Chunks of braised fennel and furls of lovely, gloopy spinach are easy companions to a surfboard of crisply seared sea bass (£14.50) and a spoonful of coarsely chopped, low-tech salsa verde.It takes genius to turn that overdone dessert clich?pannacotta (£5), into a large, trembling breast of Venus, the specks of vanilla seed like tiny freckles against pale skin. A dish of sea bass is just the sort of thing I eat at home two or three nights a week – yes, it’s that good. This is risotto as it should be: a sunny saffron yellow with an almost soupy, all’onda (wave-like) consistency; every grain of rice retaining a chewy, al dente heart. The meat is shredded off the bone in too ladylike a fashion, but to be this gelatinous and long-flavoured, it must at least have been cooked on the bone. It’s a natural with its Italian accomplice: a bright and fruity 2004 Allegrini Valpolicella at a very reasonable £16.Every ingredient earns its place on these plates, with nothing appearing token or gratuitous. Unless you’re a right fusspot, that is.
This easy-going bistro is the latest offering from the experienced hand of Rebecca Mascarenhas (The Phoenix in Putney, Sonny’s in Barnes and Nottingham). It’s a right little charmer, too, tucked away off London’s Kensington High Street.

All the rooms are nicely fitted out in subtly spot-lit soft grey, with some smart black-framed prints and designer wall-lights and fresh flowers. On a freezing night, the welcome inside is warm-as-toast as coats and scarves are shed. I want to keep shedding down to my socks so that I can bask in the sheer sunniness of it all.This friendly, eager-to-please attitude is also evident on the Mediterranean-driven menu, which is miraculously full of stuff I really want to eat. There are no high-status corners, no booths, and no obviously better positions. Never have I seen people so fussy about where they want to sit. Is this some sort of secret Kensington ritual? One group after another are brought to their tables, only to baulk like horses at the stable gates. They peer around, furtively searching for a more advantageous position – whatever that may mean – before reluctantly settling down It’s like musical chairs without the music.

Perhaps it’s because there are so many seating options at 11 Abingdon Road. Around 100 covers are divided into four flow-through dining rooms – some smoking, some non – at tables round or square. And it would take some huge revelation to convince me otherwise. But shafted by whom? By certain employees of the Welsh Rugby Union, undoubtedly, but what about the players and any of his coaching “assistants”? Well, let’s just say that a number of people should be taking one long hard look at themselves in that team-room mirror And if I was them, I would not like what I was seeing..

“Shafted”. That was my short but accurate description on Welsh TV on Friday night concerning the events that rocked my country last week – and I’m sticking to it Yes, I believe Mike Ruddock was shafted. Most of the big hitters in the top flight are of the view that relegation equals oblivion but first Bristol and now Quins are proving that it ain’t necessarily so.. Saracens got a 10-point start from a smart try on the shortside of a scrum by Dan Scarbrough and a conversion and penalty by Glen Jackson. But the tell-tale signs of a side lacking in confidence were writ large. When Sarries dithered and tossed away possession to cough up two tries to Northampton’s flankers, Paul Tupai and Sam Harding, Saints never conceded the initiative..

This time last year Harlequins were up to their necks in quicksand and when the end came, against Sale in the last match of the season, they slipped quietly from the Premiership and there was barely a dry eye in the house. Saracens, by contrast, must feel the plughole’s swirl sucking them down: this was their seventh League defeat in a row since they beat Newcastle last November. Four soft first-half tries did not just hand a bonus point and, ultimately, victory to London Irish but left the West Country side looking vulnerable at the wrong end of the Guinness Premiership table.. Four second-half tries by Sean Lamont, the Scotland wing, and eight in all to equal their highest points total in a League match, ushered Northampton one place up the Premiership table and further away from the clammy clutches of the perspiring relegation candidates. Lewsey, recovering from a shoulder injury, should be fit for the Calcutta Cup, but Voyce said: “I want a good performance to keep the pressure on Andy Robinson.”.