If you're hungry for lunch and in Newport you're probably in the right place.

From traditional cafés like one-of-a-kind Chapel Coffee Lounge to international identikit fast food franchises, the town has a good range of offerings. Admittedly, in the evening the choice is a bit slimmer, but for the busy shopper or office drone Newport's rarely a let-down for a mid-day repast. If, like Matt and Cat, you'd built up a substantial appetite staggering blank-eyed round the post-Christmas sales in an attempt to shake off the festive cabin fever, you could eat at dozens of revitalising places, each with its own personality.

And of those many lunching-places, none is more central than the Blue Door, located in the shadow of the Victoria memorial in the very middle of town. Most of the year, this busy corner has a little group of tables outside, where Matt and Cat often while away a happy lunchbreak in the sun, watching the world go by and almost invariably passing the time with someone they know. Such is Island life.

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It comes to something when the first frost of the winter is in the second week of the new year.

But it was on a cold January morning that Matt and Cat first had to scrape the ice off the car before setting off to work. Still, a year ago they were digging the same car out of the snow with a shovel, so in some ways things have changed. But these days of cold seemed almost welcome after so much unseasonably mild, damp weather in midwinter. Wandering the streets of Cowes, which looked unexpectedly empty even for January, those hardy souls who had braved the chill wind were well wrapped up. There was even one boat crew passing by, dressed impressively in full foul-weather gear and looking suitably grizzled.

On the hunt for a warming lunch, Matt and Cat spotted the bright little frontage of Sails Café, and, perhaps more pertinently, the promise of home-made beef stew and dumplings on the specials board outside. It provoked a minor outburst from Matt, bemoaning the decline of the traditional suet dumpling. A forkful of stolid, hearty dumpling is to his vicarage-raised palette the acme of accompaniments to a winter stew. A crusty baguette, a floury bap or even a toasted brioche can only ever be a disappointing also-ran in any comparison. Sadly, such substitutions are common. Rarely does a stew with dumplings get top billing - if stewed beef is to be served with anything, it is perhaps most commonly served in a pie, and even then the accompaniment is sometimes just a flimsy hat of puff-pastry. Sails Café, by contrast, was keeping the dumpling faith. Such stoicism earned it Matt and Cat’s lunchtime custom.

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Years ago, Matt and Cat had a very enjoyable visit to Lizzie's Diner, an old skool café set in a windowless industrial unit in Lake's old fridge factory.

The experience was pretty good - in fact, they described the place as "a perfect example of the genre at its finest". Even fussy Cat, who usually disapproves of so-called 'greasy-spoon' food, was pleased with her lunch there (a mushroom omelette, pictured below).

Since then, Lizzie's Diner has been reborn, occupying a bigger unit with a major new feature - windows! Proprietors Anna and Ritchie Newton wrote to Matt and Cat in 2010 and explained: Not only do we have beautiful new premises with windows but we have also taken the opportunity to finally, after 4 years hard work, let Ritchie have his name above the door. The Diner is now renamed 'Ritchies Diner'.

Now, in some idle discussion on Twitter, Matt, a notorious vegesceptic, was challenged to eat a meat-free breakfast by two of his vegetarian friends, @MattdaWhittaker and @MintyMat. Observant readers will notice that all these three chaps are called Mat(t). They issued an invitation to all other Island folk called Matt to join them. A number of applicants were rejected for quite obviously not being called Matt. Filtering out the non-Matts with this sole yet rigidly-applied criteria, there was a trio of genuine Matts present at the inaugural Matts' Meat-free Morning.

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Due to entirely foreseen circumstances, Matt and Cat found themselves without internet access one clement autumn day.

This enforced Luddism could have inspired a frenzied bout of housework or perhaps baking, but those who know M&C well will already be guffawing at such ridiculous options. No, they decided to embrace their temporary broadband-free existence and where better than at Quarr Abbey – site of a monkishly simple life as long ago as the twelfth century.

The monks at Quarr Abbey have engaged with the Island community for years and, more recently, have increased their profile and perhaps their revenue stream. Their enterprises have included creative ceramics with Brother Alexander Tingay, bookbinding and the tea room. Once a bit of a shack in part of the abbey’s walled garden the café has, with the help of an EU grant, evolved into a decent business venture with the worthy objective of supporting this religious foundation. Will eating at the café become a regular habit?

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Visit the website: http://www.quarrabbey.co.uk/

Don’t know about the rest of you but when Matt and Cat think about cream teas, Godshill springs to mind.

This quaint village with its gift shoppes, picture-postcard thatches and tea gardens is a mandatory port of call for grockles and cream tea aficionados alike. One sunny October day when mad dogs and Englishmen made a bee-line for the Wight’s unseasonably scorching shores, Cat and a like-minded chum made their way inland to have a cream tea lunch in the scone capital of the Island.

Some of the village’s tea shops have been serving up afternoon delight since the Model Village was all fields. However, Cat and her friend, strolling in the middle of the road as is customary, bimbled to the newest pretender for the tea garden crown, Rainbow Art Café. The last time Cat visited this little corner of Godshill she bought a very nice embroidered coat from the venue’s previous incarnation, Christmas Cottage. Some may remember this side street crystal-mongery which purveyed wind chimes, ambient music and incense. Since then the venue has undergone a makeover; the majority of the produce has been swept away, replaced with chi-chi tables, a vast glass counter exhibiting a variety of tasty-looking cakes, and some incongruous life-size clowns.

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