Covent Garden isn’t all about jugglers and tourist traps you know, there are some pleasant surprises along the way if you wander for long enough.The Forge is not only a smart, grown up restaurant with chef Andrew Barber at the helm,but it also boasts one of London’s most impressive wine lists. So, go there thirsty, with plenty of time on your hands……..

Tucked away behind Oxford Circus, we brave the horrendous downpour of heavy rain on a grim Saturday afternoon to visit Pho, serving Vietnamese ‘street food’. The menu here is simple and a few of the really interesting sounding dishes are only available in the evening, which is a bit of a drag.

The Avenue is an impressive place, its long bar with comfortable seating opposite draws you in to the main restaurant area. Clever use of mirrored walls makes this already substantial and spacious restaurant look enormous. Our meal there was excellent and we would highly recommend it.

Opus is located in the heart of Birmingham city centre’s business district and the ambience is perhaps slightly more suited to corporate hospitality rather than intimate romantic liaisons. Nevertheless, the powerful combination of excellent food and fine wine should be enough to satisfy those who are dining as a twosome. The most important reason for choosing Opus is the quality of the food.

Although the most immediately obvious aspect here is perhaps the pool bar, there’s much more to Miss Q’s than that, making it a great place to meet, drink, eat or dance and what the heck, maybe even have a game of pool.

This popular Malaysian restaurant has been in business for some 30 years now. Melati is a short walk from west end theatreland, and is a great place to grab a tasty meal before the curtain goes up, or to meet friends and have a relaxed informal meal, particularly if you are excited by mouth tingly zingy dishes, we enjoyed it.

Now it could be that I don’t understand or appreciate a true Naples pizza base and if so mea culpa, Franco Manca, but I can only compare to the Brixton version and these aren’t as good. However Brixton sets a high benchmark and these are still (leafy) streets ahead of the competition.

Pinchito tapas is a vibrant and fun place to go for a meal, the style of eating is informal so it works well for both lunch and dinner or for sharing a variety of nibbles with friends over a few drinks. We certainly enjoyed the experience.

Massala is an excellent Indian restaurant with great dishes on their menu, certainly worth making an effort to seek out and undertaking a bit of a journey for. We would definitely recommend it.

Guerrilla Burgers is filling a family-friendly slot and doing it pretty well for the money and with no silly nonsense such as ‘added foie gras’. I liked the place even though I am not a burger afficianado. It deserves to do well and they seem to be doing so already. I guess if you don’t like it you can always burger off back to New York.