Matt and Cat are big lovers of sci-fi. Matt, who fancies himself as a writer and a scientist, combines those two interests in a bookshelf chock full o' the works of Asimov, Heinlein and Iain M Banks.

Cat prefers to have her sci-fi injected straight into her eyeballs. In the 1980s, when her hair was as vast as Arnie's biceps, she loved staring glassy-eyed at the Austrian Oak's portrayal of The Running Man, or his seamless depiction of both Douglas Quaid and Hauser in Total Recall, adapted from Philip K Dick's 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale'.

The ultimate eighties Dick adaptation has to be the story set in a world where genetically-engineered organic robots, indistinguishable from humans, wither and die atop a decaying building. No, not a documentary about County Hall, but Ridley Scott's Bladerunner. Mindful of this dystopian vision of a rainy neon future, M&C went with a pal to Newport's Noodle Pot.

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Pizza Hut is a brand which, here on the Island, has a history of not being particularly good - and this tradition has been carried on pretty enthusiastically for some years.

The last time Matt and Cat ate at Pizza Hut Newport, back in 2005, they were shown to a table with a dead fly on it. Their original 2005 review was succinctly damning, saying amongst many other criticisms "The meat on the pizza is not dissimilar to Friskies". But late in 2011 word went round that there was a new broom sweeping through Newport’s moribund Pizza Hut. Perhaps, seven years after their dreadful experience, it was time for Matt and Cat to cross the gaudy threshold once more and see if the ghost of that most notorious dipteran debris could be laid to rest?

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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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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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It may be the depths of winter now, but imagine the scene: having spent all day on the beach during a rare hot August Bank Holiday, a day-tripping family tidies up their detritus.

Nan is levered out of the deckchair and Dad bounces assiduously on the hissing inflatable banana until it slowly goes flaccid and is packed away. Struggling back up the hill, the whining kids, piebald with suncream, are famished from a long day of throwing sand at each other, and Mum’s thinking with little relish about the prospect of heating up tomato soup on the Camping Gaz stove. Just then, a fish and chip shop comes into view, the tempting aroma of hot oil wafting across the pavement and drawing the hapless tourists unresistingly inside.

If our hypothetical hungry family is in Ryde, they’d do well to stop at the first chippy near Appley beach, Monkton Village’s Chipmunks. Matt and Cat have reviewed that venue favourably, but it is only one of several contenders in the town. The family could maybe step a bit further west. No, no, not to the Codfather, slightly south west and up the hill to Wights. Although a tad more than a hop, skip and jump from the beach, this chippy is well-placed at the junction of Ryde’s precinct, near a pub, cinema and bingo hall - perfect for passing hot-snack-hunters. And so it was that Wights was Matt and Cat’s chosen venue for a fish and chip supper with a visiting relative from London.

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