Trying their hardest not to go to Olivo in Ryde until it had been open a couple of weeks, Matt and Cat had to assuage their desire for Italian food by heading to Shanklin's Pavarotti's.

It was about time the reviewing duo went to this well-established restaurant; previous attempts had seen Matt and Cat thwarted by the venue's popularity. However, Cat phoned ahead and was assured that a table would be available - and by arriving just after 6.30pm on a Monday they made sure they wouldn't be gazumped by the holiday-makers in this popular tourist area.

Pavarotti's is an established business in the Old Village and it sits well alongside the gifte shoppes. In fact, so confident have its owners been of its long-lasting appeal that the vast front window is a stained glass tribute to Luciano Pavarotti himself, instantly recognisable from his outstretched arms, one hand clutching his trademark white handkerchief and with his, er... stunted little legs (the window artisan must have run out of leg room). Certainly this shop could never be mistaken for any other with that prominent and iconic branding. Matt and Cat pondered the permanence of the window. Cat eventually decided that, in the year 2020 the restaurant could be turned into a poundsaver-type shop, when it would be called Tenner (tenor) World!! But enough of the dismal puns, what was the food like?

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You're down the beach and, having worked up a bit of a lather engineering a complex sand city with nothing more sophisticated than a bendy plastic spade and a bucket decorated with a picture of a duck in a sailor suit, you want something to eat. Sandown has its famous beach on which to play and, interspersed along the golden mile are plenty of refreshment stops offering ice cream, tea and chips with which to fortify yourself - plus replacement buckets and spades, if required.

You could spend all day down the esplanade, amusing yourself swimming, making a hefty investment on the penny falls and eating. And plenty of people do. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all catered for and, at the licensed Beach Shack, positioned right on the esplanade just south-west of the pier at Devonia slipway, there is a surprisingly wide choice of nibbles, snacks and meals.

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Visit the website: http://thebeachshack-isleofwight.co.uk/

Just what the heck is going on? If you're under forty, please indulge M and C for a moment of rose-tinted nostalgia. If you're old enough please join in. Do you remember, back in the day, when all you had to do was ride around on your chopper bike, casually brushing your feather cut from your eyes as you squinted into the searing sun which beat down on the melting tarmac during the long hot summer of '76?

A time when a holiday meant a week on the Isle of Wight, not a month-long sponsored hike through the Peruvian mountains in aid of charidee. Well, it seems that those halcyon days may be about to return. This summer will be scorchio, the bike's tyres are pumped up and the English holiday is tipped for a resurgence.

Matt and Cat have combined their individual memories of seaside holidays to make one nostalgic emulsified lump of sunburn, sandy sandwiches and tar on the beach. Thankfully the Island's beaches have undergone a transformation since the polluting disaster of the Pacific Glory. However, apart from the unlikely eventuality of Gary Glitter being number one in the hit parade, the other thing which will definitely be different this time around is the holiday café. This English institution has undergone an almost unrecognisable transformation since 1976. Some, perhaps now a minority, remain unreformed: in 2006 Matt and Cat ate at Sandown's Kate(s) Cottage and were transported back to their childhood holidays. When they visited another café, they found it about as far from squeezy plastic tomatoes as you can get...

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Visit the website: http://www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk/farmshop.aspx

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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Unexpectedly finding themselves in Shanklin one evening, Matt and Cat scratched around for something to do. Tempting as My Fair Lady at Shanklin Theatre was M and C were too late for curtain up, the library was shut and Shanklin Chine was closed for the winter.

So they defaulted to their usual entertainment - eating out. The lights of the Black Cat Restaurant twinkled invitingly and, within a moment, your reviewers were seated at a table in the window.

The Thai restaurant's interior is similar in style to the nearby Siam Pearl; its heavy wooden fixtures, spindle-backed chairs and chintzy wallpaper seem more suited to an English tearoom than an Oriental eatery. However, there is a taste of the Far East with the many finely decorated ceramics that fill the shelves. And, by having a dual-themed interior, the venue may appeal to both tea hunters and Thai hunters.

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