I returned last night at Guo Yue’s invitation and ate far, far too much there with a friend.

Guo Yue was charming, friendly and exhibited an excitement for and love of food (and music), as we discussed the menu, that I found promising. We left all the choices to him.

Small nibbles: fried peanuts, seaweed with chilli and vinegar and cucumber, much the same. A good start.

The mixed hors d’oeuvre was excellent a good variety of flavours and textures, hot and cold – excellent prawn balls, star anise beef slices, mushroom, noodles with green bean, asparagus.

Amazing prawn and chive dumplings – wonderful chive flavour and as good as Mama Lan, Brixton. (Thank you kawainekko.)

Pork fried with garlic shoot. – gentle but persistent warming flavours, a first for me.

Beef hotpot with beer – tasted very home-style – delicious.

Aubergine Box - slow fried, glossy and stuffed with pork - the house speciality and a flavour explosion. (Top of my list when I return)

Rice with duck, served in a bamboo pot – rice and duck nicely married, another first.

And finally, a sea bass cut and fried to resemble a bird (flying to heaven?) – great to look at, tasty, spicy but most of all, way, way too much.

Authenticity I cannot vouch for, I do not have a deep understanding of Chinese food but I do enjoy the favoured places, e.g. Maotai Inn, Golden Day (also, FWIW Joy King Lau for lobster or seafood noodles) and have travelled in Hong Kong and China where I ate way off-piste with a Chinese friend.

I thought I had established that we would pay in full for everything that we ate and drank but after a few beers and a convivial evening with Guo Yue, I did not get my way! Notionally, I paid for half of it but I fear it was a very small half .

So, quite a difference from my first visit. Both my friend and I rated Bamboo Flute and we would happily recommend and return. I hope the food is just as good when I do.

I will be interested to hear any expert feedback.

Spicy Island closed for a while and I thought it had gone but it reopened after quite a refurbishment. The food (and restaurant) is better than ever.

Take away vegetarian thali is the Friday special and it is absolutely excellent - Of course not as refined as Quilon but I know where I would rather eat.

Pappadum, rice, aubergine and chickpea, dal, potato and cauliflower in a light tomato juice, some sort of squash with bite, mustard greens (I think), a yoghourt pickle with a crunchy cucumber like vegetable, ragam…..All energetically spiced and with lots of curry leaves.

Truly excellent but it would be good if someone who knew what they were eating could provide the detail…

I understand that they also open for breakfast - idli and sambar.

It may well be that it requires greater expertise in ordering Chinese food than I possess but I went last night and was disappointed. Paper thin lamb with black pepper was not paper thin and lacked any striking flavours including black pepper, lamb and vegetables in a brown stocky sauce - homely, possibly soothing but not in any way exciting. Bamboo flute four vegetables were again homely with a good infused garlic flavour (rather than brown fried garlic bits) and the pak choy had been replaced with broccoli. Steamed pork and chive buns were tasty but sticky and damp pastry that did not appeal, the flavour lost in the chewiness. There is something that suggests that there is good intention here and I may well have been given an English version but I have no idea what they would authentically be like. Expensive for a disappointing meal.

This is a good place, strong flavours and they are not shy with the chilli. Snacks are good and so are the main dishes. There is seating at the back and friendly service - eat in or take away. I think it has been open for quite a while but changed hands a year or so ago. It was the biriani that was first recommended to me but it did not float my boat. On Fridays there have been vegetarian thalis packed ready for take away and very substantial. (I also have a recommendation for egg hoppers at 'Bay and Curry Leaves', 278 Burlington Road, the other side of the A3, away but have yet to follow it up.)

Neal's Yard Dairy are a friendly crew and have a few Irish cheeses. I would get in touch with them and ask them for some contact details for Irish producers. Make a couple of appointments and I suspect that Irish hospitality will result in the cow-shed door being flung open and followed by plenty of suggestions for further interesting visits. Their Adrahan is made by a Mary Burns and I was told that she recommends it for breakfast with a glass of whiskey. Sounds promising.

Neal's Yard Dairy - www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk - 17 Shorts Gardens, London - 020 7240 5700
Neal's Yard Dairy (Borough Market Shop) - 6 Park Street, City of London - 020 7367 0799

I have just started to go to Mayflower following a recommendation on this site, possibly yours. Thank you.
I have enjoyed the milk fritters with prawns and had a pretty good chicken with crispy bones. What else would you recommend?

Of Golden Day, where I have had three excellent meals, also thanks to this board, I had my best ever Chinese meal in UK there the other week: spicy pork haslet, pickled cucumber, beef with pickled chilli, filleted sea bass with garlic and chilli, home style cabbage. The pork haslet is, judging by the waiter's sign language, either stomach or intestine and rewards on chewyness, meatiness and subtle chilli. Sadly, I shall now give up on the Golden Day smoked meat mixed platter, it is merely interesting.

A couple of weeks ago I had an excellent lunch at Bruno Loubet's. Deep flavours and very rich and delicious bistro fare. The only down is quite how busy the place is, my table was cramped and the waiters were busier than is helpful. The wine list is fine but knowledge and recommendations were not forthcoming from the waiter which is a shame.

Round the corner at Eastside Inn there is a new menu and, eating there the week after BL, I left very, very impressed. For a first course it does not get more exciting than morel mushrooms on toast, with a raw egg yolk, (that had been injected with chicken stock), served on a separate plate, for dipping.

A shared rib of beef was as good as I have ever eaten and oh, so rare. It was served with herby, thin chips and a very real bearnaise sauce - a rarity in my exp[erience, I am sure that 9/10 are from catering packs.

For pudding, a perfect lemon and lime souffle with Earl Grey ice cream. It works.

The wine list is great fun with an enthusiastic showing of biodynamic wines as well as some very seroius stuff. My first taste of a sauvignon gris.

Strange place, everything tasted of what it was but just a little more so! And, from reading the menu you get the feeling that this is intentional.

Though a routine reader of Chowhound, I rarely post but I did in December to recommend The Eastside Inn, in St John Street. Amidst a lot of good and happy food experiences in the year, it stood out as sublime. OK, it is a risk and so ticks that box because when I went once before it was merely good and expensive. Write off a large chunk of time, book the restaurant not the bistro, throw yourselves at the mercy of the chef and sommelier (give him a tight budget!) and you should just about manage it for 350. I just hope you will enjoy the same outstanding, fun and utterly delicious meal.

Roka and Zuma are in the same group and both will, I suspect, tick your box.

Gascon: Club Gascon is an expensive restaurant, Comptoir Gascon provides food in a cafe envoronment. Cellar Gascon is a bar on on the other side of Smithfield market from SoS. I have not used it but it looks interesting.

SoS is always full and lively. Was it Ted Nugent who said, 'If the music's too loud you'e too old'?.

Consider the bar at the Sanderson Hotel in Berner Street similar in repute to Harvey Nicks bar.

Beware, in mid December it can be very difficult to get in to some places. In general, it may be worth reserving a table for dinner, if still possible, to secure bar access.

Three Breakfast suggestions.

Browns Hotel - A very comfortable and relaxing dining room. A mixture of hedge fund managers and hotel guests but a very good breakfast at about 30gbp per head.

Claridges Hotel - Ritzy. Probably the same hedge fund managers but a very different style of dining room and again, a good breakfast at a high price.

Smiths of Smithfield - A good breakfast but in a warehouse, with music, some sofas, rather less attentive service, about a quarter of the price and probably no hedge fund managers.

Tim