Chais Nous - Le Blinding Bifstek.

If you're looking for crisp white tablecloths, stalker-like service and Chateau Lafite, look away now, book a cab to Pètrus and be prepared for an evening of smears, reductions and waiters who appear to have rods up their arses. If, however, you are looking for a melt-in-the-mouth, buttery, juicy, dribble-down-your-chin, fat Angus bavette, cooked to bloody perfection at a non-heart-attack inducing price, let Jérôme, the suitably unimpressed patron of Chais Nous, usher you in to his wee French haven tout-de-suite.

The great thing about this place is, a lot of English people think its "not French enough" precisely because it DOESN'T contain those horrendously twee bits of crap that most London French-style "bistrots" contain. In the same way as Irish pubs abroad all look suspiciously similar, and nothing like the spit and sawdust hovel you went to in deepest Limerick, so do most "cafè français" in London look like they came in an ikea box with the requisite "Pastis" posters and wicker chairs.

Chais Nous is so unadorned and unfussy and lacking in any kind of effort at selling itself as a French bar that it actually feels exactly like sitting in a street corner bar in a not very thrilling quartier of a small French town.

The telly will inevitably be showing some third division football game between two teams from places you've never heard of and in the corner, scarf-bedecked fans will be nodding and mumbling into their glasses of Ricard as another group of students behind you, probably from the Lycée Français round the corner, moan about how terrible everything in London is and discuss at length the best way to cook endives. How can you not love this!?!?!

There's a menu du jour and a plat du jour and if you don't like it you can stuff it. There's things like gizzard salad, "salade de gésiers", escargots swimming in garlic butter and tête de veau. Fred and I opted for the Bavette d'angus, and, joy of joys, when I asked for it "really saignant" they offered it to me "bleu" and I thanked the gods someone in this green and verdant land understands that cow should be served still mooing when it comes to the table and not fried to a crisp or blackened into a charcoal brick.

Sunny had a rather divine looking Filet Mignon de Porc in a mustard sauce that I'd have salivated over had I not drunk too much plonk and guzzled my steak like a starved beast.

So, instead of spending squillions at Le Gavroche (yeah, ok, I know there's no contest...) go and fill the modest coffers of the South Ken francophone community, catch up on all the latest gossip of the Luzenac FC, and get your nashers around a big plate of snails. Go on, you know you want to.

Chais Nous

21 Bute Street
London SW7 3EY

Tel: 0207 589 7311

Polpo - aperitivo a go-go

Polpo touts itself as a Venetian bacaro in London. I've never been to Venice, so far be it for me to say how authentic it may or may not be, but frankly it looks just like an enoteca to me... It serves the Italian equivalent of tapas, "cicheti" the kind of small, taster dishes you'd find in any good wine bar in the major Italian cities.

The place is always buzzing, it's worth booking from Thursday to Saturday and don't expect to find a quiet table. The one truly authentic Italian element to this place is the noise level, and that's without the massive family christening parties with screaming babies.

I visited in the quieter hours after three, with a vague hangover that needed nursing. One Aperol spritz later and I was struggling to decide on only three dishes (these are hard economic times) from the menu as it frankly all sounds good.

I began with Spratti in Saor - marinated sprats in a citrussy, salty sauce served on small crostini. Gone in a flash, they whet my appetite perfectly. C. had the wild mushroom piadina, which was stuffed to the gills with a variety of funghi, although the bread was a touch chewy and dry.

For some reason that confounds me, I opted to follow with cotechino, essentially a type of sausage made from pork, fatback and pork rind, usually stuffed into a pig's trotter. I've yet to meet an Italian who eats this outside of New Year's eve where it is considered traditional and symbolic of good luck. It was probably since I'd missed out this New Year on my pig's trotter helping that I felt a twinge of nostalgia. It was, in fact, delicious. Nothing like the squidgy, boiled-to-misery salted mush I'm used to having in a drunken state towards midnight on the 31st, but delicate and handsomely flavoured with pine nuts and savoy cabbage and mustard.

C. had the pork belly, with radicchio and hazelnuts to balance out the sweetness and add bite. Equally tasty. 

The big mistake? The fritto misto. Not that it was bad, it was crispy enough and not terribly greasy. But after narfing through all the rest, the portion just didn't seem so small anymore and the squid, inevitably, had that rubber band texture that I couldn't really stomach after pig's feet and, yes, another Aperol spritz.

Neverthelss, between the two of us, we pretty much polished our plates. No sign of a venetian either in the kitchen or in the bar though, which made me wonder at the tenuous connection to the city of water... But the wine list told another tale, with a great selection of big and lesser-known northern Italian producers. Shame the hangover had me stuck on the Aperol, but I shall return to get my nashers round a Tocai soon...

Prices are around £3-£6  per dish, three dishes makes an ample meal.

Polpo

41 Beak Street 
London W1F 9SB. 
020 7734 4479.

The Celtic Connection - La P'tite Folie in Edinburgh

I may be a distant descendant of the Pictish warriors that made up Clan Gunn, and my mother might hail from the more insalubrious districts of Glasgow, but this couldn't stop the Jamieson family venturing as far as Scotland's capital only to wind up lunching in a Breton restaurant. There we were, falling over ourselves to impress the waiter with our gutteral "r" rolling, making those knowledgable grunts of satisfaction only fine connoisseurs can muster as we perused the wine list and freezing our backsides off as we'd been placed by the front door.

La P'tite Folie on Frederick Street is a small, intimate affair, but its airy high-ceilinged room means you don't feel you're sitting on your neighbour's lap. It bears enough gallic memorabilia on its walls to appear genuine rather than those "buy in a box" rustic Provençal places where you can barely take a step without bashing your head against a hanging empty wine flagon or low-flying Bayonne ham.

Dad ordered le steak frites, cooked "medium" - shudder! The meat was tasty and tender, despite being far too brown much for my liking (if it ain't still mooing, don't bring it to my table). The frites were nothing to write home about, but crispy and freshly made and overall perfectly satisfying.

I started with a mini steak tartare, topped with a quail's egg. It felt for a moment as if the sole purpose of a quail's existence on Earth was to provide eggs conveniently small enough to top miniature versions of this bistro classic. The meat was of excellent quality, with just enough chopped cornichons to add a bite but not overwhelm. The egg was just enough to soften the consistency and not transform the meat into beef mayonnaise.

I continued with haddock poached in white wine au beurre blanc. This was frankly a tad disappointing as the fish was clearly right off the boat that morning, but had been slightly overdone giving a rubbery quality that didn't match the smooth sauce. It was full of flavour however and well matched with the lemoniness of the beurre blanc. Potatoes and mange-tout accompanied the lot.

Mum got the pick of the bunch with her confit de canard poached in red wine, the meat was falling off the bones before she even picked up the fork and the punch of the wine enhanced the sweetness of the duck. The mussels she started with would have been more exciting with the garlic butter and toasty breadcrumbs they were supposed to come with, but that's what Weight watchers will do to you, make you deny the joyous sins of BEURRE in all its forms - mum shunned the garlicky normandy butter salé and the result was a bowl of acceptable, but tame Moules Marinières.

We washed the whole lot down with a bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvigon then proceeded to dessert. I had crème brulée which was good, but not more. Dad had a dubious looking mint sponge which I admit to not trying (funny how that damn small quail's egg tipped me over the edge of the cream/dairy/egg content of the day).

All in all the meal was proper french food the way I remember it, with not a whiff of phoniness, of trying too hard or with dodgy wall stencils of men in berets wheeling baguettes about on bicycles.

They also have a branch in the West End at Tudor House, with a slightly tweaked menu and an expansive wine bar for the pre-theatre crowd.

La P'tite Folie

0131 225 7983

61 Frederick Street

Edinburgh

0131 225 8678

Tudor House, 9 Randolph Place

Edinburgh