meemalee

I used to have this recurring dream that I was at the most glorious buffet. I knew it was a dream as the food looked more beautiful, more luscious, more tempting than anything you could possibly imagine. I'd pile my plate high, and return to my seat, and just as I was about to dig in, I'd abruptly wake up. I don't think this means anything more profound than the fact that I am a pathetically greedy person. But the only thing I can think of that would be better than a buffet ( apart from this one ) is an all-you-can-eat that comes to me. And what an all-you-can-eat - men with meat - wielding huge whacking swords of the stuff (and we're back to the psycho-analysis). Rodizio -style churrascarias are a real dream; at these Brazilian steakhouses, an endless procession of butch, barbecued meat is brought straight to your table by the dashing passadores and carved onto your plate until you admit defeat. Rodizio Rico is such an establishment - unlimited 'prime cuts...

We get in to London Bridge at 8.12. I kiss him farewell as he travels on to Charing Cross, and join the crowd which oozes blearily onto the platform. At 8.14, as we stumble along, the train to Gravesend pulls in, and as usual it takes all of my (frankly waning) will-power not to climb on it and chug my way back home. The crowd bottlenecks, then shuffles to the top of escalators, and I grab a copy of Metro from halfway down the pile in a Jenga move. I note that their stands have changed from blue to silver, and I feel a small thrill of excitement and then realise I need to get out more. Everyone else shoves and rushes, but I'm happy to stand on the right as I rummage in my bag to work out what I've forgotten (there's always something). At the bottom, I cross Tooley Street and walk past the London Dungeon, gaudily unfrightening in the early morning light, and I stop at the fruit and veg stall and buy a punnet of flat peaches for a pound. "I don't need a bag, thanks...

Before my husband and I spent our days arsing around at food and music festivals, our favourite place to go for larks was a dingy room off the Royal Mile. Specifically the Edinburgh Festival (or rather the Fringe part of it), where we'd deliberately sit in the front row to heckle and be heckled by people like Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, Paul Foot and Dan Antopolski, Daniel Kitson and Simon Munnery, Chris Addison and Greg Davis (aka Fat Rik Mayall aka the teacher from the Inbetweeners). As slightly arrogant comedy purists, we only went for stand-up gigs, the dark stage lit by a microphone and a sardonic grin. Unfortunately, this stupid policy saw us pass up the opportunity to see the first UK shows of both Flight of the Conchords and The Mighty Boosh, reluctant to spend a tenner on something as shonky-sounding as "musical comedy". Such hubris meant we ended up spending a great deal more on their recent tours. Though all the venues looked much the same inside, the outs...

I used to work on Chancery Lane, and whilst there were a few nice places to lunch (I'm looking at you, Vanilla Black and the Chancery ), I never got round to going, as I couldn't get anyone to leave their desks for long enough, and frankly dining solo seemed a bit sad in such elevated surroundings. And evenings seemed unattractive, as by then I felt I'd much rather get away from the office and head further into town. Then I fell into a bad crowd - they called themselves the Clerkenwell Lunchers. Their mission - to seek out nice places to eat in and around the Clerkenwell area and to colonise them one by one, by having a proper, sit-down lunch at each of them. Crazy business. Of course, I was in like a shot. We did the rounds in Clerkenwell, visiting Cellar Gascon , Cafe VN , Tohbang , Tajima Tei, Giant Robot , The Gunmakers, Banh Mi Bay. The only problem was that all these places were a bit of a distance from where I was based, so I risked indigestion and a massive stitch ...

I'm one of those lucky souls who commutes into town from the 'burbs, and the stop that my husband (a fellow commuter) and I usually come into is London Charing Cross. The way into work is generally fine (apart from never getting a seat, and being crushed into strangers' armpits), but on the way back, invariably something will go wrong to delay our journey home - leaves on the line, signalling problems and one time, memorably, a cloth factory in New Cross went up in smoke. Whilst we often resign ourselves to waiting, and scrunching our faces up angrily at the departures board, more often than not, we will decide that this is God's way of telling us to go away and have dinner and simply try again later. Upstairs at Hazuki Our usual haunt is Hazuki , a little two-storey Japanese restaurant hidden away on Chandos Place, past Oscar Wilde and just up from the station, and we always head straight upstairs. An old faithful, when snow is the cause of disruption, Hazuki will war...

I'm honoured that The Grubworm has asked me to write a guest post - it's my very first one and it's about the cocktail bar PURL London in Marylebone. To read my review of PURL, please go to the Grubworm blog here .

I have this friend. Let's call her Rachel. She's one of the funniest people I know, in a charming, often acerbic but never cruel way. She also happens to be a wonderful cook and bilingual - Spanish is her second language, as she spent most of her youth in Catalonia aka Catalunya, in Spain. The fact that she's from Glasgow is just the icing on the cake, as it means that she'll slip from a Scottish brogue into perfect Spanish without a blink. So when she decided to start her own Catalan Cooking Class , I thought "Sign me up!". As far as the online food community are concerned, Rachel is the Catalan Queen . I was honoured to be invited to attend the inaugural class ... The Catalan Queen and Gareth Groves of Bibendum It's Tuesday evening - the venue is the lovely patisserie Bea's of Bloomsbury . I take my husband along as I think he'd have fun and it's a good decision as, within minutes, Rachel has us all laughing as she tells us stories about l...