Summer's a busy time for food reviewers. New places open like flowers - and sometimes wither in a similar way.

Avid readers are keenly recommending new places for Matt and Cat to review, and as new eateries are popping up faster than the duo can visit them their list of potential reviews is longer than a very long thing.

This bodes well for the Isle of Wight's leisure economy and, with the promise of a heatwave this summer and the inevitable influx of day-trippers that always brings, it looks as though quite a few Island enterprises are already doing well.

Many of these 'new' venues are actually pretty old but, with a lick of paint and a new team behind the stove, they are reborn. One such place is the Waterside Café in Ryde. This seafront stalwart has a new tenant and is open again for business after a couple of year's languishing and even a threat of demolition. With so much competition along the Esplanade, will it be sink or swim for this municipal café?

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Known for many years as "Joe Daflo's", the Ryde branch of Joe's was for a long time one of Matt & Cat's all-time favourite eateries on the Island.

Joe's has been on Matt and Cat's list for so long, they've written two reviews about it - and one of them has been edited a few times. So below you'll find the original 2006 review, and a more recent 2008 assessment with updates.

Now, onto the food!

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As regular readers of this blog may have deduced, Matt and Cat work in Newport.

Once they have eaten their nammit, they will sometimes spend the remains of their lunchtime having coffee at Olivo, Island Images or the Quay Arts Centre. Just occasionally, for a bit of a treat, they might have their midday meal out together on a work-day. Over time, they've visited most of Newport's venues so are always on the lookout for somewhere new to eat.

When they noticed that a new café had appeared in Scarrot's Lane, they thought they'd give it a spin one lunchtime. Take 5 has arrived in the stead of what was previously Monroe's Coffee House - a venue reviewed favourably by Cat in 2008. Sooner than they'd anticipated, poor planning managed to deliver both of them to Newport without any packed lunch, and so off to Take 5 they went.

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Matt and Cat are not morning people, preferring instead to spend their weekends lolling under the duvet for as long as possible.

Pleasant though this is, it can lead to meal synchronisation issues. For when Matt and Cat are eating their breakfast, the rest of the population is gearing up for lunch. By the time M and C are thinking about lunch, it's mid-afternoon and many places have stopped serving. And so, on a sunny Saturday, this tragedy of mis-timing played itself out yet again.

Their chops flapping in the breeze of the car's open windows, Matt and Cat headed purposefully to the West Wight. This time they were going to eat their lunch in a timely manner. But, like a pair of babies shown a particularly enticing rattle, their attention was refocused onto the new and mighty cleft in the Military Road. And, like this picturesque highway, M and C's intentions fell by the wayside.

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Visit the website: http://www.farmhousecreamteas.co.uk/creamteas.htm

Matt and Cat have spent a lot of time in Ventnor recently, so much so that Matthew is thinking of buying a phial of patchouli oil to perfume his Afghan coat. Having had an extremely pleasant morning with some astronomers at the very windswept and wonderful Castlehaven, M&C headed into town to find a light lunch before a pre-booked afternoon tea at Ventnor's Royal Hotel.

Although tempted to revisit Goodman's Deli; the delicious Forme d'Ambert cheese was still a happy memory, it was time to go somewhere new. Surprisingly, despite it being a very drizzly weekday, most of the shops and cafes seemed to be open and Matt and Cat took a slow stroll southwards until they found something that took their fancy. That something turned out to be Tilly's Café.

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