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/

Shops in Cowes - and indeed people - seem to be divided into two broad groupings. Either impossibly chic and inaccessible; or quaint to the point of impracticality. Both have their merits, but Matt and Cat undoubtedly tend to favour the fanciful when faced with the choice.

So with that in mind it is perhaps no surprise that when strolling through Cowes one afternoon, Matt and Cat stopped for a late lunch at the Watch House Barn in Bath Road. Quite a few other places to eat had already put up the shutters, but the Watch House still looked warm and welcoming. As M & C stood outside peering vaguely at the menu, any last traces of indecision were eliminated when they looked in to see a working model train chugging around the eatery. That definitely counts as quaint. So in they went, and took their seats underneath the whooshing wheels of the constantly circling locomotives.

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

Update May 2009. Matt and Cat revisited the Apple Tree café at the suggestion of a fellow Tweeter. Read M and C's comments below, with earlier efforts below that.

Having waxed lyrical about the café at Afton Nursery, Matt and Cat were surprised but pleased to get a request suggesting that they go again. There are plenty of as yet untried places on M and C's ever-expanding list of suggested venues but, as they were out that way, they decided to once again try the delights of this wholesome little place, which has changed hands since the first review was written.

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

M & C first visited God's Providence House in Newport in 2005. The (very short) review they wrote then can be found at the bottom of this post. Meanwhile, the most recent review follows here:

December 2008 review
Matt and Cat don't announce their arrival at a restaurant. They try to be discreet about the whole reviewing business and don't want any different treatment to any other visitor, so they always try to keep a low profile. But the business of reviewing food does necessitate the occasional bit of unusual behaviour, and once in a while they get spotted by the staff - and now, for the first time, by the one of the customers.

Thinking they ought to update their review, M & C popped into God's Prov for a lunchtime break. On their return home they found in their inbox the following message from sharp-eyed reader Rod Andrews:

So, there I was, sat in that holy of eating places, God's Providence House in Newport this lunchtime and my wife said to me... "Don't look round now but there is a couple sat at the corner table and he is photographing his lunch would you believe!" I paused mid-way through my delicious steak pie and thought, I wonder, is this place being Matted and Catted? So... was it? Regards and thanks for a great website.

Rumbled! It was indeed - Mr and Mrs Andrews were correct. And here is the subsequent review.

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Even on the most unprepossessing of days, visitors to the English seaside will seek out crazy golf and a nice cup of tea.

The Island is well-provided with venues for both of these past-times, and it happened one brisk autumnal afternoon that Matt and Cat set off for one of the foremost: Puckpool Tea Gardens at Puckpool Park near Ryde.

This is how it came about. Matt had hurt his back by lifting a particularly heavy pie or something. After a short course of mind-altering painkillers from the doctor he was well on the way to recovery; enough anyway to take a short spin in the afternoon sun. Cat drove him down to Puckpool where she solicitously walked him around the little park before the pair alighted on the café, ready for a light lunch.

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