As Matt and Cat never tire of pointing out, this website started as a hobby, is independent and takes no money from restaurants.

This gives them the freedom to air their honest opinions, and the liberty to please themselves without anyone pulling their strings.

Having written a fairly enthusiastic review of what was then the new Phileas Foggs back in 2009, they didn't see any need to write another one in any hurry. Not because they didn't want to go back to this very nice venue - on the contrary, they’d had some good food in a lively atmosphere. However, as each review involves a modicum of preparation, usually an evening spent in a restaurant and then several more hours crafting their opinions and processing photographs, M&C tend to target their revisits for mercurial places where the review might no longer be accurate, or which elicit polarised opinions from commenters to this website. The new owners of Phileas Foggs implored Matt and Cat to "visit us soon, we need an up-to-date review" - but, as the word was that all was still rosy in the house of Fogg, it took a bit of time for them to do so.

Eventually, of course, it happened. Matt and Cat made no mention of their impending meal to the new owners, who naturally enough got the anonymous review treatment. The big question is, has Phileas Foggs lost its way or does the earlier positive review still hold muster?

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Matt was once described by his university professor as having a Rolls Royce brain with Morris Minor engine. Cat, who used to be pretty punctual and organised, has adopted Matt's languorous attitude over the years they've been together. This lackadaisical leaning means that they have never quite managed to book a table for dinner at the award-winning Hillside Hotel, of which they've heard many good things. This is because a degree of premeditation is required to eat at the hotel's illustrious restaurant; admittedly just the minimum of a day's notice but, for slackers M&C, even that has so far proven to require too much foresight. So they were delighted to be able to swing by Hillside's newest venture - Ventnor's Hillside Bistro - without giving any notice whatsoever.

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With over four hundred reviews on this website it's inevitable that they won't all be up to date.

If Matt and Cat were to refresh reviews of places they'd already written about, it would take them over seven years if they ate out once a week - and that wouldn't include any new eateries! However sometimes they do feel compelled to provide an update and, with a pub as popular as Shalfleet's the New Inn, a few (albeit favourable) paragraphs, and no pictures, written way back in 2006 clearly needed updating. Didn't it?

Matt and Cat popped into the pub one April evening and, having taken the necessary step of booking a table, they wandered to the church and then along the pretty creek to work up a suitable appetite by looking at local sarcophagi and sarcophagidae. There were plenty of historical artefacts in the church, including a memorial carved by a protegé of typographer Eric Gill. At the creek Cat saw her first lesser-spotted woodpecker and, in the gloaming, she and Matt squinted into a field trying to spy elusive spring hares. Having got a hour's worth of fun out of Shalfleet, they turned back to the pub for their dinners.

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Matt and Cat both have their birthdays in the first quarter of the year. Cat’s celebrations in January usually involve inviting a group of friends to a conducive location - in 2012 her party was at the spectacular The Mission.

For his birthday, Cat offered Matt the choice of Island-based activities. Rejecting the opportunity to pet a primate at the Owl and Monkey Haven, and poo-pooing Isle of Wight Pearl, he plumped for an all-day breakfast. But where to go? There are plenty of fabulous Isle of Wight breakfasts to be had, with top contenders at Richie’s Diner, Bluebells Café and Besty and Spinky’s but Matt wanted to go somewhere new. So using Twitter’s hive mind, Cat tickled some recommendations out of their followers and Tumblers was picked as the destination for the birthday boy’s big breakfast.

Occupying a corner plot at the top of Shanklin, Tumblers is well-placed to scoop up tourist traffic as it’s by the station and on the traffic main route through the town. Surprisingly, despite its prominence, it’s never appeared on Matt and Cat’s radar. And that’s a woeful omission.

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A legend used to be an unverifiable but historical tale, handed down the generations in a tradition of story-telling.

When it opened, Newport's House of Legends was a themed eatery focussed on showbiz 'legends', such as film stars, musicians and the like - whose faces Matt and Cat were exhorted to identify on a branded House of Legends paper placemat. However, the word legend has been devalued through overuse (along with 'genius') and is applied as a very mild superlative - occasionally to describe someone of distinctly dubious virtue, eg 'Raoul Moat You Legend'.

Matt and Cat have had widely varying experiences at Legends. A weak start was followed by a pretty decent meal - but then a painfully over-protracted visit to HoL in early 2011, where the pitiful service, food and ambiance all left much to be desired. This led Matt and Cat to rue the day they'd sent their 'recommended by...' stickers to this over-ambitious venue.

But, a year later and like Pizza Hut before it, Matt and Cat decided to give Legends yet another chance. Taking a young family with them to give the place a bit of a stress-test, they stepped trepidatiously over the threshold.

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