Indian YMCA, London
This horrid building - it looks more like a Soviet-era office block than somewhere you'd go to eat - has a surprise up its sleeve: a decent canteen. The food's not groundbreaking - basic curries and dhals - but it's all competently done, and the menu changes daily. At around £15 a head, it's a real bargain for this part of town.
• 41 Fitzroy Square, W1; 020-7387 0411
Bob Granleese
Spinnakers Bar/Cafe, Southampton
The Spinnakers' delicious Thai red curries are hidden within the Calshot Activities Centre complex. It's housed in historic waterfront hangars on Calshot Spit.
• 023-8089 1412, calshot.com
Victoria Pybus
The Tea Cosy, Brighton
Camp ain't the word for this tiny tearoom. From the outside it looks as if they called in some Princess Diana-crazed Bet Lynch lookalike to do the window dressing. Inside, it's even more full-on - and that's before you clap eyes on the house rules that'll have you barred just for holding your tea cup the wrong way, let alone dunking your biscuit. You can't go wrong with the Charles and Camilla Elevenses - crumpets with Marmite and a pot of tea.
• 3 George Street, Kemptown; theteacosy.co.uk
BG
The Gallery, London
In a row of shops, insalubrious even by south London's standards, this gem of a Portugese restaurant doesn't look at all appetising from the street - you could easily mistake it for just another grim fried chicken takeaway. But step inside and ask to be buzzed into the back, and you'll think you've stepped into downtown Faro. Starters include great griddled king prawns, mains include decent renditions of traditional bacalhau dishes.
• 256a Brixton Hill, SW2; 020-8671 831
BG
Secret ingredients meal, The Crown, Wales
The Crown at Whitebrook, near Tintern Abbey, is normally your run-of-the-mill, exceptionally good Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms. But every eight weeks the food becomes more confusing and spectacular, for a surprise tasting menu evening, when everything you eat is a secret. You are served a mysterious dish, with a matching wine, after which the maitre d' pops out of the kitchen to ask you what you think you've eaten and drunk. Lively debate ensues between the guests sharing one table, developing into raucous argument by the seventh course as full-on foodies slug it out over whether that espuma was fig or pear.
• Near Monmouth, Monmouthshire; 01600 860254; crownatwhitebrook.co.uk
Rebecca Seal
Secret burger at Joe Allen, London
This cult theatre restaurant in a basement on a side street in Covent Garden, has paradoxically created a burger so good and so famous in some circles that it has actually turned into a secret. Presumably to enhance its legendary status, you won't find it advertised on the menu - but if you request one from the waiter, a glint appears in his eye and he asks if you want it medium rare with bacon and cheese, and chips on the side. The answer is "yes".
• 13 Exeter St; 020-7836 0651; joeallenrestaurant.com
Seb Emina
Cream tea at Saul Lodge, Gloucester
Cream tea is available most summer Sunday afternoons in the garden of this elegant private house. The mismatching crockery and labyrinthine garden make it a bit Alice in Wonderland.
• Saul Lodge, Arlingham Road, Saul, Gloucestershire
SE
Bom-Banes, Brighton
Twice a month, this teeny place performs a musical. As you eat homemade hummus, sausages and stoemp or "chocowafflettes", the waiters and cook pause from their duties to croon gently the story of the funny little restaurant known as Bom-Banes. Accompanied and scripted by a guitarist, the music is exquisite: fragile, tender little songs.
• 24 George Street; 01273 606400; bom-banes.co.uk
Bibi van der Zee
