Ah, Ventnor. Yes, the magical town where unicorns roam across the sparkling beach; and pixies giggle behind every corner. Or something.

The Guardian pronounces "the place feels apart from the Isle of Wight, let alone the UK". The Telegraph dashes up to claim "Ventnor has got its va-va-voom back". Every street is cluttered by rubbernecking DFLs clutching cuttings from Sunday supplements. Locals waft by in clouds of patchouli and wind chimes, distinctive in hand-tooled sandals and flowing garments. One thing has long been missing from this idyll: a curry house. But now the picture is complete - Chutney Express has opened on Ventnor High Street, providing not only a take-away service but a small restaurant too. Matt and Cat, keen Indian fans, paid it a visit.

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Love and marriage, they say, go together like a horse and carriage. Or maybe like Peters and Lee, the interchangeable Ant and Dec, Matt and Cat, and Indian tapas... Whoah there! Indian and tapas?

Both spicy, perhaps, but a good combination? The new owners of Sandown's latest restaurant, SWAD Indian Tapas, seem to think so. Matt and Cat, initially sceptical about this cross-cultural culinary collision, decided on reflection that actually, the idea of Indian tapas sounded pretty good. After all, who hasn't looked at some bizarre item on the bottom of the menu and wondered if they'd like it. With tapas one can speculate a modest amount of money on a small dish and try new food experiences. M and C skipped to the seaside town one evening to find out what SWAD was all about...

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Cat and Matt have been off the scene for a week or so; confined to barracks with, respectively, a cold and Man Flu. Without any sense of taste and likely to be felled by fits of coughing, M and C decided that they were not in any condition to eat out whilst the symptoms still raged within their contaminated bodies. However, an email from Matt & Cat reader Pinky perked them up out of their combined stupor - a new Indian takeaway has opened in Ryde.

If there's anything that will help relieve the snifflings of a cold, it's a good curry. So Matt and Cat, much cheered by the thought, dragged their weary carcasses to the top end of Ryde's impressively long High Street. The further south they went, the dimmer were the shops' lights. They crossed the Rubicon at the junction of West Street and Green Street and staggered into the gloomy upper reaches, finally spotting the welcoming glow of Spice Express.

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The lights are shining bright in East Cowes these days. Despite SEEDA's numinous arrival in the town - now revealed disappointingly as all light and no heat - the brave entrepreneurs behind Saffron in Cowes have thumbed their noses at the economic downturn and opened a stylish restaurant in the town's historic Castle Street.

Always up for a nice Ruby Murray, Matt and Cat, loose change and a few bits of folding money in their pockets remaining from pay day, drove to the Island's northern peninsula. After bimbling about a bit in the cold, they found the new restaurant - the Purple Mango - by heading towards the mesmerising glow emanating from the venue's picture windows.

Much has been said on this site about the generic refurbishment of the Island's Indian restaurants; laminate flooring, leather chairs and concealed coloured lighting are ubiquitous. In fact, a 'traditional' venue like the Bahar Tandoori stands out from the crowd with its thick patterned carpets and mock Taj Mahal exterior. Would the Purple Mango have its own Unique Selling Point to distinguish it from Monsoon, Cinnamon et al?

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As regular readers of Matt and Cat's Isle of Wight Eating Out Guide may have deduced, the eponymous writers live in Ryde and work in Newport.

This geographical predictability means that the reviews on these pages have a tendency to cluster around these conurbations. And, dear reader, you can be pretty sure that if a new place opens or changes hands in either of the aforementioned towns, Matt and Cat will sooner or later make a visit.

As it was when one of Cat's colleagues idly mentioned a new Indian restaurant in Shide. In typical caulkhead fashion, the venue was described as 'where the Barley Mow used to be'. It often seems that Islanders will give directions using defunct landmarks. Take, for example, the time when Cat rang a shop in Sandown to find out its exact whereabouts. "It's in Avenue Road, opposite where the post office used to be and where there was a chemist on the corner". Not very helpful, unless you've lived on the Island all of your life. And, as if to establish her IW credentials, Cat did not need any further directions.

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