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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After a record ten requests on 'Suggest a venue' Matt and Cat have at last visited Burrs in Newport. Huzzah!

Burrs is a small, traditional-looking restaurant positioned away from the tourist-traps of the Island in one of Newport's back-streets. No sea view or historic ambience supplements the experience. Matt and Cat wandered in one evening after a late night at the salt mine, fearful that they might need a reservation. Luckily they didn't, and indeed at first they were the only customers.

The attentive waiter welcomed them and showed his guests to a cosy table at the back of the small dining room. As drinks, menus and the usual initial transactions were undertaken, Matt and Cat began to understand the important differences that set Burrs apart from other establishments. Burrs has rejected the doctrine of 'no-nonsense food' and offers a classy service in the traditional style that borders on the theatrical. Cat was invariably referred to as 'madame' (although she archly said she might have preferred 'mademoiselle'), and she always got the first service. The diners had the offer of having their coats taken - a rare experience these days, although once an invariable part of dining out. The whole performance was most enjoyable. If this is nonsense - bring it on.

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Visit the website: http://www.eatatburrs.com/

The lunching habits of office workers can be graded into several distinct types. The fastidious borderline OCD-type whose pens are lined up in serried ranks and who brings in delicious home-made sandwiches in a Tupperware box. This is Cat. Contrastingly, in her office is the slovenly boy who lives off Pot Noodles and whose desk is a maelstrom of discarded paper and crusty plates with a few random artefacts including a horsetail flyswat and a fez. Yesterday he brought in his pet rabbit - yet still there is no working pen. Others, despite never having met them, the cleaner knows intimately by the contents of their bins. Discarded crisp bags, coke cans and sweetie wrappers give clues about the occupants of the cube farm.

Working in the centre of Newport is a blessing and a curse as there are so many ways a desk jockey and their money are parted. Buying lunch can turn from an occasional treat to a daily fix; there are enough venues in town for a different lunch every day for a year. And for those who are particularly desk bound or when it's too wet to venture outside, there's the mobile snack bar.

There are several of these wagons hawking their bready wares around the Island's industrial estates and offices. Some, including Mr T's, require a pre-order. Others, like Mary's Bun Run arrive with a honking fanfare.

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Update: The Wheatsheaf Hotel, Newport was one of this site's earliest reviews so Matt and Cat decided to revisit the venue. The original review, from 4 August 2006, is below the update.

During the week, Matt and Cat regularly meet for lunch in Newport. A light snack of local produce at the excellent Island Images usually suffices although sometimes they only have time to snatch a coffee at the Quay Arts Centre or Olivo. On this particular day, M&C were looking for a place to eat and duck out of the rain - along with most of the lunchtime crowd. And so it was that they ended up outside the doors of the Wheatsheaf - one of three so-named hostelries on the Island*.

Shaking off the droplets as they entered the bar, Matt and Cat were pleased to see that the place had lost none of its charm. Although the patrons were mostly men, The Wheatsheaf had a far more genteel atmosphere than a rowdy sports bar. Pleasingly, there was no sign of a TV; only the faint warble of an eclectic selection of piped music - possibly megamixed by DJ Anachronistic, as Avril Lavigne's Sk8r Boi was segued into some twaddle by The Beatles.

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Visit the website: http://www.wheatsheaf-iow.co.uk/

Years ago, Cat used to work in a department store. In a comparison to the fictional Grace Brothers of ‘Are You Being Served’ fame, she was not the perky sales assistant Miss Brahms, played with cockney aplomb by the late Wendy Richard.

Nor was she the blousy Mrs Slocombe, nor even ‘young’ Mr Grace’s buxom nurse. If there had been such a character in AYBS, Cat would have been the printer, sitting in a shack on the roof with a hypochondriac hippy and a leathery lothario producing price tags – ‘Big girls’ blouse £16.99’. Good times.

Of course, this was on the mainland – they do things bigger over there. At a more human scale is Newport’s smallest department store, Beavis in Upper St James Street. A vertical chamber, on the ground floor of which can be found all manner of unusual trinkets, from ceramic unicorns to lenticular bookmarks. The centrepiece of the first floor is Chapel Coffee Lounge, an intimate mezzanine where one can have a light meal or tea and cake.

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