Tonkotsu was a roaring success when it opened in Soho. Now a new branch, Tonkotsu East, has opened in Haggerston. Alex went down to see what all the fuss is about.

They don’t seem to have my reservation, but they do have a spare table so we sit down. The menu is picked up and there is a problem that my trained critical eye spots immediately. We are in the wrong restaurant.

By the time you read this there may something on the TV news other than reporters wading about earnestly while another OAP and her cat is boated to safety behind them. The great floods will be but a memory one day but as I watched the Thames rushing past like an express train from the calm comfort of the Bingham’s dining room last week, it seemed we were all doomed. 

Salt’n Pepper is a new outpost of a chain that has done very well in Pakistan for thirty years, the menu is said to be’authentic’ but I can’t comment on that, best ask a Pakistani what he or she thinks. It’s not fine dining, and obviously it isn’t Indian, except in the rather lazy generic sense.

In my quest to satisfy my masculine cravings, I headed down to Shepherds Bush, where the first and only branch of South Africa’s The Meat Co. is located a minute away from the tube station in the outside section of Westfield shopping centre. 

‘Where’s there a bloody good chip shop?’ is a question probably not asked often enough; if you’ve ever read anything about fish and chips, you will of course be aware that the unequivocally beige meal is’the nation’s favourite dish’, despite the fact that most chip shops are rubbish.

Definitely the kind of place we’d all like to have in our neighbourhood, Geales is no fish out of water in Chelsea.

I realise it doesn’t sound like a ground-breaking menu and the hardcore Come Dine With Me lovers will scoff and demand much more flamboyance, but that’s not the point of coming to Kanteen. If you want something bland from a brand and covet sitting in a huge fishbowl so everyone can see you eat, go to Westfield.

Chung Yin broke my Chinese cherry and now there’s a new one – Chung Yin Central.

This little piece of Sicily in NW3 is a brilliant restaurant that really must be tried for its inventive, flavour-packed cooking and style