling the Christmas spirit in a picture-postcard-from-happily-married-life way. A party with old friends we haven't seen for years on Friday was followed by a family pre-Christmas meal in a pub on Saturday. This piece is, naturally, concerned with the latter; although our Friday host's home-made elderflower wine was worthy of its own review.