My understanding of Indian food is largely based on years of always-the-same-order telephone takeaways (`yes, that’s right, the usual … chicken dhansak please`) or crouching in the funereal silence of a high street curry house exchanging sidelong glances with the waiter, who regards you with that finely-honed mixture of caution and contempt perfected through years of doling out lager and baltis to rowdy, over refreshed men in outsize sportswear.

Whilst sitting on the train, on my way over to Teddington to review this restaurant, I wondered how busy it would be. What with the credit crunch clamping us by the jugular and consistent job losses, I was intrigued by how the suburbs were coping. On arrival, at 1 o’clock, it was plain to see. We were the only people there, and for the two hours we were there, three others came in for lunch and two locals enjoyed a pint, on separate tables.

Richard Corrigan’s life has been defined by pathos. From tending roots, shoots and sorting cows from sows, to tussling chicken-crazed foxes, he rose from the bog where electricity was anathema, to cook for the Queen. In rehabilitating dowdy ‘Bentley’s’, the barrel-tummied Nimrod also roused interest in food ‘from our islands’. An almost evangelical ingredientism continues to eat into his latest venture.

Brick Lane is just a few hundred yards away from Cinnamon Kitchen but it’s a million miles away in spirit. On Brick Lane hustlers from the endless restaurants whisper at you seductively, attempting to lure you into their establishment with promises of good times and blandishments about your wonderfulness.

A side road off Regent Street, Heddon Street is a quiet haven amid the bustle of central London. It is home to several restaurants, and The Living Room W1, nestles in a corner of this U shaped street. The double frontage, although substantial, belies the size of this flagship restaurant of the Living Room chain.

The burger deal is part of Hawksmoor’s nod to our cash-strapped times. A lunch special that won’t break the bank and presumably will attract in some of the poor employees of RBS around the corner as they struggle to survive without their thoroughly well deserved bonuses. How does one get by on just a six-figure salary? It’s a nightmare, obviously.

With bills that come in lower than a Peking Duck on final approach, and a laudable focus on authenticity, Rasa Sayang is a great ambassador for its cuisine and the ideal place for a fast lunch or a more leisurely dinner. Dieters beware of the pork fat though, it’s easy to make a pig of yourself.

This is partly a restaurant review and partly a piece on produce, because isn’t what makes a restaurant truly great the quality of what it puts into its dishes just as much as how it cooks them? Fins is in a very fortunate position because it cooks what it catches and has become an official Gary Rhodes Local Food Hero.

Falafel with aubergine and pepper Harissa casserole to follow could perhaps have been spicier but was tasty and huge and rounded off with the addition of a lemon-tahini sauce. The two home-made sausages sat atop their heap of Colcannon mash with cabbage raised a few smiles among the more puerile among us however despite looking as though conceived for a Dennis Potter school- flashback were inoffensive if not striking. Certainly they could have done with a little more of the redwine gravy with which they came.

I do miss seeing Mel Smith smoking cigars in the Champagne Bar, maybe they should have him stuffed and brought back? Maybe they should have us all stuffed and brought back? No, you can’t preserve the past you have to move on.