As a prospecting restaurateur driving expansion through an economic downturn it must feel like pennies from heaven to see the fourth incarnation of your Lebanese canteen packed to the gills on a cold Wednesday night in January. Not only were all 100 covers taken, people were queuing out the door and even eating outside.

The Grand Imperial has recently won two rosettes and was finalist in Tsingtao Legacy of Taste awards for Best UK Chinese restaurant, so I knew the food was likely to be excellent. What I hadn’t expected was the sheer opulence of the place and the hushed atmosphere that hit me like a blast of cold air after the frenetic activity of the station.

Hôp Namô is run by husband and wife Colin and Linh Vu as a deliberate and very successful attempt to bring modern Vietnamese food to an increasingly appreciative audience. ‘Vietnamese with a modern twist’ is their slogan, although they are keen to emphasise that they fully acknowledge the traditions of their country’s cuisine.

All the staff we met had a smile and a friendly air about them and it didn’t seem forced. They were quick to refresh our crockery in the face of my messy eating and swift to top up the tea. And that’s about all I want. I certainly don’t want the American ‘Hi my name is Greg and I’ll just perch my resting actor’s buttocks on the table next to you and simper’ style of serving.

Does Sherlock Bar and Grill overcook its food as much as Cumberpatch overdoes his acting? Marcus Sedghi finds that in fact the food at Sherlock’s is well balanced, restrained and easy to get down.

You could pop into Caparossa and have a glass of wine and plate of pasta and feel yourself well fed. Go for all four courses and you could feel yourself a bit fat. This modern Neapolitan eatery has a lot of charm, some very good cooking and not an oversized pepper mill in sight.

Lashed by storms, hunted by ‘entertainers’ and frightened by a frog, intrepid explorer David finds the Rainforest can’t be endangered enough for his liking. Bring on the bulldozers.

Carrom is a game I used to play when a little girl. The board had intricate patternings and holes into which you’d flick counters. It may sound delicate but the competition was sharp. Slit eyes and hexes were rife. I was expecting to see a little more carrom thematic going on at D&D’s new Carom restaurant in Soho before I realised I’d confused it with carom – that’s one “r” – the spice.

Roganic is picky, both in terms of where the plated ingredients are sourced and how they choose to construct them. Each course is like a well rehearsed act, requiring you to gawp, question and discuss. It’s superb stuff, but I want to eat not talk. Over a five-hour seating and 15 courses, there is time for both. But it’s not cheap

Mexican doesn’t have to mean burritos and tacos like everywhere else – sometimes it can be pretty good. We tried out one of the flourishing Tortilla restaurants springing up across London quicker than Speedy Gonzales. Ariba!